REJECTION

REJECTION And he did not work many mighty deeds there because of their lack of faith. - Mt 13, 54 – 58. We have a remarkable story in today's gospel. We see a classic example of how familiarity can breed a hostile environment for Jesus' work among us. In this home town place of worship, Jesus isn't able to work any mighty deeds because they thought they knew him, and didn't have faith in who he could be for them. He's the carpenter's son. They knew his family. They thought they knew everything there is to know about him. Isn't it also true that we can become hardened? Don't we too often get ourselves into a place where our sophisticated "knowlege" of so much can block our ability to be open to mystery, i.e., what we don't know, don't understand, can't yet imagine? I've asked before, and I didn't get the answer I wanted. I know this priest. We know what he's going to say. I know the prayers by heart. The liturgy is the same each week. And, when we aren't open, Jesus' hands are tied, his power is limited. I sometimes think about how we receive the Eucharist - a gift so familiar, almost something that has become "ordinary" to us. I think, in contrast, that whenever a famous person (in fact, even a few people I've never heard of) come to my town for a concert or a talk, an incredible number of people stand in line with great excitement and pay really steep prices for a ticket to sit in a crowd of thousands, just to catch a glimpse at the person, or to say "I was there." And, if we get to get close, or perhaps shake the celebrity's hand or get an autograph, that would be memorable for a long time. Yet, each Sunday, for many of us (and for some of us, on a daily basis), we are able to receive the "Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity" of Jesus himself. We receive what we call a "holy communion" with him. Yet, sometimes we get up in a "communion line" as if we are bored, distracted, focusing on the clothes and behaviour of others. Wouldn't it be an incredible unleashing of Jesus' power, if we were to be really open, alert, ready for this encounter with him? What if, in preparation, we were to practice paying attention to the Eucharistic Prayer to the Father, giving thanks and asking for the Spirit to transform the gifts on the altar? What if our hearts were deeply involved in that request? "Father, please transform these gifts so that they may become the Body of Blood of Jesus, for my salvation, today and forever!" What if we joined - inside of us, at a deeper and deeper level - in that request that "we might be gathered into one by the Holy Spirit" (Eucharistic Prayer II) or begging that the Father "grant that, we who are nourished by the Body and Blood of your Son, may be filled with his Holy Spirit and become one body, one spirit in Christ" (Eucharistic Prayer II)? Imagine looking up in a new way, with a completely open heart, as the priest says, "Behold the Lamb of God. Behold him who takes away the sins of the world. Blessed are those who are called to the supper of the Lamb." Imagine really feeling, experiencing that this Jesus, here in front of me, has taken away my sins, and I am so blessed to be called to this supper. It is possible to say the next words at a deeper, more conscious place in our hearts (echoing the words of the Roman official who so impressed Jesus by his confidence in Jesus' healing power: "Yes, Lord, I know I'm not worthy. Just say your word - just let it be done - and my soul will actually be healed." We can let the healing happen - the struggles in our families, the wounds that sometime handicap us, the bad habits we seem stuck in, the anger and judgments we hold on to. It can all be healed, just by our being open to it. We could talk with Jesus on our way up to this communion with him. "Lord, I am asking you to let me receive you more fully today. You know what struggles we had at home before we left to come here. You know how wrapped up I am in so much worry, fear and anger. Let me be open to your love, as I receive you. Renew me by this communion with you and, please, fill me with your peace. United with you more completely, more gratefully, I know I can be more loving and forgiving at home, more hopeful and courageous at work, more generous and active in my parish community. Remain in me today and every day this week and let your Spirit connect me with your Spirit in others whom you call me to love." We know Jesus has power to save us and heal us. We just need to take the steps, beyond the ordinary and familiar, to let his power and his love work in us.

COLLABORATIVE MINISTRY

COLLABORATIVE MINISTRY

Part 1

There is only Holy Spirit who, through the sacrament of Baptism, confers on us the office of ministry. It was the same Spirit who came on Jesus at his baptism, confirmed him, drove him into the wilderness and then sent him forth in the service of reconcilement and healing. Will the Holy Spirit do any different with us who form one body with Christ? The service of healing and reconcilement and healing is given to all of us. We are indeed commissioned people, mandated by the same Spirit for the same ministry, though understandably with different nuances and levels dictated by our state of life. For example, the two social sacraments are marriage and priesthood, and both have the same ultimate aim, namely, to unite humanity to God. People need spiritual development and emotional sustenance. They expect the people of God to reach out and make them feel that they’re there and that they care. And they too are ready to reach out and help people themselves. “It’s the poor what helps the poor,” is a line from an old Irish playlet. A sort of mutual life support system.

 The Government can giver the money, but only people can help people to face life. For instance, the AIDS patient or swine flu’ patient is not a statistic, and the disease need not be labelled as a death sentence. St. Francis of Assisi, we are told, kissed the hand of a leper. Yet it was not Francis who healed the leper, but the leper who healed Francis! Healed him from his social prejudice and from keeping a clinical distance from isolated people. Francis of Assisi became a friar, not to hide within the walls of the monastery, but to be with the people. The prophets ascended the mountain to hear God’s word, there in the cloud - symbol of the divine presence. But they had to descend from the heights and go to the people, even if the people did not listen, even persecuted them. That is how the Gospel is preached: not from a position of power to the weak, but from a position of weakness to the powerful. We preach the Good News to those who are capable of crucifying us.

Like the classical prophets of Israel who went before him centuries earlier (Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Amos), and like a few voices that have echoed through the corridors of history since John Baptist, he (John) condemned the selfish luxury that flourished alongside widespread impoverishment and economic oppression, the kind of sybaritic luxury that can lead to spiritual bankruptcy. A true Jewish prophet – a spokesman for the things of God, not a fortune-teller – the Baptist had the prophet’s sense of radical isolation. Jeremiah (in the seventh century before Jesus), preaching against religious indifference, felt that his calling was to be a thorn in the side of the smug. His vocation separated him from “merrymakers” and led him to certain apartness. “I sat alone,” Jeremiah said wistfully but without self-pity. That is a fair summary of the eight hundred years of prophetic tradition, from Isaiah to John the Baptist, when we come upon our  Lord Jesus Christ, the Priest and Prophet, in whom is contained the unimaginable forgiveness and faithfulness of God. 

