Carrying our own cross and the weight of history

 ‘whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me’ (Matt 10:38)

Matthew 10:37-42 (Year A: Third Sunday after Trinity 2^nd July 2017)

‘On a hill far away stood an old rugged cross, The emblem of suff’ring and shame, And I love that old cross where the Dearest and Best, For a world of lost sinners was slain.’

So goes the old hymn.  ‘Carrying your cross’, or, simply ‘my cross’ was a familiar expression when I was growing up. And, of course, crucifixes, were everywhere from the little red light burning under a family portrait of the Sacred Heart to the centre piece above the blackboard at school to the space above the entrance to a hospital ward.  From the signing of the cross on your foreheads at baptism to the signing of the cross shortly before we die the Cross has a central and symbolic place. That it is ‘symbolic’ does not mean that it is, somehow, not real. Symbols connect us to real things. And suffering is very real for everyone at some stage in life.

What does it mean to carry one’s cross as a disciple of Jesus? In the first place, it means to accept the reality of suffering in this moment, in this situation and with these circumstances. In the second place, it means loving beyond the wound of suffering to a place of compassion in the midst of suffering (some refer to ‘love your suffering’, whereas, I prefer the expression ‘to love out of a place of suffering’).  In the third place, carrying our cross means to see and experience the sufferings of others. We may think that we can carry other people’s crosses. That might be true in specific cases. However, more often, we can another’s cross only indirectly by being compassion for someone in suffering. The parent can only be present and all listening to a child or young adult who is in deep suffering. The doctor, nurse, priest, teacher, counsellor can only offer their limited help in keeping with their mandate or skills (in any case they have to ‘go home’ eventually after their shift).

Welcome for one another complements the carrying of the cross. If we are to truly love others including those different to us by virtue of race, religion or other characteristics we must welcome them as they are and not as we would wish them to be. Welcome is a difficult idea and can rail against our assumptions and defences. Welcoming another does not necessarily mean abandoning our own principles or beliefs. Rather, it means listening to, acknowledging, learning from and communicating with another human being different to us but sharing the same ancestry as human beings planted on this fragile earth for a time.  Welcome founded on love is the basis of Christian mission and witness.  Unless we can welcome one another in love – and this includes in some way sharing the cross of others – we are not extending the welcome of Christ through us to others: we are stopping that welcome and the light and the love that goes with it.

What are we to make of those words (Matt 10:37):

Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.

The evangelist, Luke, goes even further (14:26):

Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple.

The key word is not ‘hate’ or even ‘love more’ (and by implication to ‘love less’). What is central to this passage which must be read in both a historical as well as a larger literary biblical context is the idea of uncompromising discipleship. Rather than an ‘either or’ we should think of discipleship as a ‘both and’ where we are planted and how God finds us in our present status and binding commitments and relationships of life. It may be that hard choices have to be made when a relationship is broken and beyond mending despite years of honest and sustained effort. We must be mindful of the often tragic and traumatic context in which these sayings and experiences of the primitive Christian community were set. Christians – who were Jews – were literally thrown out of synagogues and worse. Families were broken up and communities were split down the middle. Sadly, these realities were carried forward into the new Christian community where up to recent times, Christian sisters and brothers in the Church established by Christ excommunicated, hounded and excluded each other..

It is not that long ago, for example, when Irish Government ministers lined the streets outside Saint Patricks Cathedral at the funeral of the first President of Ireland in 1949, himself an Anglican and an Irish cultural nationalist. On pain of ‘serious sin’ Government Ministers were prohibited by the rules of the Roman Catholic Church, at the time, from entering the building of a ‘heretical’ ecclesial community.  As if making contact with the gentiles and some form of idolatry, they were forbidden to ‘defile themselves’. Saint Patrick cried. (Only one Roman Catholic acted otherwise: one, Noel Brown, T.D.).

It was not until even more recent times the religious liberties of married couples were respected in regards to the conscientious upbringing of children. Much harm and upset was caused by these cruel regulations and departures from the spirit of Christian love and truth. In the interests of balance it must be pointed out that the established State Church following the application of the reformation from England on Irish soil was seen, correctly, as the representative of an alien and oppressive power which was fully complicit in the denial of religious and civic liberties for the great majority of Irish Christians who remained loyal to Rome. That said, it must be remembered that the unholy alliance of State and Church did not begin with the Reformation. There was the matter of the imposition of a very Roman-centric Norman church from the 12^th century onwards not to mention the ‘conversion’ of Rome many centuries before.

