WHY ME?

A friend’s 40th birthday has caused me to reflect on what was happening in my life 40 years ago and led me to ask “Why have I been given so much?” in October 1975, I was just 37 and a month into a new teaching post. That in itself seems, and in many ways was, unremarkable. For me, however, it was a Resurrection experience, although, to my shame, I did not recognise it as such at the time. I had been officially unemployed for 5 months, prior to taking up this post, but I had not worked since having a breakdown half way through my first term at my last school. The previous eleven months had, therefore, been very dark, even darker, perhaps, than the previous 7 years during which I had felt so lost. During those eleven months, I had all but given up hope.

I had started to look for work when my previous contract expired. It was a time when teaching posts were scarce, and I would have taken almost anything as long it was work. I went through what so many others were and are still experiencing. I submitted applications and received no replies. I could still be on the books of one Catholic school where, when I visited, I was told they would be in touch. I am still waiting.

It must have been in June that I was interviewed for a post which seemed like a last ditch stand. I was highly unsuitable for it and, inevitably, was turned down. On the evening of the same day, a school friend phoned to ask how I had fared. When I told her she said: “The Blind School is looking for an RE Teacher”. RE was my speciality. Next day I telephoned St Vincent’s, and, not only did it need an RE teacher for September, it also needed someone to teach French. I could do both. I had an informal interview with the headmistress to whom I told the whole story of what had happened at my last school, which was largely connected to the way the head teacher operated. Not wishing to besmirch this person’s character, I had not been able to speak of this before, but Sr Clare knew the woman in question and understood. After a tour of the school, I really wanted to work there. Sr Clare spoke to people who knew me warts and all and I was taken on in a six month trial. I retired from that school twenty years later.

Although it would be another five years before my life and I clearly began to change, this event, I believe, made that change possible and I can not but believe, also, that the hand of God was in it. In 1980, I was reciting the canticle from Deuteronomy 32, vv 10-12. (I have changed the masculine pronouns.) “In a desert land God found her, in a barren and howling waste. He shielded her and cared for her; he guarded her as the apple of God’s eye, like an eagle that stirs up its nest an hovers over its young, that spread its wings to catch them, and carries them on its pinions. The Lord alone led her; no foreign god was with her.” Those words must have resonated with something deep inside me that I had not named until then. The Word Of God penetrated me and touched my experience and, after far too many years not really believing it, I knew that God did, indeed, love me.

As I write and remember these events, I am embarrassed. How could I have continued to doubt God’s love after the hand of God being so clearly there in 1975? I’m afraid I simply did not make the connection. These days I can see that hand in so many things which have happened in my life which have saved me in so many ways. It always comes quietly. It doesn’t make a fuss. I am aware of other people, loved by God every bit as much as I am, but who still seem trapped in the way I used to be. Why has God freed me?

In my 30s and into my early 40s, I would run around listening to, reading the books of and even meeting many spiritual gurus. I’m sure these experiences were not wasted, but God truly is in the gentle breeze, in the ordinary. I don’t have to go anywhere or do anything special to be touched by God. I certainly can’t take pride in anything which has happened in my life. It has all been pure gift even, I now recognise the deeply dark times when I nearly gave up. They have helped me to appreciate the light and the how gratuitous is God’s love and protection. By experiencing my own nothingness and powerlessness, I have met the greatness of God.

TO ARRIVE WHERE WE STARTED I

I have recently been re-united with an old love. To be more accurate, I have been paying more attention to this love, which has never left me and rediscovering how much I can learn from it. In my childhood home there was a book which I read and re-read before I was 11 years old. It was a big book, with a green leather binding. I was both fascinated and inspired by the story it told although, at that  age, I was  unable to understand why it spoke to me so powerfully. Starting grammar school and moving  into adolescence, I entered a world of pseudo-sophistication. I must have heard my peers dismissing the author of my book as being sentimental and, desperate to be accepted, I set her aside. As I reflect on my early life, however,  I recognise that  in reading the autobiography of St Therese of Lisieux, “The Story of a Soul”, I was uncovering my deepest desires. They were further stirred by Romans 11:33-35,  which was printed in my rudimentary missal, for me to enjoy while the epistle for the day was proclaimed, by the priest, in Latin. To this day, I experience a thrill when I hear those verses.