Part 2

To a world that clamours for peace through domination and suppression, discipline from the barrel of a gun, police savagery, gagging the mouths of protesters, Our Lord shows the way of humility and service. Human suffering, again, is not an occasion for pessimism but a challenge to action in the belief that Christ’s Resurrection is already operating in the dark night of pain and hopelessness. As Christians and, indeed, as missionaries, we realise that we cannot successfully proclaim the Good News from a position of superiority. We can preach the Gospel effectively only when the people to whom we are sent have the power to crucify us. Precisely in his moment of uttermost weakness our High Priest shows his greatest strength. St. Paul’s letter to the Colossians has a wonderful cosmic sweep. In this short, rich letter Christ is shown defeating darkness, holding all things in unity and making it possible for us “to join the saints and with them to inherit the light.”

We Christians are inheritors of the light. This light must shine in new ways and in hitherto unlit places. Today ministry in the Christian Church exists in a new situation. Change in ministry – diversification, decline, and expansion – have followed upon the event of Vatican II and the social upheavals of the latter half of the 20^th. Century. These new paradigms in ministry were not planned in advance but are the result of the meeting of the Church and the world. The expansion of ministry, new church structures, a new evangelical vitality are part of a cultural upheaval whose roots lie in freedom, ministerial effectiveness, maturity and participation within the Church.

What we call “an explosion of ministry” is a worldwide phenomenon, affecting countries and churches differently. The renewal of the local church, priesthood, episcopacy, life in vows initiated by Vatican II led to the practical consequence of men and women shifting from one ministry to another. In truth, on account of a greater consciousness of personal freedom, Christians (including Catholics) are transferring their loyalties from one denomination to another. New ministries, e.g. health care, adult religious education, workers movements, prisons, permeating the civil services and government, and many others, have become new paths to ministry, along with that of priest, deacon and sister. As a result of these developments within and outside the churches, thousands of Christians have entered the ministry. An ordained ministry of bishops, priests and deacons may well be necessary for the efficient organisation and functioning of complex communities, like the proper celebration of the Eucharist and the spiritual needs of believers; but the officially ordained are no “higher” or “closer to God” than they were by virtue of baptism. God raises men and women whose entire lives are dedicated to the service of others, and not only as parochial standard-bearers but as social workers, teachers, preachers, hospice workers – wherever there are human needs and struggles.

What caused this explosion of ministry? Both society and church in our times led the ministry to seek out new activities and therein a new theology. The world is growing. The number of people living on this planet expands rapidly. At the same time, people are not content merely to subsist in a changeless life punctuated with moments of contentment, but they search for a fuller life. Quality in Christian life, as well as increase in population, and a search for freedom, are forces that have led Christians to expect wider ministries in their churches. The Church is caught between a flood of numbers and an individual quest for spiritual maturity. Today, the emphasis of theology is no more institutional but personal. We cannot do away with the institution, but the hermeneutic of the institutional is in terms of the personal. The dialectic of the institutional and personal is acquiring fresh nuances. The Triune God is personal. He gives himself and loves us personally, and we surrender ourselves to the Three Persons personally.

DON BOSCO

DON BOSCO

Today we celebrate the memorial of Giovanni Melchior Bosco known to us as St. John Bosco. John's father died when he was only two years old, and so, as soon as he was old enough, he was out earning extra money for his family. Life was hard but not without fun and enjoyment as well. He loved going to circuses, carnivals and fairs, learning from the magicians and performers how to act, juggle and do tricks. He would stage a one-man show for the children of the village and afterwards he wold deliver the sermon he had heard at Mass earlier in the day. John Bosco was ordained priest in 1841, but before his ordination he had worked as a tailor, baker, shoemaker and carpenter. He had a remarkable talent and ability to work with young people and found places where they could meet, pray and play. He founded the Salesians of Don Bosco (SDB) in 1859 and the Daughters of Mary, Help of Christians in 1872. He died in 1888 and was canonised in 1934 by Pope Pius XI.

John Bosco was blessed with practical and godly wisdom. He once instructed the young people in his care. He once instructed the young people in his care: "Fly from bad companions as from the bite of a poisonous sake. If you keep good companions, I can assure you that you will one day rejoice with the blessed in heaven; whereas if you keep company with those who are bad, you will become bad yourself, and you will be in danger of losing your soul."
Don Bosco was especially devoted to the Eucharist and encouraged everybody to receive Holy Communion. "Do you want Our Lord to give you many graces? Visit him often. Do you want him to give you few graces? Visit him seldom. Visits to the Blessed Sacrament are powerful and indispensable means of overcoming the attacks of the devil. Make frequent visits to Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament and the devil will be powerless against you."
Don Bosco cultivated a warm and kind approach to the young and saw that gentleness and affection were more winning than rough and harsh treatment. "This was the method", he said, that Jesus used with the apostles. He put up with their ignorance and roughness...He treated sinners with a kindness and affection that caused some to be shocked, others to be scandalised and still others to hope for God's mercy. And so he bade us to be gentle and humble of heart."
Since the time of Don Bosco times have changed and young people with them. Young people seek their own levels; young people select what is of value to them; children learn from people they trust and love. There were those things that made a difference in my development as a person, teacher and writer. No one had to tell me I loved the sound of music or the vice of my mother singing "Silent Night" as she prepared dinner one evening.
Children know what is around them. They know adults have power over them; they know cats have voices. Children also know very early that they will someday die. When a child feels the need to advance intellectually, he will just ahead and take that step. I believe our schools take too much credit for things that happen to children. Growing children do what grown-ups do. If parents smoke cigarettes their children will up smoking. If parents are readers there is a good chance that their children will read. Life imitates life. Our children look to us for any hints of themselves.
There are other things included in my philosophy of education. Somewhere there is a desire to teach children to distinguish between what is genuine and what is false. I know that we are born with different abilities and limitations, but I believe that we all have that unique something, a soul perhaps, that can be brought out by a teacher. We can help the young know the truth and choose the good. We can help them have confidence in themselves.
And we adults learn a lesson or two, also. When Jesus spoke about children, he told us that adult human beings need to recapture childhood. Children have the capacity for great faith, greatness and forgiveness. Many thousands of people, including children, died in the concentration camp in Ravensbrook during World War II. Near to the body of a child a prayer was found. "O Lord, remember not only the men and women of good will, but also those of ill-will; but do not remember all the suffering they have inflicted on us. Remember the fruits we have bought, thanks to this suffering: our comradeship, our loyalty, our humility, our courage, our generosity, the greatness of heart which has grown out of all this. And when they come to judgement, let all the fruits which we have borne be their forgiveness."