To be faithful to the Gospel is not easy. To be a disciple of Christ means to carry the cross where we are, as we are and how God chooses.  God has a way of undoing our best plans and showing us a way through suffering to a better place. In the history of this divided country religion has played its own role in tearing families and peoples apart. God is calling many, today, to carry the cross of history by letting go of attachments and by ceasing to insist on our own way. The call to conversion is as pressing today as it was when Saint Patrick walked on this island.

When you pass through the waters

 ‘So have no fear of them’ (Matt 10:26)

Matthew 10:26-33 (Year A: Second Sunday after Trinity 25^th June 2017)

Fear and its twin sibling, Ignorance, are more widespread than one might realise.  Take oneself for example. One can be afraid of some or all of the following:

• Looking foolish in front of colleagues or family
• Being the bad guy in the extended family
• Losing one’s job
• Taking a pay cut when the organisation goes through a rough patch
• Not having enough to live on in retirement
• Not making it to retirement
• Losing friends, family and others
• Growing old
• Getting sick
• Losing our memory and dignity
• Dying
• Facing Judgment of a particular kind (if that was the type of religion one was brought up in)
• What lies ahead for oneself beyond death
• What lies ahead for others beyond death
• What lies ahead for oneself before death
• What lies ahead for others before death
• Etc.
• Etc.

Then again, whole communities and societies are bound together by a shared fear – fear of the ‘other’, fear of losing identity or autonomy, fear of change, fear of dissidents, fear of events and trends outside our control.

Ignorance means not knowing.  Not knowing is part of living in the here and now. The phrase ‘God knows’ takes on special significance when we acknowledge our ‘not-knowingness’.  God is not afflicted (according to most Christian schools of theology) with a-gnosis or not-knowingness. But, we are.  In ignorance, we walk cautiously forward. Sometimes we might have to jump in a state of not-knowingness. We might imagine ourselves beside a river and knowing that we have to jump and try to swim across to the other side (which we cannot see due to fog). If we stay put on this side of the river we are not in a pretty place. The choice is a terrible one between risking all or staying put and facing just as bad or worse.  Whatever choice we make is overshadowed by a not-knowingness.

When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you (Isaiah 43:2)

A recurring theme in the scriptures is what I call the trilogy of: Fear, Reassurance and Trust.  The prophecy of Isaiah, for example, is full of this. In the New Testament Jesus, again and again, calms our fears and stormy waters and invites us into a trusting relationship with him and Our Father.  Even today, in the midst of personal, familial, communal or societal anxieties and traumas of one sort or another we hear this call to trust in the One who is Peace at the very heart of our beings.  Knowing this trust and this peace does not take the pain away of what happened or what is happening right now to each of us.

Fear, itself, is a necessary and natural part of life. We fear and recoil from pain or from danger. After all, if we didn’t have some measure of fear we might end up in much more trouble!  However, fear cannot and must not control our lives. Too often we are controlled by ignorance or fear or both without realising it. Many relationships between persons, groups and countries are destroyed by a lack of mutual knowledge and by fears stoked by prejudice, resentment and greed.

The limits of inter-personal trust

Nowhere in the Bible are we enjoined to trust others. Rather, we are invited to trust in God alone. Yet, we must trust others at least some of the time and, perhaps, all of the time in the case of someone who is so close and to whom we are bound that trust is ‘effortless’ and natural.  Easy as it is to trust someone we trust and love; the more awful it is to experience a betrayal of trust by someone we always trusted. We cannot gain trust by means of a foolish trusting. Trust is not blind and it is not manipulative. It is born of practical experience, observation and reciprocated goodness.

The word ‘fear’ is used 66 times throughout the Psalms (at least the English language version of the Grail Psalter). However, the word ‘trust’ is used 63 times while ‘peace’ is used 30 times.  We must fear the Lord and not people. Yet, to love the Lord God our God perfectly (in other words, with all her hearts and minds) we can let go of fear.   The evangelist, John, puts it more succinctly and more accurately than any modern day writer:

 There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love. (1 John 4:18)

And the psalmist declares (39:4)

He put a new song into my mouth, praise of our God. Many shall see and fearand shall trust in the Lord.

Not knowing

We may experience a feeling of fear in relation to the path ahead with all of its uncertainties, risks and unforeseen outcomes. We may even fear what is certain or near-certain (the most certain of all is death).  Whatever we fear, we must

• Believe in what is true
• Do what is right
• Avoid what is evil for ourselves and others.

