The Gospels are as bursting with life as ever,
but if they are to have any chance
of leading us joyfully to the altar of God,
the Church must listen humbly
to the voice of Christ
speaking from the hearts
of those it is called to serve

This blog tries to help that process.

A PROJECT FOR SCHOOLS

Interdisciplinary of course

My Bishop (Michael Campbell O.S.A. Lancaster diocese, England) has been in  the news lately. If you are one of those readers who lives in what we like to call the "English Speaking World" which includes the U.S.A. you may already know this. But for others, and ever so briefly, let me explain. 

Bishop Campbell wrote to his diocese on January 1st, a letter full of heartfelt concern for the success of the New Evangelisation AND his concern for our Catholic Schools.

The schools part attracted most attention, and that being so, this blog would like to help "the debate" as it is called, not by offering yet another opinion on the Bishop's observations, but by offering our schools something through which they can show the stuff of which they are made.

We hereby offer our schools a creative and imaginative project exactly right for these quiet weeks before Lent is wheeled out of storage one more time.

It concerns the passage, 1: 14 - 20 from the Gospel according to Mark, which just happens also to be the Gospel passage to be proclaimed at Mass NEXT Sunday, January 22nd, 2012, the Third Sunday of Year B.

If Mark were around today he would be in great demand as a scene writer in the film industry. He has the happy ability to plunge us into the very heart of the Christian message without losing his listeners in a sea of theological verbiage. 

Drama, colour, action, these are his methods. There is no pretence at being an expert in these things, but he succeeds brilliantly in getting the message across. He just tells the story and suddenly we are in there, out of our depth but enjoying the experience, and learning.


So, here's your project school: Using Art, Drama, Music, and those boring old reliables known to us all as the three R's, unwrap Mark, 1:14 - 20 and do it so well that everyone in school wants to get out of whatever boat they are currently in and "follow Him".

Speaking from experience gained long ago, I can tell you that the arrival of Jesus on the scene can be done very well with the slow violins and crashing of drums which you will find in the introduction to Nial Diamond's "Hot August Night". And that's just for starters!

Go to it everybody. Let the Gospel explode in your school.   

Master, Where Do You Live?

It sounds as if someone needs a SAT NAV, but these are the Gospels, and we have learned to look deeper than that. If we are to discover just what's going on we need to go beyond the circumstances of what happened back then.. Let's do just that now. The passage is from John's account of the Gospel, 1: 35 - 42.

The scene is easy enough to imagine. These are "heady" days down by the Jordan where John the Baptist has been whooping it up for some time, drawing large crowds too. Some of these attached themselves to him and became his disciples. They hung on his every word. He ignited their interest, excited them with expectation of what might be next. So keyed up are they that when John draws their attention to Jesus, referring to him as "the Lamb of God" no less, two of John's own closest disciples want to know more and set off in pursuit of this new kid on the block.

The new man sees that he is being followed and turns round on them to ask, "What do you want?". An honest question like that deserves an honest answer and gets one in the form of another question, "Master, where do you live?" Jesus' answer to them is clear and simple, "come and see". 

But they are not about to discover the hideout he has made for himself in some hillside cave, nor are they about to be led to a nice little pad Jesus has found on the outskirts of town. The invitation, "come and see" has nothing to do with location and living quarters. This is the Gospel and we must look deeper.

When the Baptist drew their attention to Jesus, mysteriously referring to him as "the lamb of God" he was guiding his disciples to a relationship that would prove beyond their imagining. That's why the Gospels were written. They are not diaries describing a life lived long ago in a foreign place, but ultimately part of other people's yesterdays. They are interested in what lies within and behind the circumstances of the life they describe.

The Gospels are not interested in getting the details of the life of Jesus absolutely "spot on" for our entertainment. They were written out of the conviction that Jesus who had died so publicly on that cross, was actually alive and that they could now live their relationship with him more fully in the circumstances of their own living.

Ultimately the Gospels were written for us and the lives we are living today. The writing of the Gospels was driven by the awareness that future generations would be the better for knowing what had been revealed to them. Knowing how to relate to this Risen Jesus, people yet unborn would have the opportunity to live lives that hummed with the excitement of his presence, just as theirs did then.

So just where do we find this Risen Jesus today: "Master where do you live?

No matter how strong our devotion to these things, no matter how much we are urged on by number-crunching clerics, strangers to this world of faith will not be impressed if all we can do to answer their question is to lead them to a cold church building and point at a tabernacle. We will need to go beyond the treasury of our own religious practices, beyond the inspiring words of scripture, beyond the example given by the lives of the saints.