FLAG HOISTING

Flag Hoisting

Dr. Mervyn Carapiet

            Our patriotism does not stand under the claim of an exclusive nationalism, any more than loving one’s mother implies despising other mothers. Our country plays a rôle in the ensemble of nations, which is greater than itself. Different countries exist that they might enrich one another. Today especially we need to ensure that the call up of patriotic feeling is not based on selfish retreat. It is within our country and through it that we must work for the world’s renewal. Such action presupposes that our country exists and is in robust health, which in turn supposes moral discipline. Corrupt individuals do not make for a strong nation. Even this is not enough, for a country that wants to be strong must also be loved. And our love for India is not real unless it bears fruit in love and fair treatment for all its citizens, whoever they may be. This is consonant with God’s desire for nothing less than complete human authenticity, which offers a wide palette of enriching attitudes. Freedom is a necessary risk. God took a “risk” with his creation, and since he has conquered the human heart through the pierced and risen heart of Jesus Christ, we can confidently hope that the nation, self-assured in its material and human resources, will undergo a change of heart, and that all will yet be well.

            While to the present leaders we pledge our co-operation, we recall with affection the leaders who have died, so also our brave soldiers who shed their blood on the field of battle. A nation that forgets its past has no future and deserves none. The future, as far as we can see, is shadowed in trials, and calls on our courage. But the best stories of heroes are about those striding bravely into an unknown tomorrow, full of risks. So, trusting in one another’s loyalty and, above all, in the God of exodus, who will lead us, we march with strong hearts and firm steps, for we “have many miles to walk and many promises to keep.”

INTERCESSORY PRAYERS:

Our response is: Lord, hear our prayer.

1. Let us pray for the Church leaders, especially Pope Francis, bishops, priests and religious, that they may be able to lead the Christian flock in the path of true love and freedom.

2. We shall pray for the political leaders of our country, that they may be guided by the grace and wisdom of God to selflessly promote justice and equality among the people.

3. Heavenly Father, you guide and lead this Republic of ours. We thank you for the freedom, peace and prosperity we enjoy. Guide our steps in our march towards true freedom, true happiness, true peace and true salvation.

PRAYER: Bishop Desmond Mpilo Tutu (1931 - )

Bless our beautiful land, O Lord,

with its wonderful variety of people, of races, cultures and languages.

May we be a nation of laughter and joy,

of justice and reconcilement, of peace and unity,

of compassion, caring and sharing.

We pray this prayer for a true patriotism,

in the powerful name of Jesus our Lord.

INDEPENDENCE DAY MESSAGE

INDEPENDENCE DAY 2001

Speech delivered by Dr. Mervyn Carapiet

My fellow Indians,

The Indian story is told again for the 54^th. time today, embroidered as usual with calls to patriotism, loyalty to the Constitution and the leaders, past and present, and, as always, with a litany of complaints against the authorities and politicians. Which brings me to the point of today’s message.

YOU say that our government is inefficient. YOU say that our laws are too old; YOU say that the municipality does not pick up the garbage. YOU say that the phones don’t work, the railways are a joke, the airline is the worst in the world, and the mail never reaches its destination. YOU say that our country has been fed to the dogs and is the absolute pits. YOU say, say and say. What do YOU do about it ?

Take a person on his way to Singapore and give him YOUR name. YOU walk out of the airport and you are at your International best. In Singapore you don’t throw cigarette butts on the road, unless you’re prepared to pay a fine of $200/-, or eat in the stores, unless you’re prepared to be thrown out. YOU are as proud of their Underground Links as they are. You pay $5/- (approximately Rs. 75/-) to drive through Orchard Road (equivalent of Mahim Causeway or Peddar Road or Eastern Metropolitan Bypass) between 5.00 p.m. and 8.00 p.m. You come back to the parking lot and punch your parking ticket if you have overstayed in a restaurant or a shopping mall, irrespective of your status/identity. In Singapore you don’t say anything, DO YOU ?

YOU wouldn’t dare to eat in public during Ramazan in Dubai. YOU would not dare to go out without your head covered in Jeddah. YOU would not dare to buy an employee of the telephone exchange in London at £10/- (Rs. 720/-) a month to, “see to it that my STD and ISD calls are not billed or billed to someone else.” YOU would not dare to speed beyond 55 mph (88 kmph) in Washington and then tell the traffic cop, “Jaanta hai main kaun hoon ? (Do you know who I am ?) I am so and so’s son. Take your two bucks and get lost.” YOU wouldn’t chuck an empty coconut shell anywhere other than the garbage pail on the beaches in Australia and New Zealand. Why don’t YOU spit Paan on the streets of 

Tokyo ? Why don’t YOU use examination jockeys or buy fake certificates in Boston ? We are still talking of the same YOU. YOU who can respect and conform to a foreign system in other countries but cannot in your own. You who will throw papers and cigarettes on the road the moment you touch Indian ground. If you can be an involved and appreciative citizen in an alien country, why can’t you be the same here in India ?

