This road before me

 “those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it” (Mark8:35)

Mark 8:27-35 (Year B: 16^th Sunday after Trinity, 16^th September, 2018)

Three short passages are combined into one by Mark and by the liturgists for this Sunday’s Gospel reading. First, Peter declares (for all of us in our turn) that Jesus is indeed The Christ. Secondly, Jesus spells out what is in store for him and against which Peter rebels for a moment. Finally, Jesus spells out what is in store for each of us today who might follow him.

A gospel for losers..

At the core of these three short passages is a question followed by a series of answers followed by a warning and an invitation. ‘Who do you say that I am’ can have two meanings:

The question that fascinates thinkers, seekers, philosophers, sociologists, anthropologists, theologians ….

The question about what the person of Jesus – the real flesh and blood person of 2,000 years ago and the Messiah declared, crucified, risen and present today through faith – means to me this morning as I board the train, walk into a building and grab a sandwich at midday.

Both questions are important but without the second question we are fooling ourselves ….

Mark doesn’t waste words. He might have been a journalist were he writing today….short, one liner, the Point….. He quotes Jesus: ‘for those who want to save their life will lose it’. The flip side is that ‘those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it.’. What does this losing mean? 

We can listen to the witness of those early disciples who were prepared to face opposition, expulsion and marginalisation if they were lucky (?) enough to avoid torture and death. And the witness of disciples over the  centuries was not different. In today’s world we are reminded regularly of the plight of followers of Jesus – and millions of others – in various parts of their world who literally have their heads cut off for being ‘Nazarenes’.  Choice about following Jesus and living by his values might seem like a private and cosy matter for those of living in fortress Europe and living in the wealthier and freer part of the globe when it comes to all things we take for granted. But, for many millions choosing to stand by their beliefs and stay where they are serving in the communities and families where they have been planted can carry an awful price.

To lose everything can apply not just to material possessions but also to your very own dignity, standing and respect.  Ultimately, the stigma of being a prisoner, a refugee or an ‘alien’ is the ultimate degradation and loss.

The way of thinking revealed by Jesus in this passage of Mark is more than just challenging. It was challenging for Peter who would not hear of the cross and the way of much suffering. Yet, it is Peter – again – who speaks up and takes the lead where others drew back and waited. The impetuous, reckless, sometimes faithless Peter who sticks his neck out only to have it pushed back – in this case by attracting the undiplomatic expression ‘get behind me Satan’ (verse 33). I have sympathy for Peter. At least he tried and tried again and got up each time …. even when he betrayed Jesus for a time.

And what of us?..

This road – that Jesus must follow – will be the same road that his disciples will follow. And what of us?

Losing something we didn’t want in the first place is one thing. Losing something precious, good and prized is another matter. Sometimes, we are called to ‘lose our lives’ for the sake of the gospel and its values. In the chapters that follow in Mark the announcement of the coming passion is repeated – much to the consternation and lack of understanding of those hearing.

Often it is not that we reject the cross but, rather, this particular cross which is not ideal or savoury!  It may be that we want to choose our own cross our way not in ways that take us by surprise and come like the wind ‘from the North-West’ (‘an ghaoth aniar aduaidh’ as the saying goes in Irish Gaelic). If only we could get to choose our own cross, life would be easier to anticipate, plan and regulate!

One thing is certain – in the life of discipleship as well as every other life – suffering is unavoidable. We can see it as part of the journey towards the full light of resurrection or we can stay in the dark cursing it and wishing it were otherwise. But, none of this takes from the point that suffering is suffering anytime and anywhere. It does not help those suffering to hear others make light of it or over-spiritualise it. Our task as disciples of Jesus who walked this road before us is to bear with the sufferings that come our way and work to alleviate the suffering in others around us.

Not quite what we expected..

We await some good in our lives. When it comes it is not what we had expected. It is like that in this story. People expected a Messiah who would be a mighty king, a popular or not so popular prophet and so on. Nobody expected a suffering servant who would die a disgraceful death on a dumping ground outside the capital city.

This road before me..

The mood of Mark 8 is captured, for me, in that haunting poem written by the well known Irish poet, mystic and political rebel, Pádraic Pearse. While I do not think that I would have been a supporter of his, politically, I am always deeply touched by his depth of insight, feeling and courage. (There is more than a hint of the suffering servant Isaiah in this poem).

Ideal (by Pádraic Pearse and translated by Thomas McDonagh)

Naked I saw thee,

O beauty of beauty!

And I blinded my eyes

For fear I should flinch.

I heard thy music,

O sweetness of sweetness!

And I shut my ears

For fear I should fail.

I kissed thy lips

O sweetness of sweetness!

And I hardened my heart

For fear of my ruin.

And I blinded my eyes

And my heart I shut

I hardened my heart

And my love I quenched

I turned my back

On the dream I had shaped

And to this road before me

My face I turned

I set my face

To the road here before me

To the work that I see

To the death that I shall meet

++++

Or, in the original it is as follows:

Fornocht do chonac thú,
a áille na háille,
is do dhallas mo shúil
ar eagla go stánfainn.

