Rest a while

This Sunday is designated as Good Shepherd Sunday and begins what is known as Vocations Week (May 11 – 17)

Shortly after he entered the Trappists, Thomas Merton wrote the story of his conversion and journey to a monastery in a book, Seven Story Mountain. It became a best seller that, among other things, caught the romantic imagination of his generation.

For years afterwards, Trappist monasteries were flooded with applications, not all for the right reasons of course, but many men did become good monks because of a romantic ideal that Merton’s story triggered.

Perhaps, the absence of this kind of romantic ideal is one of the main reasons why today, in the Western world, fewer men and women are responding to the call to priesthood and religious life.

We need again an ideal for priesthood and religious life that people can fall in love with, something that inflames the romantic imagination.

I sense that is absent today.

Our very sophistication, it seems, is killing us.

We are openly cautious, and at times cynical about these vocations.

No surprise we get few takers. “No romantic illusions allowed!” seems to be the catchphrase.

If we applied that criterion to marriage there would be few takers there as well.

I very much like an expression used by Marriage Encounter groups: “Love is a decision!” they say. They’re right. We can, and often do, make commitments out of naiveté, lack of opportunity, or romantic feelings, but we won’t sustain them long-term unless, at some point, we re-choose them in a new and purer way.

Maturity comes with that. We’re mature only when we choose to love, serve, obey and give over ourselves to someone or something because we accept that this is the right thing to do, irrespective of how we feel about it on a given day or what more attractive options might beckon.

But – that’s not true initially. First you have to fall in love. Every romantic, mystic or poet knows that. Married folks too know it. Granted, at some point after the honeymoon, love has to become a decision, but that’s not what initially brings you to marriage. First you fall in love. “All miracles begin with falling in love,” writes the Australian novelist Morris West. Most life-long commitments begin in the same way.

Maybe we need to put the romance back into priestly and religious vocations!
Vocations ought never be a numbers game, rather it is a question of attentive listening.

One of the facts that persons seem to dismiss from the equation is quite simply, “there are fewer persons to hear the call!” The average number of people per New Zealand household is 2.7 people, which has remained unchanged since 2006.

The word “vocation” is a descendant of Latin vocatio, meaning “summons.” Vocatio, in turn, comes from vocare, meaning “to call,” which itself is from vox, meaning “voice”.

Maybe, this “Vocations Sunday” we dare listen to the ‘voice’, calling – it may be that ‘voice’ is calling us to an entirely new way of being Church!

In early Christian art St. Peter was always portrayed with a rooster beside him.

A very early example sits in The Museo Pio Cristiano in the Vatican. The museum features a collection of early Christian sarcophagi, which were coffins or tombs used for burial, often adorned with Christian imagery and scenes.

One such display shows the front of a double-register stone sarcophagus dated around 300 – 325.

On the relief Jesus is pictured as a young man without a beard. He is handing Peter the scroll that represents his authority as a teacher, an allusion to his charge to Peter after the resurrection: “feed my sheep” (John 21:17).

At the feet of both Jesus and Peter stands a rooster; the reality of Peter’s denial of knowing Jesus (John 13:38, 18: 25 – 27).

The juxtaposition of each occasion is very evident.

Jesus is handing to the one who denied knowing him the responsibility of leadership.

The idea that “opposites attract” has roots in both ancient philosophical thought and modern psychology.

As Christians this was most graphically experienced for us in our Easter liturgies.

We read the story of Jesus’ Passion and Death, and twice we heard read that Jesus hung between two thieves.

And, we have given names to each of them: we have called one, ‘The Good Thief’ and one ‘The Bad Thief’.

Jesus has his arms outstretched between the two; is he, perhaps, attempting to bring the two together?

The act of crucifixion is after all an act of reconciliation!

Do I allow Jesus to hang between the “good” me and the “bad” me?

Do I allow the act of reconciliation take place within me?

The bishop of Hippo, St Augustine (354 – 430) reminds us, “This is the very perfection of a person, to find out our own imperfections.”

 

 

Our week began with news of the death of Jorge Mario Bergoglio, known to us as Pope Francis.

I had just seen, on the television news, the Pope being driven through the gathered crowds in St Peter’s Square.

He did not look at all well.

At one point, the vehicle stopped, and a small child was presented to Pope Francis.

Raising his left hand towards the crying boy, this is the moment Pope Francis gave his last public blessing as he drove through St Peter’s Square for the last time.

Footage of the brief exchange is now deeply poignant following the pontiff’s death.

That is the last image and memory of the Pope alive.

The aged blessing the new, somewhat as a relay runner handing over a baton, “It is your turn now!”

Other memories I have include: Barely two weeks after his election, at the Chrism Mass in March 2013, Pope Francis told the gathered clergy to take on “the smell of the sheep”, being pastors close to the people, rather than administrators governing from a stale, cold office.

On his return flight from his visit to Brazil in 2013, Pope Francis raised eyebrows when, in a response to a question on homosexual clergy, he said, “If someone is gay and he searches for the Lord and has good will, who am I to judge?”

For many, it was a shocking statement from the leader of a global institution still largely considered to be homophobic by significant portions of society, and where many homosexual individuals have struggled to find welcome and acceptance.

Another image I have is of Pope Francis as he twirls a soccer ball he was presented by a member of the Circus of Cuba, during his weekly general audience at beginning of 2019.

The smile on the Pope’s face is one of sheer delight.

Another memory I have of Pope Francis is his image of the Church as a “field hospital”. “The thing the Church needs most today is the ability to heal wounds and to warm the of the faithful hearts; it needs nearness, proximity.”

This may provide us with the Pope’s entire vision for the Church’s and its pastors’ role in the world.

As recently as Holy Thursday last year, the pope celebrated the evening Mass of the Lord’s Supper at Rome’s Rebibbia Prison.

The Pope poured water over the feet of 12 women inmates, dried them with a towel and kissed their feet.

The pope, who had difficulty walking, washed their feet while seated in his wheelchair.

Today we celebrate Divine Mercy Sunday. As we remember Pope Francis, may we” live this day compassionate of heart, clear in word, gracious in awareness, courageous in thought and generous in love.” (John O’Donohue)

The common Western image of the Resurrection shows Christ as a triumphant yet singular figure.

This figure is surrounded by bright light, is sometimes semi-naked, and dressed in white.

If other humans are present at all, it is often as guards lying asleep by the tomb or in some way falling away from and shielding their eyes from the spectacle.

In Western Christian iconography, Christ is ‘going up’.

An example is a triptych painting of The Resurrection of Christ, which Peter Paul Rubens completed between 1611 and 1612 and is currently housed in the Cathedral of Our Lady in Antwerp.

The iconography of the Eastern (Orthodox) church has Christ ‘going down.’

The familiar Eastern icon of the anastasis shows Christ breaching the gates of hell, generally with two long, broken gates lying in the shape of a cross and a personified Hades or Satan lying conquered under his feet.

The key element in this icon is Christ firmly grasping Adam and Eve’s wrists and pulling them up toward him.

As Jesus is risen, so are those fundamental flaws that hold us bound.

The Resurrection of Jesus is not a singular event, and its sole focus is on the person of Jesus. Instead, it is an ‘us’ event, as we pray:

Dying you destroyed our death,
Rising you restored our life,
Lord Jesus, come in glory.

Take note as you pray the Apostles Creed next time. We pray, “He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died and was buried; he descended into hell; on the third day he rose again from the dead . . .”