Once in an interview, the famous ex-municipal commissioner of Bombay, Mr. Tinaikar, had a point to make. “Rich people’s dogs are walked on the streets to leave their affluent droppings all over the place,” he said. “And then the same people turn around to criticise and blame the authorities for inefficiency and dirty pavements. What do they expect the officers to do ? Go down with a broom every time their dog does it ?  In America every dog owner has to clean up after his pet has done the job. Same in Japan. Will the Indian citizen do that here ?” He’s right. We go to the polls to choose a government and after that forfeit all responsibility. We sit back wanting to be pampered and expect the government to do everything for us, whilst our contribution is totally negative. We expect the government to clean up but we are not going to stop chucking garbage all over the place nor are we going to stoop to pick up a stray piece of paper and throw it in the bin. When did you last pick up a scrap of paper from the floor, walk down the corridor and throw it in the bin ? We expect the railways to provide clean bathrooms, but we are not going to learn the proper use of bathrooms. We want Indian Airlines and Air India to provide the best of food and toiletries, but we are not going to stop pilfering these conveniences at the least opportunity. This applies even to the staff that is known not to pass on the service to the public.

When it comes to burning social issues like those related to women, dowry, girl child and others, we make loud drawing room protestations and continue to do the reverse at home. Our excuse ? “It’s the whole system which has to change; how will it matter if I forego my son’s right to a dowry.” So who’s going to change the system ? What does a system consist of ? Very conveniently for us, it consists of our neighbours, other households, other cities, other communities and the government. But definitely not me and YOU. When it comes to us actually making a positive contribution to the system, we lock ourselves along with our families into a safe cocoon and look into the distance at countries far away and wait for a Mr. Clean to come along and work miracles for us with a majestic sweep of his hand. Or we leave the country and run away.

Like lazy cowards, hounded by our fears, we run to America to bask in their glory and praise their system. When New York becomes insecure we run to England. When England experiences unemployment, we take the next flight out to the Gulf. When the Gulf is war struck, we demand to be rescued and brought home by the Indian government. Everybody is out to abuse the country. Nobody thinks of feeding the system. Our conscience is mortgaged to money

Here in ..... each one is left to his honour and sense of responsibility to do his duty conscientiously for building up of the community under God.

My fellow Indians, this message is highly thought inductive, calling for a great deal of introspection, and pricks one’s conscience. I am echoing John F. Kennedy’s words to his fellow Americans to relate to Indians.

“ASK WHAT WE CAN DO FOR INDIA, AND DO WHAT HAS TO BE DONE TO MAKE INDIA WHAT WE ADMIRE IN AMERICA AND OTHER WELL DEVELOPED COUNTRIES.”

Thank you, and have a nice day.

Barrackpore,

15^th. August 2001

BARTHOLOMEW

ST. BARTHOLOMEW

Simplicity

“You will see angels ascending and descending upon the Son of Man” (John 1,51).

You can read the Bible from eight years of age till eighty, and each time you do, you will discover something new, something that will make you think. For instance, Jesus speaks about heaven opening and the angels of God ascending and descending. If heaven opens, one would expect angels to descend, to come down, not to ascend, to go up. Perhaps when heaven opens, everything is turned upside down, as one hymn makes out. As children, we used to play on the slides in the park. We climbed up the ladder and came sliding down. Some of us more enterprising would come down upside down – a great achievement. The “shirs-asana” is the standing on one’s head: it helps much to get a proper perspective of reality. It is also recommended in class for those who are sleepy. We also know from Physics that the image that falls on the retina of the eye is actually upside down.

G.K. Chesterton said that in order to get a true perspective of reality, we should stand on our heads. He said that since St. Peter was crucified upside down, he saw the landscape as it truly is: with the sky like a vast blue field and the stars like beautiful white flowers on it; and the clouds like hills; and best of all, all men hanging on the mercy of God. Which is what matters ultimately: that everything hangs on the mercy of God. Only the simply realise that. For the simple see how Faith has turned everything in their life topsy turvy. They are like the angels, for angels are simple, as we know from philosophy. And being upside down they are in a position to ascend to heaven.

G. K. Chesterton said that angels fly because they take themselves lightly. And Jesus said, “If your eye be simple, your whole body will be lightsome.” To have a simple eye is to have a pure intention, not to be weighed down by complications and complications, or by conflicting motivations. A lightsome body is not enslaved by passions, attachments and worldly concerns. If we are looking only for God we can rest secure and feel no fear. Since our heart is fixed on God, there is nothing that can disturb us, not even our own failings.

“Simple” is such an easy word to use, that it has almost become debased currency. It need not mean a kind of holy moron or someone too lazy to use what brains he has about his faith. It should mean someone who, possibly after great struggle, arrives at a candid unselfconscious dynamic security in belief – a belief that cannot fail to communicate itself to others to their deep enrichment. Like a fragrant charm, simple faith is caught, not taught.

The joyous disciple has his soul poised on Jesus whose mystery, light and love embrace him totally. God works in his life as the one to whom he says his inmost “yes”.

Let us beware of duplicity; it can destroy our vocation. To be double-faced, double-minded, engaged in double-dealing. And ultimately, a double-motivated person is not able to deal with himself, since he does not understand his own self-deception.

Jesus paid a beautiful compliment to Nathaniel, calling him a true Israelite in whom there was no deception. Let us pray God, through the intercession of our saint, that we may be worthy of that compliment also.