Do chualas do cheol,
a bhinnenabinne,
is do dhúnasmochluas
areagla go gclisfinn.

Do bhlaiseas do bhéal
a mhilsenamilse,
is do chruasmochroí
areaglamomhillte.

Do dhallasmoshúil,
is mochluas do dhúnas;
do chruasmochroí,
is momhian do mhúchas.

Do thugasmochúl
ar an aisling do chumas,
‘s ar an ród so romham
m’aghaidh do thugas.

Do thugasmoghnúis
ar an ród so romham,
ar an ngníomh do-chim,
‘s ar an mbás do gheobhad.

Open to new possibilities

“…Be opened” (Mark 7:34)

Mark 7:24-37 (Year B: 15^th Sunday after Trinity, 9^th September 2018)

A raw request..

Actions speak louder than words. Yet, words are powerful agents. In this gospel passage, we hear the word Ephphatha meaning ‘Be opened’ in the Aramaic language spoken by Jesus.  Very occasionally the gospel writers report the actual word – in Aramaic – spoken by Jesus to give extra effect and depth to what is being recounted. It is like a story in which we imitate the accent or mannerism of the person about whom we are talking. In this case Jesus said Ephphatha ‘with a deep sigh’. With a deep sigh from the cross Jesus would say Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani– ‘my God, my God why have you forsaken me?’(Matthew 27:46).  In this way, a simple and powerful question or request to the Father by Jesus is given extra flavour by repeating it in the original techni-colour.

In anguish a person who was ‘deaf’ and ‘could hardly talk’ was brought to Jesus by strangers in a strange land known as the ten cities (Decapolis). It follows another miracle story (verses 24-30) in alien territory involving a gentile Syrophoenician woman who prevailed on Jesus to cure her daughter (mothers can be persuasive). As happens again and again in the gospels, Jesus walks straight into a situation of acute human distress and need. By now he has acquired some reputation as a healer and dispenser of wisdom. So, when desperate, as the strangers were, they plead with Jesus for help (they ‘begged’ him). The pattern is familiar to us as we read and think about the gospels. It is often composed of five steps:

1. A situation of human distress and need.
2. Pleading sometimes accompanied by a primitive trust or faith.
3. A vigorous and swift response by Jesus often accompanied by a discrete but effective physical outward sign.
4. Healing or rescue often signalled by a miraculous event.
5. A response by these looking on but especially by those healed, rescued or nourished – puzzlement, fear, joy, praise, scandal as the case may be.

Transposed to today..

Applied today in our little world where do we find such stories at work?

1.      In this story, we find ourselves in the company of Jesus who is travelling through ‘foreign territory’. It would be like someone from (Catholic/nationalist) Falls Road walking through the (Protestant/loyalist) Shankill Road in Belfast, Ireland, or vice versa. Let’s say someone doing such a thing would not delay and would probably keep their mouth shut!

2.      Enter someone who is deaf and mainly dumb – the ultimate loneliness of someone who cannot hear or communicate. What to do? The story of Helen Keller captured in a film many years ago tells the story of a young girl who was deaf and dumb but, against all the odds and with the heroic help of an Anne Sullivan learned to communicate. Helen Keller became a famous writer and speaker having learned how to communicate, somehow, with others. She learned to read people’s lips by use of her hands. Using braille she learned to read extensively (she wrote and published 12 books in her lifetime). Acts of faith, perseverance, kindness and determination meant that Helen Keller blossomed and flourished and provided inspiration to millions as well as practical help in developing services for people with disabilities. How many other Helen Kellers might there be today in our world even given a chance?

3.      Jesus is captivated by compassion. He is compassion walking on two feet who brings life and healing so that ‘the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers[a] are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them’  (Matthew 11:5). Jesus acts swiftly to take the man aside ‘in private’ and he uses spittle, touch and prayer from the depth of his heart to perform a healing (while this might not have passed 21^st century Health Authority protocols we should be aware that, apparently, spittle was believed to have medicinal value in primitive societies). 

4.      In this story the miracle is deeply personal to the one healed. Sight and hearing and speech are restored in one go. Life would never be the same again for the one healed. Who was this man? What was his name? Was he even Jewish?  Where was he when Jesus was crucified? Did he become a disciple afterwards?

5.      Many are the reactions of those who have witnessed the power of a loving God in their lives and that of others. But, some will always remain hostile, sceptical or indifferent.  The important lesson, here, is that Jesus kept moving onwards (Jerusalem was to be his ultimate destination here on earth). Many were ‘overwhelmed’ by what Jesus had done. They commented that ‘He has done everything well;’ (verse 37).

In many respects this was a low-key miracle. Sure enough it was an extraordinary and miraculous healing of someone who had been blind and deaf for most (all?) of his life. However, the man was only one person. For everyone healed there were at least another hundred or two in the Decapolis who were not.  And, Jesus insisted on keeping the whole matter private and undisclosed possibly to avoid premature reactions and misunderstanding about who he was and why had come. Jesus preached, healed and loved one person at a time and one moment at a time. What he did he did well (verse 37) but he did not usher in a perfect world or outcome. Rather, in keeping with his humanity and divinity he did what was required of love –  person by person and moment by moment.  In other words, we could say that he loved perfectly in an imperfect world that remains imperfect. Such is God-in-humanity.