In that blessed call to be fully human, we find our peace through trust in a higher purpose and love.

Standing up for what we believe in can take courage.  References to witness in the face of opposition as the early friends of Jesus went forth can bring out images of a major showdown in public as someone is forced to deny their faith and refuses to do so.  Sometimes, religious zealots confuse witness with making a public show of their opinions or piety and that in the context of showing others that they are ‘wrong’ because ‘I am right’.

The challenges of discipleship vary and can, in a great many cases, demand small daily examples of kindness, self-denial and courage rather than the mighty gestures of someone about to be condemned, hung, drawn and quartered (although that scenario is not unknown for followers of Jesus in many parts of the world even today).

We live in challenging times and many of us are called on to undergo much suffering for what we believe in and the values we live from (even if the two are not always in harmony). In many parts of the world to be a person of faith – faithful to the social gospel of true freedom may demand martyrdom (to which the root word in Greek is linked to witness). It is idle fantasy to try to imagine what we might do in this situation or that. It is enough to embrace the small trials and tribulations of each day. The most credible witness is to be true to ourselves even to the point of exclusion, ridicule and condemnation.  The one we follow met such and we cannot expect less. Discipleship costs and following the Risen Lord is costly as Dietrich Bonhoeffer experienced and wrote about.

A 16th-century mystic, St Teresa of Avila wrote:

Let nothing disturb you,Let nothing frighten you,All things are passing away:God never changes.Patience obtains all thingsWhoever has God lacks nothing;God alone suffices.

If we jump and swim across that river we will find a surprise on the other side. Jesus whom we trust and believe in and who waits for us on the other side greets us not so much with the acclaim ‘Welcome’ but ‘I was with you while you struggled and swam across and you didn’t see me and I am with you now and I will be with you on your onward journey on this side of Life’s river’. ‘Fear not, I am with you, My Peace I give you’, says the Gentle Lover of our souls.

Postscript

A Prayer of Thanksgiving

To the One who gives me freedom to think for myself and to question;

To the One who gives me freedom to act responsibly in accord with my conscience;

To the One who gives me freedom to love without fear;

To the One who gives me Joy in the knowledge that God always loves me as I am;

To the One who give me Life to enjoy and share now and always;

To the One who loves us more than we can ever imagine or tell;

Glory, Praise and Thanksgiving,

Now and evermore,

Amen

A spiritual hunger afflicts the land

 ‘‘The harvest is plentiful’ (Matt 9:37)

Matthew 9:35-10:23 (Year A: First Sunday after Trinity 18^th June 2017)

Recently while walking down O’Connell Street in Dublin, I noticed pairs of young people standing motionless at selected locations and with a cardboard sign on which ‘Free Listening’ was handwritten in large letters. After a question from me to the young people about where the catch was, I was told that this was no front for anyone (they claimed that they were neither charity chuggers, evangelists or political activists). It was part of a worldwide movement, I was informed, called Urban Confessional started by Benjamin Mathes here.

Some years ago I read the following (I can’t remember where I found it): 

‘All that is asked of me is rapt attention, here, now, to others. And I’ll find the good life.’

By the time you have finished reading this blog (if you read all of it) someone, somewhere in the world will have taken their own life.  Suicide is a difficult subject to discuss. Only the foolish or ignorant could rush into analyse the matter and come up with explanations for why. We have to leave the specifics of why in any given case to God. God, alone, knows. Rather than ply easy platitudes or sweeping judgements we would do well to look at, and listen to, the world around us. What do we notice? We hear and see people who are hungry – hungry for meaning, for identity, for purpose, for satisfaction, for joy, for love, for to be loved. A street corner preacher might try – honestly – to greatly simplify the matter by calling out to people to change and to submit to the Lord Jesus in complete trust and abandonment.

The matter is, and is not, so simple. 

There are people who undergo enormous sufferings due to physical ill-health, loss of job, loss of a relationship or other calamities. Then, there are people who seem to have all of the essentials of life, income, health and relationship and, yet, remain profoundly sad, empty and lonely. They might even follow very virtuous and religiously obedient lives.

There are no simple answers.

Those of us near to someone in such a condition of profound sadness or anxiety can only be present, available, listening and caring.  This can be difficult because we, naturally, seek to ‘fix the problem’ especially when it might concern someone very close to us.

What is that we are called to do in this short life of ours and corner of the world?