Only when we have found a community that lives the kingdom Jesus preached, and only when we ourselves have become part of that community, only then will we be entitled to take the enquirers hand  and answer their question as to where to find Jesus with the words of Jesus himself, "Come and see".

Just Like A Woman

It's all of 48 years ago now, but I still remember it and probably always shall, as long as I am able to remember anything.

I was in Seminary, in Dogma class, studying Mariology (Mary). Our professor was conducting one of his occasional spot checks to see if we had been paying attention. I was on my feet.

He had asked about the role the Assumption of Mary into heaven played for the church. I knew the exact phrase he was looking for as I had noticed how much he liked it when he first mentioned it. Could I recall it? No way, not then when it mattered in any case. In shame and confusion, I was told to sit down. I had failed the test.

The phrase my teacher wanted to hear was, "Our Lady is the eschatological icon of the church". It means that by the grace of God, Mary was the image of everything the Church could become by remaining faithful to the grace of God. It's put rather well in the preface of the Mass of the Assumption. If you haven't noticed before now, try reading it privately.

But that is the thing about the Church and Mary. The great doctrines we think of as connected with Mary, are actually about Christ and his church, and therefore also about US.

The Immaculate Conception, which by the way has nothing to do with the presence or absence of sexual intercourse, points to the preparation of Mary for her forthcoming role as the Mother of Jesus.

The Virgin birth likewise teaches us that Jesus is a direct gift from God and not the product of human sperm. And now that you know it, please don't you forget that the Assumption is about Mary being the Eschatalogical icon of the Church!

All this is very fine and worth knowing for it helps us to a true (and orthodox) grasp of Church doctrine, BUT....

I can't help thinking that Mary also reminds us of something else also very important to our being Christians. It's there in the opening line of the Gospel passage we use in the Mass of the Assumption."Mary set out and went as quickly as she could to a town in the hill country of Judah. She went into Zechariah's house and greeted Elizabeth." Luke 1: 39.

And there you have it, one hugely exciting truth about Mary and about all of us too, especially women.

Ask yourself why Mary, having so recently become pregnant herself, set out on that long trip into the hills. The people at mass here the other day had no doubt. "It's what women do, Father". And he was right, it is. Mary was obeying something else God had given her, her womanly instinct to show concern and kindness to one who might need it. Most women seem blessed with this instinct and obey it easily enough, even at the risk of being exploited.

We don't have to travel far to discover the great things God has done for us, they are written clear enough in our better human instincts. Obeying these instincts even at the risk of being exploited may not teach us much about the great doctrines of the church, but they will surely ensure that we will share her Assumption with Mary in heaven.

THE ITALIAN JOB

The lady with the photographs has made contact.

Years ago, when I was a young lad struggling with Latin and Algebra at a local secondary school back home in Ireland, this girl, even younger than I, was having her picture taken on the doorstep of the very house where I now sit typing. She was the parish May Queen and had lots of other beautifully dressed girls (and some boys) in attendance. It was a highlight in her young life and was dutifully recorded in the family photo album. But like all days, "Crowning Day" finished, the photos were carefully tucked away in a safe place and the years began to pass. The young lady married and moved away.

Now suddenly, without any warning, out of Italy comes her voice, and the pictures. And with the pictures of those far-off days, comes an image of me which I struggle to recognise, every bit as much as others struggle to name the faces in the pictures of a parish which was then but is not now.

"That looks like old Betty who lived across the street from us when we were young, but I think she had died before you came". Another voice ventures that the youngish lady standing at the back might just be someone they vaguely recall, but in the end they decide otherwise. Soon the struggle to recognise and remember proves too much. The pictures are laid aside and the chat returns to "today" things, the sort no one bothers to photograph.

And now I am here alone, the pictures before me, just a few feet but many years from the place of their taking. I am not however entirely alone, for I have become aware of an image of myself that comes not "out of Italy" but out of the photographs before me.

He is there in many of the pictures, a central figure, not always smiling for the camera, but clearly "looking pleasant." He is one of my predecessors as Parish Priest in this place and his coming to me from the pictures before me asks questions even as it comforts and entertains.

I find myself wondering if I sometimes take life a little too seriously. But then again, who can blame me; so many things these days have an urgent ring about them, even alarm. The easy-going confidence of his day seems far away tonight. Now the prevailing background beat is "something must be done, this can't go on".