And inspiring out actions and thoughts..

In a poem attributed to Waldo Emerson, there is an application of this to those in search of healing such as the strangers in the Decapolis:

To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and to endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty and to find the best in others; to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child or a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived, this is to have succeeded.

However, the attribution is said to be properly to a Bessie A. Stanley:

He has achieved success who has lived well, laughed often, and loved much;Who has enjoyed the trust of pure women, the respect of intelligent men and the love of little children;Who has filled his niche and accomplished his task;Who has never lacked appreciation of Earth's beauty or failed to express it;Who has left the world better than he found it,Whether an improved poppy, a perfect poem, or a rescued soul;Who has always looked for the best in others and given them the best he had;Whose life was an inspiration;Whose memory a benediction.

And so it was for Helen Keller and her helper and associate Anne Sullivan.

Some questions today:

Are we in need of healing spiritually because we think we hear and see but we don’t?How do we respond to situations of acute human distress in the immediate world around us?  (Here is a clip that conveys an extraordinary encounter involving a child whose father had died)Where do we see the discrete healing power of God at work?
What is our response to healing when we see and experience it at first hand?Do the stories of the gospel come alive for us now?

Upside down and outside in

“…Listen to me, all of you, and understand” (Mark 7:14)

Mark 7:1-23 (Year B: 14^th Sunday after Trinity, 2^nd September, 2018)

Why is that religion, like politics, generates so much controversy? In this week’s passage from the Gospel of Mark, Jesus does not mince his words on objections raised by his critics.  He takes on the traditions of the elders of his time. They had turned certain traditions, interpretations and rules into absolutes while disregarding the core of Godly commandments centered on justice, compassion and truth.

Even today, some folk attach a lot of importance to appearance, ritual and customs as the defining points of their religion.  These things offer comfort and come from the deep wells of ‘tradition’. More than that, adherence to particular customs helps distinguish ‘us’ from ‘them’. (Well, if the others drive on the right hand side of the road and use metric measures, we do it differently around here. Anyway, it is up to them to change……).

The habits of a lifetime and the traditions of the ancestors shape deep ravines in our minds and memories. ‘It was always like that here’ and ‘that’s the way it is done here’ seems to be the guiding principle.

We underestimate, at our peril, the extent of ‘unwritten rules’ in many organisations, families and situations. Let’s call it Culture. And culture is important. But, we do not need to be slaves to culture because culture evolves through the experience of human communities. But, we should be mindful of the important role of culture in shaping public discourse as well as our own faith tradition.

Culture shapes our interpretations of texts whether from the sacred scriptures or other sources.  And these texts reflect cultural norms at the time they were written – even under divine inspiration. The decision about which texts are ‘canonical’ (definitely included in the Bible) reflects debates, controversies and competing points of view in the Church decades and centuries after the time of Jesus.  The Bible – as we know it – evolved out of stories and many books and texts and letters and poems. A 21^st century Christian in Europe will not read and receive the sacred scriptures in quite the same way as a 16^th century Christian in Europe never mind one in Africa now or 1,500 years ago. Let’s not confuse what is cultural and temporary from what is eternal and unchangeable. God, alone, is unchangeable and certain and sure. We must be open to God’s Holy Spirit in scripture, tradition and shared experience and right reasoning.

Notions of what is right and what is pure continue to influence religious debate in our day. The notion of religious purity may concern notions of what are appropriate and what are not appropriate expressions of sexuality, for example. It may also concern various practices and ways of behaviour quite apart from sexual behaviour which continue to preoccupy religious people even in today’s world.

In Old Testament times, the notion of purity was very often tied up with not worshiping idols or not partaking in the sacrifices or rituals of others as well as abstaining from various foods as well as keeping away from impure things like persons afflicted with leprosy or not touching dead bodies, etc.

In the gospels we hear about the Pharisees, the scribes and the doctors of the law snooping around and watching to observe and catch out the disciples of Jesus in some infringement of their religious codes. Their focus was on purity, exclusion and censor.  Religion, for them, was about staying on the right side of God by adhering to the traditions, regulations and understandings of the elders. Jesus, in one salvo, dispels their claims and criticisms by invoking the solid tradition of the prophets and Isaiah, in particular, who abhorred a religion of formalism and external compliance but lacked the core of compassion, decency and honesty.

It would be all too easy to read this passage of Mark and, indeed, the entire gospels as a confrontation between Jesus, the Messiah, and the old Jewish religion complete with legalism and particularism.  The actual situation is more complex as Christianity emerged from within the Jewish faith. The problem today, as when these gospels were written, is not in the detail of the laws as much as in the order of importance beginning with the simple but overwhelming truth that God is love and on this very same love which requires us to love our neighbour hangs ‘all the law and the prophets’ (Matthew 22:40).

It is worth recalling what the passage of Isaiah quoted by Jesus says:

The Lord said: Because these people draw near with their mouths and honour me with their lips, while their hearts are far from me, and their worship of me is a human commandment learned by rote. Isaiah 29:13

Pretty damning then; pretty damning now? What do you think?

