Rest a while

The name Andrew Lloyd Webber is synonymous with musical sensations such as Evita, The Phantom of the Opera, Jesus Christ Superstar, Cats, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.

One of his lesser-known stage musicals is titled “Aspects of Love”. The musical is based on the 1955 novel by the British author David Garnett.

The musical is not as well known as other “mega” productions of Lloyd Webber, however, there is a notable song from the musical that fits with today’s Gospel theme of love: the song is titled ‘Love Changes Everything’

As I write these words the USA and Russia are meeting Saudi Arabia to consider, as The Guardian newspaper highlights, “to explore mutual opportunities to end the war in Ukraine.”

How genuine these talks are is yet to be determined, however, if these talks begin in a spirit of mutual love then perhaps “love might well change everything/everyone.”

Love, love changes everything
Hands and faces, earth and sky
Love, love changes everything
How you live and how you die

Love can make the summer fly
Or a night seem like a lifetime
Yes, love, love changes everything
How I tremble at your name
Nothing in the world will ever be the same

Love, love changes everything
Days are longer, words mean more
Love, love changes everything
Pain is deeper than before

Love will turn your world around
And that world will last forever
Yes, love, love changes everything
Brings you glory, brings you shame

Nothing in the world will ever be the same

Off into the world we go
Planning futures, shaping years
Love bursts in, and suddenly
All our wisdom disappears

Love makes fools of everyone
All the rules we make are broken
Yes, love, love changes everyone
Live or perish in its flame
Love will never, never let you be the same
Love will never, never let you be the same

My first ministry appointment as priest was to the parish of the Sacred Heart in Hastings, Hawkes Bay.

I was a young and relatively fit young man.

I regularly rode my bike from Hastings to Havelock North (some 5km) and swam in a heated pool.

Swimming up and down the pool on a Tuesday morning was difficult.

Tuesday mornings belonged to young mothers and their preschool children.

Hopeless for an energetic young man and his quest for fitness.

Superb for a young man learning about his God!

The young mothers stood in the pool near the edge. Then, with a clap of the hands and a call of the child’s name, the mother extended her arms and PLOP!

The young child would jump off the edge towards their mother and land in the water!

The child’s initiative to jump came from the reassuring call of the mother, “Come to Mummy!”

The child knew that voice and could trust that voice. The voice was reassuring.

In today’s First Reading from the prophet Jeremiah, we hear,

“Blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord,

whose hope is the Lord.

They are like a tree planted beside the waters

that stretches out its roots to the stream:

it fears not the heat when it comes;

its leaves stay green;

in the year of drought, it shows no distress,

but still bears fruit.” (vv 7,8)

Whom shall I send? Here I am, send me!” (Is. 6:8)

Among the many books written by Henri Nouwen (1932-1996), one stands out as an enduring little classic, The Wounded Healer.

For those who knew him, this book is especially powerful because, without expressly intending to, it describes so well the man himself.

It was because of his own wounds that he was able to touch the lives of so many people. “By his wounds we have been healed,” St Peter wrote of Jesus (1 Peter 2:24).

From Nouwen, again, from his book Out of Solitude: “When we honestly ask ourselves which persons in our lives mean the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving much advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a gentle and tender hand.

“The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not-knowing, not-curing, not-healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is the friend who cares….

“By the honest recognition and confession of our human sameness we can participate in the care of God who came, not to the powerful but powerless, not to be different but the same, not to take our pain away but to share it.

“Through this participation we can open our hearts to each other and form a new community.”

In the first reading at today’s Mass, God’s call made Isaiah aware of his own weakness and unworthiness, exactly as Jesus’ call to Peter made Peter blurt out, “Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!”

If, as Christians, we do not carry the precious knowledge of our own weakness and sinfulness, then all our attempts to help another are nothing but an ego-trip:

• • by ‘helping’ you they are feeding on your strength and making you weak.
  • by ‘loving’ you they are seeking ways to snare you and make you dependent on them.
  • by ‘caring’ for you they are preening their own image.

“Go away from me, Lord, for I am sinful,” – that is how you can be of best use to me, replies my God.

The Dutch artist Rembrandt van Rijn painted today’s Gospel story at least twice, in 1631 and in 1669.

As well there are numerous pencil sketches.

The difference between Rembrandt’s most well-known paintings of this event in the life of the person of Jesus, may well illustrate something of the journey of a spiritual person.

Simeon’s Song of Praise, 1631, is housed at the Mauritshuis, The Hague.

To say the painting is busy is stating it mildly.

Nearly two dozen other figures line the background, looking on.

Here young Rembrandt shows what he’s capable of. Your eye could spend an hour touring the canvas, and you still wouldn’t see all that’s there.

The young, 25-year-old Rembrandt is out to show off his skills.

The second painting, painted thirty-eight years later in 1669, the year of Rembrandt’s death, is very different.

This painting was found on the easel in his studio at the time of his death. Rembrandt was 63.

Gone are the crowds looking on.

Gone are the columns, and filigree, and architecture.

Gone is the brilliant beam of light.

The crisp brushwork of a steady young hand has given way to the shaky, mottled, impressions of the old master’s touch.
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The aged Rembrandt is content to deliver warmth over detail, individuals over a crowd, and simplicity over grandeur.

Might that well be the recipe for our own Christian journey? to deliver “warmth over detail, individuals over a crowd, and simplicity over grandeur. “