We are called, like the disciples around Jesus, to bring ‘good news’ (v. 35) and to be signs of a healing and loving presence in the world about us. This is no more confined to those who are ordained or specially commissioned than to professionals trained to teach or heal or care for. 

There is a famine in the land and, at the same time, there are too many people who are enriched. Too many people are rich with gifts, talents and capacities that they scarcely know they have but – tragically – are never brought to full use or recognition.  People who have the gift of listening – deeply, compassionately, actively and honestly – are blessed with something that no mental health budget or spiritual ministry could buy.  At the same time, there are millions of people alive today who hunger to be listened to and understood at some level.  Too many people are spiritually starving – ‘harassed and helpless’ (v36) not only because caring leaders seem to be absent or in hiding but, because, even with ‘shepherds’ people are under constant pressure in a fast-moving society where instant gratification, status likes and personal ambitions seem to drive a lot of human behaviour leaving people unsatisfied: enough is never enough.

We are called to be apostles of listening in a broken and hungry world. But, we also need to be listened to by wise and gifted soul-friends (anam-chairde). When one feels really listened to it is a marvellous experience and can propel us to embrace a ministry of listening in our own small ways from the kitchen to bus stop to the corridor in a workplace to a walk in the park.

Those who turn up in church…

Occasionally, spiritually hungry people turn up at a church somewhere but never come back. Maybe it is nobody’s fault that this happens. However, I wonder if, sometimes, this could be due to a lack of nourishment experienced in our gatherings, liturgies and times of collective action? If people do not feel welcomed, cared for, included and even empowered to take an active part in a community, why come back?  If people feel that they are outsiders, why persist? If people feel that they are just another potential recruit of some use to a corporate church structure, why bother? If people feel that their story is not important and there is no place in which to tell it, why go back a second or even a third time?

I am not in the least surprised that most of our churches are emptying out and young people typically leave regular attendance or participation once they hit mid-teens (if they ever were brought in the first place). I am not in the least surprised to see more and more young families disengaged from active church, congregation or parish life because there is little to attract or motivate them. Church is seen, by many, as something for ‘them’ – the folks on the inside who do all the running around, the pilgrimages and usual churchey things done by the same people all the time until they literally drop dead. (Of course, there are huge numbers of sincere, gentle and Christ-like volunteers who give generously of their time and talents to make church possible for many others). However, let’s be honest: the flame has not been caught by most or many young people in Ireland and the prospects of Christian churches remaining more and more marginal to the mainstream of civil society in the coming decades are very real.

Will we listen?

Would we listen again to a hungry world? Would we take the risk of enabling young people to have a voice again in our gatherings? Would we go into a quiet place on our own and listen – really listen – to our own heart?

The Great Commissioning

 ‘Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. ’ (Matt 28:19-20)

Matthew 28:16-20 (Year A: Trinity Sunday 11^th June 2017)

Once upon a time, at this sunny exams time of the year, many a teen or young adult was preparing for entry to seminary, convent or religious house, as the case may be.  Frankly, at that time and in this part of the world, to not have even considered the possibility – however secretly – that one might have a ‘vocation’ would have been odd.  Whole families would have witnessed more than one member enter the religious or priestly life at home or abroad.  Such was the supply of ‘vocations’ that many male applicants for diocesan priesthood had to be directed to overseas dioceses for the purposes of training for ordination. While some left before ordination or final profession and a few even after it was not until the 1960s that the numbers entering seminaries or religious houses began to tumble and not a few in holy orders as well as others long established in the ‘vowed’ life found their calling elsewhere (usually but not exclusively in the married life).

Apparently, according to various sources, the above long-past pattern of mass vocations to the religious and priestly life is not unknown today in some parts of the ‘catholic world’. However, it is clear that there has been a huge swing in patterns of human behaviour, belief and religious practice, here in Ireland.  From penny dinners for black babies and prayers for the conversion of Russia, England and the pagans in general, we have now switched to a point where some Christian churches are being kept open literally thanks to the presence of multi-coloured new Irish who bring life, joy and earnestness to what might otherwise have been pretty dead congregations.  Ireland was one of the last remaining islands in Europe where faith was interwoven into the culture, mores, identities and assumptions of people until very recent times (mind you, it must be added that religion was also a badge of political and ethnic conflict and all types of unchristian behaviour – but that is another story).