In the upside-down and outside-in world of false religion, God is placed at the service of human ideology and notions. This ideology becomes god in a way that mocks the very idea of the living God-who-is-love.  Outer compliance becomes the test of faith and fidelity while the inner heart is ‘full of dead men’s bones’. Later in the gospel of Matthew Jesus tells us (Matt 23:27):

Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which on the outside look beautiful, but inside they are full of the bones of the dead and of all kinds of filth.

The things that defile us come from within and Jesus gives a non-exhaustive list of examples (v21-22):

…..fornication, theft, murder, adultery, avarice, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, folly…..

Take slander.  How often are people slandered in conversations – even ordinary every-day conversations? How often we join in especially when it comes to public figures whom we don’t even know or have never met face to face. To refer to someone as a ‘traitor’ or having betrayed a cause or a relationship carries a huge burden of responsibility on our part because we put ourselves in the seat of God. Thankfully God is not anywhere near the merciless judges that we can sometimes be – confident in our own correctness and convinced about others on the basis of the most partial of evidence and oblivious to what it might be like to really ‘walk in the shoes of another’.

Down through the ages, the very mindset criticised by Jesus has been widespread in the various Christian churches. Under guise of correctness and doctrinal purity, some were hounded, persecuted, excluded, ridiculed, judged and put outside the camp of the saved. Much cruelty was, and is, practiced in the name of religion and, sadly, in the name of Christ.

Were there intelligent life on Mars and were a Martian to arrive on earth in 2018, ‘it’ might be forgiven for thinking that the main concern of religious persons – many Christians certainly being no exception – is sex.  In the recent decades more controversies, splits, expulsions, silencings, dissenting publications, resolutions, instructions and more besides have been generated by sex and things to do with sex.  At least, nowadays, Christians no longer kill each other over doctrines to do with the role of faith and good works. Rather, instead, we squabble over sex.

Now, the areas of sexuality, intimacy, commitment, marriage and family are vital parts of human living and it would be altogether astonishing if the bible had nothing to say about these matters and how lives can and should be formed to bring glory to God and well-being to his people (the two being entirely mutually reinforcing). It has much to say about these matters and we should hear, pray and study what it is that is said, across the Bible, about sex, marriage and inter-personal relationships.  Indeed, stable, loving and committed relationships – of which marriage is the ideal – are a key foundation of personal, familial and societal well-being and cohesion.

However, there is more to living, and right living at that, than just the mechanics of sex – important and vital as that is to live in accordance with God’s will in every area of life. 

If one thing is astonishing about religious controversy in the early 21^st Century it is how much attention is given sex compared to other matters such as the great social injustices of our day – environmental destruction, poverty, racism, wars, oppression as well as a denial of all sorts of human rights.  Of course, churches and Christians are often to the fore in speaking about these wider social and ecological matters and seeking change as well as being to the fore in directly tackling these problems. However, I suggest that there is still an imbalance when it comes to public discourse.

For too many people, fear is the guiding force of their religious observance. It is a question of fear of punishment, fear of disgrace, fear of the road not taken and the risk not embraced.

We would do well to listen again and understand (verse 14).

The Papal visit – some personal thoughts

I recall one bright Saturday morning seeing a ‘Jumbo’ jet glide at low altitude over the Liberties escorted by a number of Irish airforce planes. It swooped in over the Phoenix Park where over a million people waved and shouted in joy and expectation. It was Saturday the 29^th September, 1979.  Many of my relations and friends, including my late parents, were there that morning. I was not there.

In the years and decades that followed, I made many journeys.  And so has Ireland.

In Limerick, the Pope said, among other things:

Ireland must choose. You the present generation of Irish people must decide; your choice must be clear and your decision firm…..This generation is once more a generation of decision…..May Ireland never weaken in her witness, before Europe and before the whole world, to the dignity and sacredness of all human life, from conception until death.

The Irish people did decide in 2018.

And here comes another Pope - very different in style, tone and emphasis to Pope John Paul II.  And he comes to a very different country battered by storms and scandals. A once confident – even arrogant – Church has been humbled. What was hidden in the dark has come to light and it shows a deep malaise. For all its goodness and truth, the Church – a body of weak and sinful people – is deeply, deeply wounded. 

There is something liberating about arriving in a modest Fiat 500 rather than by helicopter over the Phoenix Park. And it is certainly different to when the Papal legate arrived surrounded by cavalry from Dún Laoghaire to the Pro-Cathedral in 1932. The next time will it be by donkey?

Whatever one may think of the papacy (or indeed Christianity), times like these force a public discussion about matters of faith, church governance and much else.  The media and political establishment is right to take the Church authorities to task for its criminal handling of abuse in Ireland and abroad. Church authorities only have themselves to blame for this mess.  Yet, there is much that is true, beautiful, useful and good in the message of Christ and the witness of those who truly follow the wandering preacher from Galilee who continues to live in the hearts and minds of billions. For all its limitations, historical baggage and corruption, the Roman Catholic Church is part of something much, much bigger. It has much, still, to offer from its store of wisdom, diversity and goodness. Let’s not throw the baby out with the bathwater!