 

 

 

ST. FRANCIS OF ASSISI

St. Francis of Assisi (1181 – 1226)

One of the surprising things about Francs of Assisi is that almost everyone has heard of him. They may not know that he was born about 1181, had been a rich playboy in Assisi, began a long and difficult conversion while a prisoner of war in Perugia, that his pursuit of the Gospel led to the Franciscan Order.  They may not know his anguish, though they often know his joy. They know that he was on the side of the poor and the marginalised, a lover of God and all creation, that he was – and still is – everybody’s friend and support. They probably do not know that he received the stigmata, nor what that means – but in the truest sense, do any of us? They have certainly grasped the essentials.                       Francis’ aim was to become as like Christ as possible. God had made him “to the image of his beloved Son according to the body, and to his likeness according to the spirit.” He was haunted by the thought that the Word became flesh. This was why he pursued the Lady Poverty through a ruthless self-stripping, seeking a total inner and (at the moment of death, outer) nakedness as he truth of himself before God.                                                                                  We cannot tell whether we see Francis as his contemporaries did. Many thought him quite mad, while others he led to profound conversion. The early Franciscan movement was filled with charismatic and eccentric characters (qualities which have endured in the Order). Francis welcomed everyone who came as  a brother sent by God, and in no time at all there were 500 of them and he had an Order full of problems.                                      In many stories we see him struggling to live a simple Gospel life while thinking about Rules and organization – not his forte. Many had joined without knowing him personally, and did not agree with him or each other. The result was conflict, argument and pain. Francis lived, as near as he could, according to God’s value system, filled with the generous folly of the Cross. Some of the others were tempted to think in terms of clerics, privilege, and a career in the Church. Francis never forgot the One who had nowhere t lay his head.                                                                         We are drawn to Francis by his intimacy with Christ, his gentleness with the vulnerable, his rapport with animals and what his biographer calls his “restoration to original innocence.” We would like to tame wolves, like that of Gubbio which terrorised the town, and those within ourselves as well. When we read the early stories, we are deceived into think it was all fun (and at first it probably was). We are disarmed with his ready dismay at himself – the stories are legion but think of the time he sent the young, aristocratic Rufino to preach naked in the cathedral of Assisi, and of Francis’ quick repentance, going naked into the town to join him. Behind walked his faithful, understanding friend, secretary, confessor and confidant, Bro. Leo, carrying two habits in readiness.                                                                                             So what was young Clare, Rufino’s cousin, thinking when she fled at night to join Francis and his band? No wonder her family were appalled. She compounded this by selling her dowry-land, and some of her sister’s, giving the proceeds to the poor, promising obedience to this unauthorized, unordained ragamuffin and then working (like Francis) as a servant in the nearby Benedictine monastery – all scandalous but irrevocable steps in thirteenth-century Europe. She was the first to share his vision fully, and in the long years after his death she remained a touchstone of authenticity for the early brethren, so that Leo and the others remained close to her and the first Poor Clares, and were present at her deathbed in 1253. How young they were when it all began! For them, Francis was not the fool but the wise man who had sold all he possessed and not only gained the field but the treasure in it.                                                                                                               We cannot begin to plumb the depths of Francis’ depression and despair at the conflict within his Order. We find them embarrassing, unsuited to our image of this joyous saint. Nor do we understand that experience on La Verna from which, two years before his death, he emerged with Christ’s own wounds in his hands, feet and side. Asking to share Christ’s love and Christ’s pain, he entered into deep and terrible darkness. Eventually, this broke into the joy of his Canticle of All Creation. Be praised, my Lord, for our Brother Sun, our sister Moon, Stars, Water, Brother Wind and all creation. It was the first salvo of Italian poetry and the culminating exultation of a life burnt up with love for God. We cannot understand how such glory, pain and greatness could exist in such a little, poor man, one so low that nobody is lower, so simple that we understand his every word.

-         Sr Frances Teresa,

Poor Clare, Arundel, West Sussex.

(The Tablet, 5 February 2000, pg. 165)

 

FRANCIS OF ASSISI

The Saint for all seasons.  Feast day: 4^th.October

The son of Pietro di Bernadone, a wealthy cloth merchant of Assisi, and his wife, Pica, Francis became junior partner in the family business. His youth was marked by high living and a desire for social status. In 1202, in a war between Assisi, in a war between and neighbouring Perugia, Francis was taken prisoner. Released after a year’s confinement, he returned home, but began questioning his former values. He found himself increasingly drawn to a life of penance marked by intense periods of prayer, pilgrimages and almsgiving. Confirmed in these new directions by an encounter with a leper, he began to spend much of his time working among these social outcasts. All this provoked a conflict with his father, which finally reached a high point in 1206. Responding to a divine call to rebuild the ruined chapel of San Damiano, Francis sold some valuable cloth from the family store to raise money for the project. Brought to trial by his father, he renounced his patrimony in a dramatic scene before the bishop of Assisi. Living as a penitent hermit, Francis spent several years caring for lepers and repairing small chapels in the neighbourhood.

Francis of Assisi discovered in poverty a joyous communion with all creatures. Francis’ mystical intuition saw in the precariousness of our existence the loving self-gift of the Creator to which he and his companions responded with joy, wonder, praise and gratitude. They had no possessions and were expected to live lightly on the earth with no desire to dominate or to transform nature. In his “Canticle of the Creatures” about “Brother Sun, Wind and Fire, sister Moon and Stars, and sister Earth our mother who feeds us…”, his loving relationship with earth, wind and water resembles more closely the sentiments of India, China and the North American Indian tradition than the usual European approach to the natural world. The vast ocean or a rain forest or a desert points to the ultimate at the heart of the world which continuously calls us to a deeper communion with the earth and with God. All this makes for an eco-sensitivity within a holistic vision and integrated way of life. The call to love God and neighbor included, in Francis’ mind, all creation a in way that healed the split between God, man and nature. Francis of Assisi, the saint for all seasons, is especially relevant today and so is a felicitous choice as the patron of ecologists.

In the midst of his revelry in the glory and pageantry of earth and sky, of the beasts ad birds and flowers, he was suddenly told that he was going blind and that the remedy might well be worse than the disease – to cauterise his eyes with a red hot iron. The tortures of martyrdom which he envied in the saints and sought vainly in Syria could have been no worse. When they brought the brand close to his face, he rose urbanely and spoke as to a friendly presence: “Brother Fire, God made you beautiful and strong and useful.  Pray you be courteous to me.” As simple as it was bizarre! The simple never take themselves too seriously, are light on their feet and sit easily to their possessions. G.K. Chesterton said, “Angels fly because they take themselves lightly.” Simple is the eye that sees the divine presence in creation and discerns the body of the Lord in the little and weak members of society  -  which is exactly what Francis did when he kissed the hand of the leper. By kissing the hand of a leper he embraced what he hated most, thereby gaining healing for his spirit. “Simple” is such an easy word to use that is has almost become debased currency. Yet it need not mean a sort of holy moron. Rather, it should mean someone who, possibly after great struggle, arrives at a candid unselfconscious security in faith. And this faith cannot fail to communicate itself to others to their enrichment. Like a fragrant charm, simple faith is caught, not taught.