Only today, has it occurred to me that in these writings, God was acting to counter the harsh image of a God who was likely to send me to hell, inculcated in school, at the age of 6. So often, I have often wondered how I could I have had a longing for a God who seemed to forbidding, so impossible to please. The kindness of God, however, can creep in so gently and unobtrusively into even seemingly intractable situations.

As a college student,  the poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins, studied under the guidance of an inspirational teacher, stirred me powerfully, and  played an important role in my decision to enter religious life. While I was a novice, I became re-acquainted with Therese. Not believing I had much else to offer, I was drawn to her example of fidelity in little things. In hindsight, I see that, although this is, indeed, a practice to be cultivated,  for me it became yet another expression of the striving for perfection which has resulted from my false image of God. Sadly, in 1960s religious circles, there were all too many traces of the Jansenism and Pelagianism,  dominating the French culture in which Therese was raised. Without her mature insight,  I, unfortunateley, did not recognise that, in her writings, was the key to freedom from my misconceptions.

Setting oneself unobtainable goals, and nothing is more unobtainable than spiritual perfection, is a recipe for disaster. In my case, it was at least a contributory factor in the  deepening depression which led to my leaving religious life. Therese was not alone in disappearing from my consciousness during the several years which followed. As St Julie Billiart once said of herself, ‘I (was) like a little blind woman stumbling around with my hand in the hand of the Good God”. I however, although I am sure God’s hand was always in mine,  and I never lost my faith, could not feel it. In his teaching about the true and false self, Richard Rohr says we need our False Self in the earlier part of our lives. Again, I am aware that God used mine to help me to survive those years. I am truly amazed, as I remember them, at how I coped, and I recognise that God always gave me enough grace to take the next step. That pattern of being given enough is so clear in my life, and I try to remember it when difficulties surface in the present.

Coming back to Therese: of all things, it was the Enneagram which first made me aware of her again. Recognising that we are the same type, I was amazed at how she, without the benefit of the guidance of anyone, or anything, other than the Holy Spirit, realised what she needed to do to overcome her compulsions. This was a young woman with only an elementary education, who had led a very sheltered existence and died aged 24. Nonetheless, she was declared a Doctor of the Church. How God can use the most unpromising material!

It was, however, Franciscan Richard Rohr who truly woke me up to what Carmelite Therese Martin has to teach me. (He claims that Therese was a Franciscan, although she did not know it.) Fr Richard’s own reflections on Therese excited me, but he also drew attention to the writings of a  De La Salle brother, Joe Schmidt, which have truly woken me up. Reading Schmidt’s book, “Walking The Little Way of Therese of Lisieux”, has been a truly profound experience. This blog is probably too long already, and I will need to write a second installment. For now, it must suffice to say that God has, again, been guiding and surprising me and very clearly illustrating the truth of the words of T.S. Eliot: “We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of our exploring will be to arrive where we started, and know that place for the first time.”

BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU TAKE PRIDE IN

An inevitable consequence of growing older, is that more people I know and love age too, and, eventually, die. As an aside, I insist on using the D word, and strongly dislike the current custom of using euphemisms such as “pass away”. I can understand this being used by non-believers, for whom death is the end, but am baffled as to why Christians, who believe that it is the gateway to full union with God, appear frightened of the word.

I was struck, a few years ago, when a dear friend became incapacitated by a series of strokes, by how her illness had struck at so many of the things she held dear. Bede was a religious sister, a former nurse, who had lived for many years with a lady who had been disabled by a car accident. Bede, herself a survivor of breast cancer,  was a strong, competent woman who used her many gifts in supporting her closest friend and together they reached out to many others who were in need.

Independence was the first loss. She who had been so busy visiting, giving lifts, and thinking up solutions for people she knew – and many she didn’t know – found herself at the receiving end of the kindness of others. She did not like this. On one of the occasions when I called to take her to Mass, she said: “You are so good to do this.”. When I reminded her that she would do the same for me, she replied: “I know, but I hate having the tables turned.”.

Speech loss was Bede’s next affliction. A great communicator could no longer make herself understood verbally and, not long after, she became unable to walk. Her religious congregation then delivered what was perhaps the biggest blow of all by having her moved to its care home at the other end of the country. Bede had once told me that she would die if she had to leave Liverpool; a statement which alarmed me. Now, not only had she left Liverpool but, with no ability to speak, she was even unable to pick up a telephone to have a conversation with those she had left behind and whom she missed so much.