What would I say to Pope Francis if I met him tomorrow when I will be in the Park?

I would say:

“Welcome back to Dublin, brother Jorge. Please, listen to the cries of your people seeking healing, justice, reform and voice. Act as Jesus would today in this place and do what it takes, in so far as you humanly can with God's help, to root out the evil that has been sown in the church.  And pray for me a sinner. That’s all”

The scandal of eucharistic living

“…Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day.” (John 6:54)

John 6:51-58 (Year B: 12^th Sunday after Trinity, 19^th August, 2018)

In the 1986 film, Mission, set in South America in the 1750s the Jesuit priest, Fr. Gabriel, leads the people forward as he carries the monstrance with the blessed sacrament against a barrage of gun fire from a joint Portuguese-Spanish army. The brutal and violent laceration of the people and the monstrance is a powerful cinematic sign of Christ’s body ripped apart in the poor and the oppressed (after Fr. Gabriel is cut down a little child picks up the monstrance and leads the procession. Only a handful escape into the jungle). Witness, community, persecution, violence, death, scattering, remnant and new life.  Flesh, Bread, Life.

Shock therapy applied today..

One way to apply some shock therapy in modern times is to explore the Eucharistic theme of John 6 in the concrete social reality.  Bishop Frank Weston, an Anglican bishop from Zanzibar in the early decades of the 20^th century, declared in the context of an Anglo-Catholic gathering in 1923:

The one thing England needs to learn is that Christ is in and amid matter, God in flesh, God in sacrament.

Weston went on to say the following:

But I say to you, and I say it with all the earnestness that I have, if you are prepared to fight for the right of adoring Jesus in His Blessed Sacrament, then, when you come out from before your tabernacles, you must walk with Christ, mystically present in you through the streets of this country, and find the same Christ in the peoples of your cities and villages. You cannot claim to worship Jesus in the tabernacle, if you do not pity Jesus in the slums … It is folly – it is madness – to suppose that you can worship Jesus in the Sacraments and Jesus on the throne of glory, when you are sweating him in the souls and bodies of his children.

Such a challenging insight was not novel. Saint Ignatius of Antioch writing in a letter to the Smyrnaeans, not long after the Gospel of John was writtendown declared: 

Consider how contrary to the mind of God are the heterodox in regard to the grace of God which has come to us. They have no regard for charity, none for the widow, the orphan, the oppressed, none for the man in prison, the hungry or the thirsty. They abstain from the Eucharist and from prayer, because they do not admit that the Eucharist is the flesh of our Saviour Jesus Christ, the flesh which suffered for our sins and which the Father, in His graciousness, raised from the dead.

And writing two centuries later, Saint Basil the Great said:

The bread which you do not use is the bread of the hungry; the garment hanging in your wardrobe is the garment of him who is naked; the shoes that you do not wear are the shoes of the one who is barefoot; the money that you keep locked away is the money of the poor; the acts of charity that you do not perform are so many injustices that you commit.

(I am grateful for all of the above information to Rev Patrick Comerford and his very useful regular blog here).

In short, we do not have the luxury of worshiping a God detached from the struggles and sufferings of the world around us. We move from sacrament to world and back again because the world is the theatre in which sacramental action happens through us and others. Dorothy Day, founder of the Catholic Workers Movement wrote in 1935:

It is because we forget the humanity of Christ – present with us today in the Blessed Sacrament just as truly as when he walked with His apostles through the cornfields that Sunday long ago – that we have ignored the material claims of our fellow man during this capitalistic, industrialist era. We have allowed our brothers and sisters, our fellow members in the Mystical Body to be degraded, to endure slavery to a machine, to live in rat-infested holes. This ignoring of the material body of our humanity which Christ ennobled when He took flesh, gives rise to the aversion for religion evidenced by many…

Because Christianity is a ‘materialist’ religion..

Christianity is a materialist religion in the sense that God became material in human flesh and blood and thereby raised up all flesh to God. Moreover, we reach God together and not individually and sacraments are signs on the way pointing us upwards and forward as we touch, see and feel the presence of God. This is the heart of the message of John 6. The detour into chapter 6 of John’s Gospel in the middle of ‘Mark’s year’ has brought out, so far, a number of central Eucharistic themes of the entire story of Jesus (with two more Sundays to go in the company of John including this Sunday).

Back to the reality of bread..

‘I am the living bread’ declares Jesus. What does this mean to us today?  Bread is a basic part of our diet and has been down the centuries. With water, bread constitutes a normal element for restoring and fuelling our bodies.  In other words, bread gives and sustains life.  But our lives are sustained by more than mere bread. We live on the strength of love, affirmation, acceptance, challenge and positive relationship. ‘Not on bread alone’ does man live (Matthew 4:4).  However, if we enlarge our imaginations we can understand the words, the music, the conversation and the sights of everyday life as types of daily bread that nourishes our bodies and souls. In that sense the Old Testament prophet, Jeremiah, could speak of God’s Word as bread which can be consumed (Jeremiah 15:16). But, we need to eat in order to understand just as understanding precedes eating. Jesus had to bring the thousands forward from eating bread loaves and fish to eating the living word of God. We have to start somewhere and human hunger is an obvious starting place.