As he once flung himself into battle he flung himself into penance, devouring fasting as a gourmet devours food, and plunging after poverty as prospectors dig madly after gold. And it is precisely the positive and life-giving qualities of this pursuit that is a challenge to the modern self-destructive rush for pleasure. Like Francis, the man of God can delight in created things without being slave to an obsessive compulsion to possess them. He can relish a beautiful painting or a fine house, can enjoy looking at a splendid landscape without feeling that his pleasure is frustrated unless he own them. Even if circumstances prevent his enjoyment of such things, he is secure that his essential human worth and dignity are in no way diminished, that there is no place for vexation and envy and that his life is still worth living. It is to accept with genuine tranquility that the Lord gives and the Lord takes away, or sometimes does not give at all. This is to hang free towards the things of this world, sitting lightly to possessions, delighting in them when they are available, but losing neither peace of mind nor self-esteem when they are not. This is true poverty of spirit, the ultimate freedom. It was precisely because of his asceticism that “in beautiful things he (Francis) saw Beauty itself and through his vestiges imprinted in creation he followed his Beloved everywhere, making from all things a ladder by which he could climb up and embrace Him who is utterly desirable. With a feeling of unprecedented devotion he savoured in each and every creature – as in so many rivulets – that Goodness which is their fountain-source. And he perceived a heavenly harmony in the consonance of powers and activities God has given them, and like the prophet David, sweetly exhorted them to praise the Lord” (St. Bonaventure, Life of St. Francis).

Penance took their toll, so did the wounds of the Passion of Christ that he received during an ecstasy on Mt. LaVerna.  As death drew near, he bid his dearest and oldest friends adieu. At his request they lifted him off his own rude bed and laid him on the bare ground. He touched base, clad only in his hair shirt, his unseeing eyes seeing only more deeply their object and origin and the root of his joy. He died at the Portiuncula on October 3, 1226, aged 45 years. His body today lies sweetly composed in a steel-banded stone casket far above the ground at the Portiuncula in the great church of San Damiano in Assisi, but not before many battles were fought between principalities for custody of his remains. It is ironic that the man who composed the beautiful prayer, “Lord, make me a channel of your peace”, could have been the occasion of wars and bloodshed, albeit sundry and brief.

HUMAN THÉRÈSE

THE HUMAN THÉRÈSE

            Popularly known as the Little Flower, she was born Thérèse Martin in Alencon, France, the youngest of five sisters who became nuns. She entered the Carmelite monastery at Lisieux at the age of 15 and took the name of Thérèse of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face. Told to write the story of her life, she composed an autobiography she said reflected not on what had occurred but on grace at work in the events. She declared she had suffered much, but even in the excruciating darkness of mystic purification she continued to rejoice in the outpouring of divine love for her. Thérèse makes her story a canticle of gratitude to Jesus Christ, whom she sees present with her in every experience. Her teaching shows how the most ordinary existence contains potential for extra-ordinary holiness. Thérèse invites others to follow her “little way” of spiritual childhood, which she describes as an attitude of unlimited hope in God’s merciful love. Her moral option fills the book of the “anawim Yahweh” whose relationship with God is instinct with a placid but bold confidence that owes everything to the divine Giver. It was early on that Thérèse placed all her trust in God. “...but in my case, had not my heart been lifted up to God from its first awakening, had the world smiled at me from the cradle, there is no knowing what I might have become.” And in her last poem she wrote: “O thou who cams’t to smile on me, in the morning of my life, Come, Mother, once again and smile - for lo ! ‘tis eventide.”

NATURAL CHARM               Even though her heart was given to God, it did not lose its natural charm thereby. A paragraph from her diary: “I chose as friends two little girls of my age. But shallow are the hearts of creatures. It happened that for some reason that one of them had to remain at home for several months. While she was away I thought of her very often, and on her return showed great pleasure at seeing her again. All I met with, however, was a glance of indifference  -  my friendship was not appreciated. I felt this very keenly, and I no longer sought an affection  which had proved so inconsistent. Nevertheless, I still love my little friend and I pray for her; God has given me a faithful heart, and when once I love, I love forever. But perfect love can only exist upon earth in the midst of sacrifice. A heart given to God loses none of its natural affection; on the contrary, that affection grows stronger by becoming purer and more spiritual.”

NATURAL SENSITIVITY                 To prove once again that he could make use of people with the frailties that human nature is heir to, God chose Thérèse who herself admitted, “My heart is naturally sensitive and it is precisely because of its capacity for pain that I wish to offer to our Lord every kind of suffering it can bear.” She may well have taken umbrage at Pope Pius X’s description of her as “the greatest saint of modern times”, since she knew well how painful and it times stubborn a process was sainthood. Her mother described the little Thérèse as a “little imp of mischief...One doesn’t know how she will turn out...she is so thoughtless...she has a stubborn streak that is almost invincible.” Capable of violent outbursts of  temper, sensitive, touchy, moody,  a victim of  scrupulosity, she would weep at the slightest affront, and then weep again for having wept ! At the impressionable age of four she had to endure her mother’s death. Childhood’s gay abandon dissolved into withdrawal and introspection, leaving her more timid, scrupulous and sensitive than ever. What Thérèse later called her “conversion”, happened on Christmas Eve, “the night of illumination”, when “our Lord turned my darkness into a flood of light.” In a divine instant her identity received the impress of maturity. By this time Thérèse was 13; yet even at 20 (and at Carmel) she had not lost her sparkle. “She is filled with tricks...a mystic...a comedienne...she can make you shed tears of devotion, and she can just as easily make you split your sides with laughter”, observed her prioress.