And yet if the easy-going confidence which I imagine was his, came only from conceit, I do not envy him. But if his pleasant style and manner were rooted not in himself but in how he identified himself in his calling, then indeed I have an image I should hope some may yet come to recognise in me.

WHAT DID YOU GET FOR CHRISTMAS?

Did you get what you were hoping for this Christmas ? Or are you long past the stage of wanting anything in particular, just happy if you are remembered in some way, especially by those you yourself could never forget.

These quiet days after Christmas are ideal for remembering how you were indeed remembered and basking a bit in the love expressed in that remembering. The Church seems to think that way too by asking us to bask in the wonder of the EPIPHANY, a feast that brings it all home to us.

Most of us have just ONE picture of the EPIPHANY: three men coming in search of Jesus and laying their gifts before him. But in fact the Feast of the Epiphany offers us THREE pictures and together they help us appreciate the great gift of Christmas itself.
Each of these three gets a mention in the official prayer-life of the church at this time of year, though the story of the three wise men grabs most of the attention.

For our own good, let’s look at each of them in turn. In their own way, each of these incidents gives us an image of God’s love reaching out to us in the midst of our own daily lives.

• EPIPHANY first meets us in three travelers, men from a far country. Using their own limited vision, they get to the very edge of the great discovery, but there, close to Bethlehem, their own star deserts them so that they need to humbly ask directions from the wisdom of the Bible and then they can continue their search. Finding Jesus they lay their gifts before him (the tools of their trade) and as the bible tells us they go back to their own country by a different way; Changed Men.
  
• EPIPHANY reaches for us again by the waters of the Jordan where we hear the Baptist proclaiming that one of those gathered for baptism, is in fact the Chosen One, on whom the “favour of the Father rests.” Two of John’s disciples follow Jesus. They ask him, “Master, where do you live?” and hear those loving one words of invitation, “Come and see”. For them too, things are never the same again.
• EPIPHANY meets us lastly and conclusively at Cana in Galilee. The wine has run out and in that easily understood domestic problem we are given an image of how it is to be in our own following of Christ. Our own selves too will be exhausted, but that is not a moment for despair. It is in moments of our greatest need that under the power of Jesus, the water of our best efforts becomes the wine of celebration. It is living testimony that our own fruitfulness will always be found in doing his bidding.

We learn these lessons from stories in the Gospels, but they only begin to mean something to us when we recongise them as moments in our own lives. And thus it is that, "The best gift you got this Christmas may be one you are still receiving".

"At the Gate of the Year"

Minnie Haskell was her name, or so I have been told, and she wrote the poem, or so I have been told. But it was surely King George VI quoting it in his radio broadcast of Christmas 1939 that gave the poem its staying power. Here are the opening lines. They are the best part of it, or so I have been told.

And I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year:

"Give me a light, that I may tread safely into the unknown!"

And he replied:

"Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the Hand of God.

That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way!'

And here we do indeed stand at the Gate of a New Year. The new year, now advancing upon us with such determined and eager strides shall be called "2012". In due course it will itself become the old year and we shall wave it good bye with the same mixture of fondness and regret with which we now let go of its predecessor, "2011". But for now at least, all is new. Fresh possibilities offer themselves with courage and daring. Hope stirs us at our depths even as we emerge from the old year, dog-tired and trodden upon.

We have seen enough New Years to know we have no control over what will come our way in 2012, but we can surely do better than stand at the Gate of the year, empty-handed and forlorn. Let us at least ask ourselves what to take with us into the unknown.

There is a game, a game of quite serious intent. It is known as the "Balloon" game. We are asked to imagine ourselves hundreds of feet up in the basket of a Balloon, sailing high over dangerous, raging seas. Around us in our balloon are not only the possessions of a lifetime but our friends, our habits and our principles, that mish-mash of things that help us feel we belong here. The balloon starts to lose height and we are asked to discard one thing after another to prevent our being thrown into the raging waters.

We've probably all played this game at one time or another. Have we got the time, the inclination, the courage, to play it just once more as we stand here at the Gate of another New Year? Beneath us, not the raging of the ocean, but the apathy, the misunderstanding and even the enmity of the world through which we will travel in 2012. What one item will see us safe to the farthest shore where lies safety, even salvation?

As is my wont, I shall read Hardy's "Darkling Thrush" today, but I hope I shall also find time to clear the floor of the basket under my balloon. I shall be trying to take with me not necessarily the things I have been told, but the one thing I hold most dear, which I think I have expressed in the picture. Then I shall be ready when the call goes up, "we have lift-off".