With ‘scandalous’ talk of flesh and blood..

But, Jesus did not just say I am giving you the living bread which is my flesh but he also says that he is giving you his blood. Not only is flesh scandalous to pious 1^st century years but blood is more than scandalous because it signifies the very life of one.  To share in the Eucharist is to share in the life of God’s own family while drawing into that family the great unwashed, the confused, the unwelcome and the marginalised.

This is what it means – concretely – to live eucharistically–  in full communion with God as a loving parent and with all of his children who are our brothers and sisters in the family of faith that invites everyone in.

We, too, can be transformed into bread broken for a world that hungers. Here is a short prayer based on a reading of John that I composed some years ago:

In the beginning was the Word
And the World became fleshAnd that flesh became bread;Which has now become usBroken for a united worldReturning to the source from it came

 (words above = 1,187)

Praying the rosary (as an Anglican)

Luke 1:46-55

What?

Yes, it is possible to pray the rosary as an Anglican regardless of your orientation on the ‘high’ or ‘low’ streams of Anglicanism – if you belong to this tradition. We, typically, associate the rosary with Roman Catholic piety.  For many of the Roman tradition, it is a distant memory of childhood when granny took out the beads before everyone went to bed. To hear it recited, today, at  funeral (the main place where it seems to have survived) one hears a babble of fast-moving words running into one another and hardly distinguishable – monotonous, repetitive and empty. Or, so it seems. Who knows what is going through the minds of those joining in or just listening. ‘who is so and so in the corner?’, ‘Aunt Nell looks poorly’, ‘Will there be a cup of tea afterwards?’.

But Anglicanism – what has it to do with the Rosary as we knew it and as we know it? There is no mention of the rosary in the Books of Common Prayer anywhere throughout the Anglican communion. The ‘mysteries’ of the rosary contain not a few theological bones to cause a middle-of-the-road Anglican to choke on. Moreover, the rosary is something that ‘they’ do and that is unknown among ‘us’. There are small bands of high Anglicans in places throughout the world that pray the rosary or some version of it but it is almost entirely unknown in the broad sweep of Anglican experience (one such place where I have prayed the entire Rosary in an Anglican Church is in St Mary Magdalene’s in Toronto).

Even amongst many Roman Catholics, today, the rosary is seen as a relic of a past piety that does not sit easily with a more contemporary spirituality or liturgy. The rosary was never, strictly speaking, part of the official liturgy of the Roman Catholic church. It emerged many centuries ago as a formula well adapted to a mainly illiterate population that ‘followed’ the mass said in Latin by a priest on the other side of the alter rails. The full rosary – comprising 15 decades (until Pope John Paul II added another five) – contained no less than 150 ‘Hail Marys’ – the same number as Psalms. While monks and clerics recited or sung the psalms from start to finish every week, the laity and, eventually, most religious and priests recited the rosary as an extra. It became associated with a strong devotion to Mary – the Mother of Jesus and therefore the Mother of God (though some Protestants are awkward with the latter expression it is a pretty good translation of ‘Theotokos’ – the subject of an Ecumenical Council in the 4^th century and the deliberations of which have never been disputed by Anglicans).

In other words Mary was not just mother of Jesus in his humanity but Jesus as God and Man. Think about that. To deny that is to be a Nestorian heretic!

Nowadays, the recitation of the rosary has been known to happen at ‘pro-life’ rallies and other manifestations of opposition to the ever advancing secularism of our times. Some even see in the rosary a type of spiritual ‘weapon’ to invoke the powerful intercession of Mary to counter the forces of evil.  A symbol of resistance to progress and a bade of reaction?  Historically, the rosary was associated with the Battle of Lepanto in 1571 when the Christian forces put down the ‘Turks’ (or the Muslims to be less polite). Enough said! This sounds like a spiritual cover for a narrow denominational sectarianism if not downright Islamophobia! Or, is it?

Why do people say the Rosary and what does it contain? It is made up of 15 (or 20 if you prefer) ‘mysteries’. Each mystery comprises the following prayers:

• The Apostles Creed (all of which is undisputed across orthodox catholic and reformed Christian churches West and East).
• The Our Father
• Hail Mary made of the salutation of the Angel Gabriel in Luke 1:28 and Elizabeth in Luke 1:42 and rounded off with a request ‘Pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death’.
• Glory be to the Father etc.

Now, apart from the request directly addressed to Mary to pray for us, the rest is entirely biblical or solidly liturgical (as in the doxology, Glory be…).  While Anglicans, in keeping with reformation traditions, do not pray directly to the saints (we pray to God the Father in Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit), there is absolutely no rejection of the idea that the Saints in Heaven actually pray for us (including one imagines the late Roman Catholic grannies and others who were do faithful to the rosary). So, if a saint can pray for us what is wrong with slipping in a ‘direct communication’ for them to put in a word for us, too? This may be done privately one one’s own or in semi-private amongst mature adults after the main service is complete (such as happened to me recently in Toronto).