It was when I visited her, not long before her death, that I began to ponder on the importance of letting go of attachments before they are taken from us. For the last month, I have been participating in an online course run by Richard Rohr’s Center For Action and Contemplation in New Mexico. The course is based on Rohr’s latest book, “Immortal Diamond, in which he explores the search for our True Self. In the spirit of one of his other favourite themes, non-dual thinking, I have found that praying the various writings, talks and exercises, is another way of experiencing the spirituality of St Ignatius Loyola. The terminology is different but, as Fr Richard says, if something is true, it is true all the time and everywhere.

I have, of course, been facing my own False Self during these weeks. I had already admitted to identifying with roles when I was no longer able to continue as a spiritual director and retreat giver. A lengthy grieving process was necessary. Recently, the friend in whose care I became increasingly involved over a period of years, had been admitted to a retirement home. While I can and do still visit regularly, the help I can provide is severely limited. Another role has gone, and I recognise how important it was to me. My friend is, herself, having a very painful time as she sheds the identifying factors of 100 years. Such is her attractive personality, that she has always been beloved of everybody and the centre of attention. She has been spoiled. For her to accept being one of a number of people who need care, attention and consideration is very difficult. Claiming that “These other people won’t find it as hard as I do” is one of her ways of continuing to feel special.  Ordinary mortals can thank God for  not having been used to special treatment.

Our only True Self is that of being a daughter or son of God. Our only dignity springs from God’s presence within us. Only when we have died to our False Selves, the ego-self which takes pride in those things to which we cling in order to feel good about ourselves, the things we feel we can attribute to ourselves: only when we are content to be simply a son or daughter of God, at one with everyone else who shares the same dignity, will we be able to enjoy the full Presence of God and need to die no more

 

Let Him Easter In Us

---

I am usually very much in agreement with what I read from the American Jesuit James Martin. I was, therefore, full of self doubt when I didn’t feel quite at home with his story of a time he was at a retreat house at Easter time when the flat, cheerless proclamation of the triple alleluia, elicited an equally unenthusiastic response from the resident community of sisters. I understood, of course, the point he was making. Easter is a time of joy but at this, and at other times, Christians can present a face to the world which seems to deny their faith in this most central doctrine. Nevertheless, I was uncomfortable with the criticism of this poor man.

I didn’t have to wonder why I reacted in this way. I seldom experience joy as soon as Easter is upon us. This year, I went through the entire Easter Vigil feeling tired and unmoved by what we were celebrating. I did sing out lustily at the required times and I meant what I was doing, but I did not feel joyful. Once again, I felt inadequate. How can I be so uninspired? What is wrong with me? I knew that, as so often, I had to spend time, how much time I did not know, simply being at the empty tomb and waiting. Waiting makes me anxious. If I’m waiting for a parcel to be delivered, I worry that it won’t come. If I’m waiting for a person, my anxiety is about whether she or he will turn up. If I’m waiting for an outcome, a result, a happening, I am full of doubts and everything which can go wrong swirls around in my mind. There is nothing simple about my simply waiting at the empty tomb, although this year it didn’t feel too bad.

Jesus kept me waiting until Thursday. Today, as i was reflecting on my Easter week, I was aware of how different the Resurrection was for each of the disciples. Having the appearance to Thomas as the Gospel for the Sunday after Easter is, I feel, highlighting this fact. Poor Thomas, his doubts were not so different from that of the others, who didn’t believe until they saw, either. It’s all part of the fact that God treats us as individuals. He doesn’t expect me to react in the same way as you do. Because Peter jumped in the water in John 21 and reached Jesus first, doesn’t mean he loved him any more than the others, who took responsibility for bringing in the boat and the fish.

It occurs to me, too, that God knows we can’t turn on our emotions. It would be unreasonable to suppose that, because we are presented with a Resurrection liturgy on the evening of the day following Jesus’s death, everyone will be ready to enter into its meaning on an emotional level. The title of this piece is taken from a poem of Gerard Manley Hopkins and, in it, the word “Easter” is a verb. It reminds me of a long, slow sunrise. Easter, like the sun, does not appear suddenly. It takes it time to reach its fullness, to infiltrate its warmth, to fill us with its healing. Maybe the priest with the joyless alleluias was depressed. Maybe he wished he could be joyful but was not able to summon it up. Maybe we all need to pray that the Risen Jesus who, according to St Ignatius, comes to us “in the office of consoler”, will touch all who struggle as did that priest with his healing joy.