FRAILTY and HIDDENNESS                        Sincere awareness of her weakness and an ardent desire to love and be loved were the dual motors of her psycho-spiritual progress.  “I am resigned to see myself always far from perfect, even glad of it.” Natural possessiveness was matched by the reflex to be possessed. “I have flames within me”, she says, “I want to be set on fire with love.” And with the seal of finality her choice fell on someone frail and sensitive, with a great longing to be accepted and loved: Jesus. If flesh is synonymous with frailty, then for Thérèse the Word became weakness, whose persistent refrain she echoed and re-echoed. Like Wordworth’s  “violet by a mossy stone, half-hidden from the eye”, she chose Shakespeare’s “blessedness of being little”, believing her true humanity lay in hiddenness, and it pleased God to keep her inconspicuous even in her own community. How successful she was in this can be gauged from a remark of a community member just a few weeks before Thérèse’s death. “She’s a sweet little Sister, but what will we be able to say about her after her death ? She didn’t do anything.”  Little did that community member realise that within that fragile human frame vibrated a dynamic of articulate mysticism that still electrifies the human spirit and that would merit her the splendid title of  “Doctor of the Church”.  Reading her diaries alone will persuade anyone that she had synthesised a deeply biblical way of living the faith in the full acceptance of human frailty.

                        The exterior life of Jesus and Mary at Nazareth was so run of the mill that the neighbours were scandalised when Jesus announced  his divine mission to them. The supernatural instinct which drew Therese of Lisieux to Nazareth was an authentic one. Here she discovered that she could live the reality of things, could be completely possessed by God, without its showing externally. The life of Jesus and Mary is the living illustration and affirmation of the highest mystical life, with complete detachment from outward appearances, i.e. from all mystical phenomena. The essence of the mystical life is constituted uniquely by God’s possession of the soul, independently of all sensible phenomena which are at best only secondary components. This simplification is a kind of cleansing which leaves the mystical life purer and loftier. God can produce the most profound supernatural changes without any external signs marking his action, for the senses (and the psychological consciousness which registers these things) are very far from the depths where supernatural marvels are effected. They may, however, be perceived in the works of charity and justice.

THE “LITTLE WAY”              There is no such thing as “adult baptism;” all baptisms are children’s baptisms, whatever the age of the recipient, for “unless you become like little children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven”, said Jesus. There is a quality in man that specifies his nature as no other quality does, and that is his capacity to achieve his humanity by surrendering himself unreservedly to God. Jesus realised it on the cross: “Father, into your hands...” Young as she was, Thérèse attained maturity by way of littleness. She had only to be herself  -  weak, fragile, and a little child, to let herself be carried. “I can see that it is enough to recognise one’s littleness”, she said, “and give oneself wholly like a child into the arms of the good God.”

THE TEST                                                       Her “little way”, however, was not without its agonising over “faults” and frets about displeasing God and trying to earn his love. This performance-related meandering lasted three years and a half, when finally a retreat director “launched me full sail upon the waves of confidence and love.” She made the voyage without the perks of miracles, visions or voices. All she had was the staid sacrament of the present moment. “I have frequently noticed that Jesus does not want me to lay up provisions. He nourishes me at each moment with a totally new food. I find it within me without knowing how it is there. I believe it is Jesus himself hidden in the depths of my poor little heart; he is giving me the grace of acting within me, making me think of all he desires me to do at the present moment.” Thérèse’s little way of trustful surrender would not pass muster without the gruelling test that she depicted as the “thickest darkness” that enveloped her especially the last Easter of her life. Her lungs were already invaded by pulmonary tuberculosis. She had coughed up blood  -  the sign in nature of the divine summons, a “distant murmur”, she observed, “which announced the Bridegroom’s arrival.” What she went through from then on could just about be expressed in words carved out of the darkest caverns of her vocabulary. Encased in “heavy fog” that suddenly becomes “more dense”, which not the slightest sliver of heavenly light can pierce. The thickening opaqueness mocks her with the voices of a thousand sinners that death will expose her to ultimate futility  -  “the night of non-existence.”  “I do not want to write any more about it”, since “I fear I might blaspheme.” Her accumulated excellence was being drained into the “black hole” of her “little way.” Pointing to a row of chestnut trees, she said, “Look, do you see the black hole...where we can see nothing; it’s in a similar hole that I am as far as body and soul are concerned.....what darkness. But I am at peace.” Peace in darkness. Can the unaided human spirit attain to this bizarre synthesis ?  “If I had no faith”, Thérèse confessed, “ I would have inflicted death upon myself without a moment’s hesitation. Yet will I trust him.”

AND FINAL SURRENDER               Were faith not the pearl of great price, it could do without testing; and irritants and doubts would help ditch it on the roadside of life’s journey. Thérèse’s doubts were so grave as to make her say, “I don’t believe in eternal life. I think that after life there will be nothing more. Everything has vanished from me.” Yet she clung to the one thing that mattered. “All I have is love.” The last line she ever wrote was, “I go to him with confidence and love.” Suffering and  death revolted her, as they would any human being. Her Lord had recoiled from their prospect, too. But like her Lord she believed here was transforming power and movement  -  the strange, shattering and clarifying experience we call the Paschal mystery. Surrendered brokenness is goodly material for surpassing beauty. Her sister Celine sat by her bed and asked, “What are you doing ?”  “You should try to sleep.”  “I cannot”, replied Thérèse, “I’m praying.”  “What are you saying to Jesus ?”

“Nothing  -  I just love him.”

THE AFTERNOON OF 30 SEPTEMBER 1897                     Thérèse had asked that she might die the death of the crucified Jesus. And it was granted her. On the afternoon of 30 September her temptations against faith were so violent that she was in total darkness. Hours before her death her forehead was crowned with beads of perspiration. She was agitated and begged those around to sprinkle her with holy water. Between gasps and close to despair she said, “How we ought to pray for the agonising !”  At this point, Mother Agnes, seeing her sister in this condition, was bewildered. She knew well that Thérèse was a saint, but this looked to her more like the death of a sinner. She rushed out to an older part of the monastery to a statue of the Sacred Heart, of which she was very fond, and pleaded, “Oh Sacred Heart of Jesus, do not let my sister die in despair.”  This revealing incident helps us understand better the transition from the agony to the ecstasy of the last moment.