The ‘mysteries’ (isn’t that a wonderful way to call it?) are mainly taken from events in the life of Jesus (and Mary) including the annunciation to Mary, the visitation to her cousin Elizabeth, the birth of Jesus right through the passion of Jesus, his resurrection and the coming of the Holy Spirit. All very biblical material and very much integrated into the liturgical cycle of Anglican prayer books across the worldwide communion. There are two ‘mysteries’ that might unsettle Anglican sensitivities – the ‘Assumption of Mary body and soul into Heaven’ (the Orthodox Catholic Churches use the term ‘Dormition’ or ‘Going to sleep’ to describe what happened when Mary reached the end of her earthly journey) and the crowning of Mary as Queen of Heaven and Earth. The first of these two was the made the subject of a binding Papal dogma in 1950 (although one suspects that most Roman Catholics are unaware of this nowadays) much to the consternation, at the time, of Protestants including Anglicans seeking closer unity with the Church of Rome.

Guess what – in some parts of the Anglican Communion the 15^th August (in addition to the 8^th September which is the birthday of Mary and is marked everywhere throughout the Communion) is marked as a special feast day of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Now that sounds suspiciously Roman especially when it seems to be just added alongside another Marian feast day only three weeks later. Would the latter not be enough? Such ‘excesses’ as on the 15^th August, I hasten to add, are not practiced in the Church of Ireland!

Like the first, the second of these ‘add-on’ mysteries just emerged in the course of time and there is no clear scriptural evidence for it though there is some evidence of an emerging devotion to Mary and belief in her powerful intercession among Christians in the first millennium. ‘

(‘Unfortunately, many Christians moved the knowing of God largely into the realm of argumentative words, which narrowed the field of truly knowing and actually experiencing.’ Rev Richard Rohr - the Center for Action and Contemplation)

Whatever one may think of these matters is it not time to leave the rosary to the side as one of those quaint pietistic devotions of another era which, in our modern day sophistication, we have outlived? Would it not be better to just focus on the liturgy of the Eucharist, the daily office of prayer and other prayer forms as well as individual sacred reading (‘lectio divina’ to use a fancy term) and quiet contemplative prayer? I for one might have thought so until very recently. Then, one day I spent a day in an Emergency Department in a public hospital. It was not a life-threatening experience (as it turned out). But, it did help to unlock some memories and needs. Something stirred deep within me. To be honest it was all happening at a challenging time politically and socially in Ireland. Need I say more? (It is known that James Connolly, no ally of the Roman Catholic Church throughout his life, died while clutching rosary beads in front of a British firing squad on 12^th May 1916. Death focusses the heart).

Somehow I need to connect, again, with something or someone from my distant past. I needed to touch something physical like beads (or the ‘worry beads’ used by Buddhists!). I needed to let my analytical left hand brain take a little rest while the intuitive and feminine within me found new expression. Suddenly, I found myself, little by little, praying the rosary. I couldn’t believe myself! And why not?!  This was a little private thing between me and God (and Mary) and my deceased parents and uncles and aunts who were still present somehow in my life as memories but also as persons who had gone to God and were and still are with me in a mysterious way. Moreover, I felt part of a chain of prayer from North to South and from South to North as I look across the sea to the lovely Mourne Mountains. I was connected into an international current right now in this place grounded in a quiet trust and uplifting in the presence of the God-bearer – the feminine face of God’s kindness and care in the here and now. I was doing this as much for others as myself. Someone, somewhere is touched by a simple desire to let the mysteries of the life, death and resurrection of the one Saviour, Jesus Christ, whose intercession for us is all sufficient. Mary is our sister and our mother (both are true) and she helps us to realise the truth of:

• Grace alone!
• Christ alone!
• Scripture alone!

In no way does this contradict the trilogy of:

• Scripture
• Tradition
• Reason

(and I must insist, also, experience).

Mary was not a preacher. But, she spoke with her life and still does of trust, belief, repentance, healing, following and mission. ‘Grant we beseech, thee, that by meditating on these mysteries of the most holy Rosary of the blessed Virgin Mary we may imitate what they contain and obtain what they promise through the same Christ our Lord’ (prayer sometimes added at the end of the Rosary).

Now, what works for one may not work for another. It worked for me and I could not stop doing it!!

The slow, steady, recitation of Hail Mary’s interspersed with a short recall of the mystery after the word ‘Jesus’ (who for us was born, died, risen etc) calmed my mind and helped heal my memories. It was like the formation of a link in a chain reaching down from heaven to earth and up to heaven as I listened to the gentle waves breaking against the rocks on the seashore at sunset in the place where I live. In the gentle and steady flow of words there is no need to analyse or to over-think. It just flows. And there is a curious peace, calm and courage to face whatever lies ahead. Something is released deep within and there is a sense of healing. No kidding.

Is any of this Anglican, you may ask?

I have just made it Anglican for myself!

