Rest a while

In his autobiography, Long Walk to Freedom, Nelson Mandela writes about his long years of imprisonment on Robben Island.

He recalls how, one day, he was called to the main office. Mandela had been chosen by the prisoners as their spokesperson.

General Steyn was visiting the island and wanted to know from Mandela whether the prisoners had any complaints.

Badenhorst, the officer in command of the prison, was also present. He was feared and hated by the prisoners.

In a calm, forceful and truthful manner, Mandela informed the visitor of the prisoners’ chief complaints, doing so without bitterness or recrimination.

The general duly noted what Mandela had to say, which amounted to a damning indictment of Badenhorst’s regime.

The following day, Badenhorst approached Mandela and said, “I am leaving the island. I just want to wish you people good luck.”

The remark left Mandela dumbfounded, and he thought about the incident for a long time afterwards. Badenhorst had perhaps been the most callous and barbaric commanding officer they had had on the island.

Yet the incident showed there was another side to his nature. As Mandela concludes: “It goes to show that even the most seemingly cold-blooded have a core of decency, and that if their hearts are touched, they are capable of changing.”

Reflecting on these words, and considering today’s Gospel from St Matthew (18:15–20) — which, in my Bible, follows the heading “Reproving Another Who Sins” — I am left thinking: it may not be so much what you say, but the way in which you say it, that matters.

Lewis Carroll, the English author, wrote a sequel to his much-admired novel Alice in Wonderland.

The sequel, titled Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There, sees Alice walk through a large mirror — the looking glass — only to discover that on the other side, life runs back-to-front.

Examples include:

• Walking away from something brings you closer to it
• Running helps you stay in the same place
• You remember events and feel pain before the cause actually happens
• Cake is shared by passing it around first and cutting it afterwards

To read the poem Jabberwocky, Alice needs to hold the text up to a mirror.

In today’s Gospel (Mt. 16: 21–27), Jesus, I suggest, is daring us to walk through the looking glass — to be audacious, and indeed courageous, enough to live back-to-front.

Jesus says:

“For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit them if they gain the whole world but forfeit their life? Or what will they give in return for their life?”

P.S. Be cautious around full-length mirrors — who knows what might happen!

There is a television programme that airs before the weekday 6pm news bulletin on TV1.

The programme is called The Chase. It’s a quiz show with a difference: four contestants must pit their wits against the Chaser, a ruthless quiz genius determined to stop them winning the cash prize.

On occasion, both the contestant and the Chaser interrupt the quizmaster with an answer before the question has been fully read out. At times, that interruption causes blunders — an incorrect answer that could have been avoided had the contestant simply paused.

Admittedly, today’s Gospel (Mt 16:13–20) is not a quiz. However, it involves asking questions, and it is advantageous to wait until the end before answering.

Jesus first asks: “Who do people say that I am?” Those around him reach back into the history of the Jewish people and respond: John the Baptist, Elijah, Jeremiah and other prophets.

Jesus then turns to those he has lovingly invited into his community and patiently taught — those on whom the future of the mission depends — and asks: “Who do you say that I am?”

It is at this critical moment, between the question and the answer, that Jesus must wonder whether all he has shared with them has taken root.

This same question comes to each of us at some point in our own growth into spiritual maturity: “Who do you say I am?”

Do I, like those early disciples, reach back into my history and offer the answer given to me by my parents or caregivers, my teachers, or a religious leader?

Or do I dare provide an answer from the depths of my own inner self? This answer may well differ from that of those who first nurtured me in faith. However, it will be mine, and my relationship with Jesus will be founded on it.

To arrive at that answer, may I suggest we first need to be still and silent — to hear the whole question before we reply.

The image is a mosaic of the face of Jesus, constructed from a collage of many faces.

Today in our Church we celebrate the feast day known as the Assumption. It is a Catholic dogma that Mary, at the end of her earthly life, was taken body and soul into heaven.

While believed down the ages, this dogma was defined by Pope Pius XII on 1 November 1950 in his apostolic constitution “Munificentissimus Deus”.

Some readers of this page may be older than the formal declaration of the dogma.

Many people read this dogma as saying Mary never died. The dogma does not say this.

Orthodox spirituality has another name for this feast day: the Dormition of the Most Holy Theotokos. Literally, “the falling asleep of the Mother of God”.

The Musée de Cluny (‘Cluny Museum – National Museum of the Middle Ages’), in Paris, is a museum dedicated to the art of the Middle Ages.

One of its collection pieces is a 10th- to early 11th-century ivory plaque of the Dormition of the Virgin, apparently originating in what was then Constantinople (today known as Istanbul, Turkey).

The plaque shows the apostles gathered around a funeral bier. The Virgin Mary lies on the bier.

There is a sadness in the faces of the apostles.

One clings dearly to the feet of the Virgin – how often do we witness a similar scene at funerals? Family members gather around a casket, some with their hands touching the lid or sides.

Another of the apostles swings an incense burner – again, an action all too familiar from our own funeral rituals.

Did Mary die? Does it matter?