To say that a religious vocation was almost the norm in times past is not to suggest that, somehow, those not entering on a particular religious life or those who left some time ago were necessarily lacking in faith or perseverance in Christian discipleship. It is complicated and no two cases are identical.  This blogger can claim to know something about these matters not only from his own experience but from that of many others known to him over many decades. Let’s say, he was born at a time to witness the fall and the fall of ‘vocations’ as well as the enormous shifts in thinking, behaviour and assumptions that appear difficult to understand to the millennial generation.

All of this leads one to ask the following:

Is Church dying and is God dead? And does it matter anyway?

Let’s deal with the last question first and work back from there. I take as my point of reference the Gospel reading from the very end of the Gospel of Saint Matthew appointed for Trinity Sunday which marks the transition from one liturgical season to another.

Does it matter?

What do I seek? Where do I find that which I seek?  How important is for me to be faithful to truth? Is there an ultimate Truth?  How do I live a good life?  If to be fully alive is to love and be loved, then what is the source of true love?

The fact that I am not alone in asking these questions (and sometimes struggling with same) suggests that ‘the God question’ does matter in ways that are immediate, personal and meaningful. This process is no idle speculation or mind-gaming. It is, potentially, life-affirming and life-giving.

Is God dead?

The God proclaimed by Jesus Christ is a living God who remains with us.  Matthew closes his gospel by reporting a saying of Jesus:

And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.

Jesus – who is the ‘I am’ is with us – always. Always. Always, including moments when we think God is not there. We may follow the main herd in Western post-modern culture and adopt a practical atheist view that none of ‘that’ is relevant to me in the here and now.  With the greatest of respect for the many who hold to this view on practical and pragmatic grounds it must be pointed out that the fullness of human meaning, identity and purpose finds a natural home in a simple (not simplistic) trusting faith in a higher Loving Being whom some of us know as ‘God’. More than that, we encounter God in Jesus Christ – or to be more accurate God seeks, finds and meets us in Jesus Christ. The only way to establish, in so far as any human being can, whether God is alive or dead is to become fully alive as human beings for the glory and knowledge of God is humanity fully alive.

Is Church dying?

It all depends on what we mean by ‘Church’. Surely, at this time and in this corner of the world, ‘Church’ understood as particular practices, norms and institutions is dying slowly but surely. Churches in the sense of buildings are emptying out and as one generation replaces another the bonds of practice and adherence weaken to a point where, at most, ‘Church’ is a matter of being ‘hatched, matched and despatched’ if even that ….

And returning to the opening part of this blog, ‘vocations’ to ordained ministry and/or the vowed religious life are in free fall. Vast numbers of persons recorded as ‘Christian’ or ‘Catholic’ or ‘Protestant’ on the Irish Census of Population are served by a small band of generally over-worked, sometimes under-appreciated and ageing ministers.

It reminds one of the decline in the Irish language in 19^th century. The spoken language map of Ireland shows a marked retreat and decay as the living, spoken language retreats to small and isolated pockets of the country. And one generation of native speakers is not replaced by another because for one reason or another the language is not ‘passed on’. Is this a very exaggerated metaphor for the decline of organised religious practice in Ireland today? Perhaps a bit exaggerated but not entirely.

Could it be that the ‘Church’ we grew up with and recognised in the smells, sights and sighs of our childhood is destined for marginalistion to small pockets of the intensely dedicated and loyal?  Could it be that the ‘Church’ marked by a benign (or not so benign) clericalism is slowly dying before our eyes?  Could it be that the assumptions we made are up for grabs? Time will tell. This is no time to be despondent or fretful. This is a time to proclaim that:

Jesus Christ is alive in our midst;
The Holy Spirit is moving in all sorts of surprising ways before our eyes if we only opened them; and
The Father is ever finding new ways to reach out to all of his children everywhere.
Amen

It could be that we are heading back to Galilee, so to speak: to those spiritual places where the original spark and impulse came from rather than the spiritual high temples of Jerusalem.

We might have to carry some level of reasonable doubt with us in the course of life journey but that should not prevent us from worshipping God in the beauty of holiness for:

‘they worshipped him; but some doubted’ (v.17)

Our task is to be open to the fullness of human life that the Holy Spirit gives us. From that life and light, we can become candles in the darkness for others. This is our commission – rooted as it is in the gospel sacrament of baptism for all God’s children and the teaching of the Word that sets us free and the care for one another that must be the hallmark of a living and not a dying church.  Vocation is for everyone and we knew this all along. It just becomes inescapable now.