Collect for Birth of the Blessed Virgin (Book of Common Prayer of the Church of Ireland):

Almighty God, who looked upon the lowliness of the blessed Virgin Mary  and chose her to be the mother of your only Son: Grant that we who are redeemed by his blood may share with her in the glory of your eternal kingdom; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Postscript

Give it a try yourself for a few days and see how you feel about it!

Letting go

“…and the seed would sprout and grow, he does not know how.” (Mark 3:27)

Mark 4:26-34 (Year B: 3^rd Sunday after Trinity, 10 June 2018)

A key feature of Jesus’ ministry was telling stories. Because it is very often hard for us and for the people who lived 2,000 years ago to ‘get it’ we need to hear and to tell stories – stories about real people and their lives and the actual environment in which people live. A really good story is remembered because it touches three things: the heart, the mind and the will.  In fact, the very word Gospel means good news or good stories.

Telling stories and connecting to the personal, social, political and economic life of others lies at the core of Jesus’ preaching ministry. Not that Jesus engaged in polemics or analysis about whatever is in the news at the time. Rather, he took natural examples from the natural world of living, working, relating and caring to illustrate what the ‘kingdom of God’ is like. The phrase ‘It (the Kingdom of God) is like ….or is as if…’ crops up all over the gospels. We are hard pressed to draw up systematic philosophical or theological bodies of knowledge based on the gospels. These would follow later and would have and still have their own undoubted use and value at the service of the Word.

Going with the flow of nature..

We do well to pause and reflect on the gospel stories we hear week after week and year after year. The same story is never quite the same each time we hear it.  The secret is to link it to our own personal life experience as well as that of others. This requires patience, diligence and openness.  All of this takes time – that precious commodity that seems to diminish just as ‘time-saving’ productivity innovations increase their hold on our lives.

The challenging aspect of this Sunday’s short extract from the gospel of Mark is that we are placed in a world of growth, nature, uncertainty and yields. Pictures of fields and crops are painted across our imagination.  We can rest in these images contemplating the mystery not only of nature but our own complicated lives intertwined with those of others. Gone are the textbook manuals of scientific determination. In with the organic, intuitive, living, growing, flourishing, decaying, ageing and harvesting images that best reflect the way the world actually works. The detached, rational, Cartesian mind is challenged.

And this is healthy.

We can strive to order our lives and plan for everything. We don’t want anything left to chance. The rent-seeking sellers of insurance and assurance enter the picture! However, life is never quite that simple. There is a natural process of growth and decay marked with unexpected turns and developments.

Not knowing where or how or when the plant and its fruit appear …

We must trust in a divine plan that cooperates with, and respects, us (as well as the other way round). Sometimes, we need to ‘scatter the seed’ on the ground and then leave it there for a time. The opposite to this is sometimes called ‘micro-management’ where – for reasons of insecurity – we seek to plan, order, manage and direct the details of a project, a relationship or an event down to the last little detail. As it says in this Gospel passage the sower ‘would sleep and rise night and day, and the seed would sprout and grow, he does not know how.’

We just do not know How or When or Who. We only know a What- that what is sown is sown and God is active somehow but the results are not to be seen now. It is a case of doing the following:

• -        We hear the Word of God as seeds of possibility in our depths;
• -        We make it our own by planting deep in the garden of our soul like a mustard seed;
• -        We live it and let it grow;
• -        We do not know how it happens (the mechanic elude us); and
• -        We believe that God is in charge; and

-        The results are plain to see not now but later on and perhaps only for others who come after us.

We plant or sow the seed and then we need to stand back and watch the growth. For someone familiar with computers it is the equivalent of pressing ‘system restore’ and then waiting to watch the grass grow as the little waiting symbol appears on the computer screen.

Of course, we may need to stay close at hand to where we have sown in case help and intervention might be needed. Whether in the domain of parenting or work or ministry we need to strike a balance and allow others to grow (or not as the case may be).  In the case of parenting it may involve a very gradual letting go as children move into adulthood. However, staying close and being available and stepping in are essential (and it may be an unwelcome but necessary stepping depending on circumstances!).

Letting seeds grow and letting go …

Letting go is required – of our fears, our insecurities, our attachments, our detailed plans, our risk analysis, our ‘nutty, musty’ mental frameworks and our self-image. We are planted to grow in love and to help others grow in love. Like the farmer we need to work with the ‘grain of nature’ (some might say the ‘grain of the brain’) rather than try to ingrain nature. But, like the parable of the mustard seed what we sow may seem of little consequence in terms of size and standing. Later, however, the seeds give rise to ‘the largest of all garden plants, with such big branches that the birds can perch in its shade’ (verse 32). Whether this detail matters (Matthew and Luke refer to a tree – the point still remains that what we see now and what will be is different and we don’t know how this change will be affected).

It might take a crisis or severe drought or another calamity to let go and let flourish. At that point we allow God more than ever to step in and direct our limited efforts and understanding. God’s love is bigger than our plans and expectations. All we need to do is what we can do now – to sow the seed and keep it close to our hearts and then let God lead us forward step by step.  Life is a series of steps, decisions, actions and arrivals.

The poet, mystic and monk, Thomas Merton (1915-1968), put it this way:

My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it. Therefore will I trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone. (from Thoughts in Solitude).