                                                Thérèse had forewarned them: “Do not be surprised; I have asked to die the death of Jesus on the cross, when he said, ‘Father, why have you abandoned me ?’”  She entered the horrendous night of Jesus’ forsakenness, when all hell was let loose in the form of diabolical temptations. If St. John of the Cross said that the death of the just is an event of love that carries them away peacefully, it was not the death that Thérèse knew. But her torment only served to burn away the residual dross in the gold of her spirit. Her face suffused with love, with dying lips, Thérèse of Lisieux breathed her deathless whisper:

“My God, I love you.”

ST. THERESE, SINNERS, PRIESTHOOD

ST. THERESE, PRIESTS, and THE PRIESTHOOD

Popularly known as The Little Flower, she was born Thérèse Martin in Alencon, France, the youngest of five sisters who became nuns. She entered the Carmelite monastery at Lisieux, aged 15, and took the name of Thèrése of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face. Under obedience, she wrote her autobiography which she meant to be the story of divine grace in her life. Reading her diaries will persuade anyone that she had synthesised a deeply biblical way of living the faith in the full acceptance of human frailty.

PRAYNG FOR SINNERS

The great St. Teresa of Avila had always maintained the importance of praying for sinners. This was precisely one of the reasons that Carmel had such a fascination for the Little Flower. When she was 14 years old the whole country was talking about the notorious criminal Henri Pranzini who had murdered two women and a girl in the course of a robbery in Paris. As he was unrepentant, Thérèse decided to pray for him. Though she knew she could not save him from the guillotine, she believed she could intercede for his soul. She had a Mass offered for him, prayed fervently that he would repent, and asked God to give her a sign of his conversion. Imagine her joy when she learned that Pranzini had kissed the Crucifix before his execution! She also took this as a divine summons calling her to pray for sinners; even saw it as a confirmation of her vocation. Thérèse called Pranzini her “first child”. She surrendered her feast-day gifts of money as Mass offerings, explaining to her sister Céline, “It’s for my child; he must need it after all he’s done. I mustn’t abandon him now.”

PRAYING FOR PRIESTS

The other great work of Carmel was to pray for priests, something that Thérèse realised during a pilgrimage to Italy. She wrote, “I understood my vocation in Italy, and that’s not going too far in search of such useful knowledge. I lived in the company of many saintly priests for a month and I learned that, though their dignity raises them above the angels, they are nevertheless weak and frail. If holy priests, whom Jesus in the gospel calls ‘the salt of the earth’, show in their conduct their extreme need for prayers, what is to be said of those who are ‘tepid’?” This was not her judgement of priests, since she had always believed that the souls of priests were crystal clear, but she was beginning to understand how prayer for priests was included in the aim of St. Teresa’s reform. Thérèse was probably a little shocked to have her notion of sinless priests shattered, but she put her discovery to good use and reached out in love to them through her prayers.

A CASE IN POINT

Fr. Hyacinthe Loyson, a Carmelite priest, left the Church in 1869. Three years later he married an American widow, and they had a son. Hyacinthe Loyson went so far as to found his own church in 1879. He had once been an outstanding preacher in the world famous Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris, and even after he was excommunicated he continued travelling around France, giving lectures. Much as the media hype is brought to bear on the slightest misdemeanours of priests today, the newspapers gave this “renegade monk” wide coverage. His case was finally brought to Thérèse’s notice when he visited Normandy in 1891. Thérèse unhesitatingly called him “my brother”, seeing him as a child of God in great need of prayer. She offered up her last Holy Communion for him. It was July 19, the feast of St. Hyacinthe in the Carmelite calendar of that time. Thérèse believed that, like Pranzini, Hyacinthe Loyson would be saved. Although Loyson was never formally reconciled to the Church, he died whispering “my sweet Jesus.”

DESIRING THE PRIESTHOOD

Thérèse understood so well the importance of the priests’ mission that it is not surprising she envied them their high privilege. The words in which she makes this avowal are instinct with the lively faith and fervor of a Curé d’Ars. “I feel within me the priestly vocation. O Jesus, how lovingly would I hold you in my hands when, at my word, you would come down from heaven! How I would have loved to give you to souls.” These brief sentences are so vibrant with noble ambition and pure feeling that they cannot but burn themselves into the minds of priests as they recall the “Magnificat” of their day of ordination. If there were a priesthood of desire like that of baptism, St. Thérèse of the Child Jesus would have received it with exultant joy after an arduous preparation. And how splendidly would she have allowed its ideal beauty to shine out in her life. As novice mistress she confided to one of her subjects,  “I believe I shall not live to see the age at which priests are ordained.     I should regret very keenly that I cannot be one.” Acutely ill in July 1897, she told one of her sisters, “The good God is going to take me before I should have reached the age of ordination, had I been able to become a priest.” She was delighted at the thought that St. Barbara had carried the Eucharist to St. Stanislaus Kostka when he was dying. “Why not an angel?” she asked, “Why not a priest? Oh well, we shall see wonderful things in heaven. I imagine that those who on earth longed for the priesthood will enjoy all its privileges in heaven.”

Much as she anticipated the joys of heaven, she was concerned about the priestly mission on earth. Her confinement within the walls of Carmel did not prevent her from sharing in missionary work by her prayers and sacrifices. The joy of her part in evangelisation can be evinced in her poem dedicated to Our Lady of Victories, Queen of Virgins, Apostle and Martyrs:

Mother, thy child with sweet emotion,

Singeth of grateful love to thee.

Thou hast fulfilled my heart’s devotion,

Ever my hope, my strength to be.

By ties of love, of pain, of pleading,

Thou didst unite me evermore

To toils of missionaries, leading

Noblest of lives on foreign shore.

Carmel for me is immolation

For those who forth to conquest go;

Spreading to souls of every nation

Flames that my Jesus cast below.