WHERE DO I STAND?

The most meaningful Good Friday veneration of the Cross I have experienced, took place in the context of a Holy Week retreat for young adults, at Loyola Hall Jesuit retreat centre, near Liverpool. The other parts of the liturgy had taken place at various venues inside the building and out in the grounds. Retreatants, team and community processed into the chapel to find the cross before the altar, and an empty space where the benches had been. Strategically placed small group were singing simple chants representing the position various characters would have taken up as Jesus hung on the Cross: Peter, who had denied coming as close as he dared; the faithful women who stood close; the Mary’s and John who were in contact; Judas, who had betrayed, fearing to seek forgiveness; anonymous people who wanted to be there but watched from afar……

As the participants entered, they listened to each chant and then joined whichever group to which they felt drawn. There followed a time when we could all reflect on the where we had chosen to stand and know that, wherever we were, we were accepted, loved, forgiven.

This year, I am setting of on Holy Week with a sense of confusion? paradox? I don’t quite know how to name it. I certainly don’t know where I am standing: if I am standing at all. As I finished my stint of caring for my now frail friend last week, I realised I had reached a full stop. The past weeks have been tough, very tough. So much has changed, so quickly. We who care for Lil now approach our visits with great apprehension. We never know what awaits us. The future is uncertain. Is she still safe living alone? I am fortunate that I don’t have to make that decision, but it is heartbreaking to watch and listen as this once strong, bright woman, who has influenced so many lives, recognises her helplessness and lack of control over what happens to her. Until last week, despite the fact that I was in pain from a fractured vertebra following a fall, I had not managed badly. However, we all have our limits and I had come to a point where I had to have a break.

So, here I am. It’s the start of Holy Week. I read about forgetting oneself and reaching out to others, but I am trying to rest. I watch Mary anointing Jesus’s feet and tell him I want someone to anoint mine. And I know he is all right with that. He, the man for others par excellence, had to allow others to minister to him. There are times when all we have to offer is our weakness and he is glad to receive it. This may not be the Holy Week I would choose but maybe it has been chosen for me. There are so many ways God is speaking through my situation. All that he asks is that I listen and know that wherever I stand, I am loved.

FROM MUDDLE TO MYSTERY

My weakness can be a source of great grace. It has become almost second nature for me to look into myself whenever I criticise or judge someone else but it hasn’t kept at bay the critical thoughts. This last week, I found myself feeling angry towards a friend because of her jealous resentment towards her sister. Almost immediately, I was reminded of how resentful I can become towards people with no justification. I can stand back and view the situation objectively, know I am being unreasonable, but the feeling will persist. I prayed for my friend and for myself that I would have more compassion on us both.

On another occasion, I had been desperately trying to calm someone who was acutely anxious and becoming extremely confused as a result. As soon as I left her and became aware of the agitation I was experiencing, I realised my approach had not been helpful. I was asking someone else to do what I know to be impossible. We can’t switch off our feelings.

These incidents coincided with the Synod on Family Life in Rome. I have been following the reports issuing forth from various sources. From being heartened by speeches delivered early on, because I agreed with them, I became a little dismayed by some later presentations, with which I felt less comfortable. I have been avoiding reading the comments on articles appearing in social media because, all too often, they become nasty and disturb me. Not too long ago, I broke my resolution not to respond myself because I found an article grossly unjust. The only good which ensued from that incident was to remind me why I made the resolution in the first place. However, I did peek at the comments after the report of the couple who spoke in favour of natural family planning, one of which complained at the inclusion of people holding these views as members of the Synod.

This complaint caused me to stop, to think. Our Church is comprised of people with vastly different backgrounds, experiences, and points of view. Would it be any more right, and in line with the Gospel, to hold a meeting as important as this one whose contributors only represented one way of looking at the matters in hand? Those who see issues of marriage,family life and sexuality differently from me are members of the Church, too, and as entitled to have their views heard as I am. I have said that it would be good if some members of the hierarchy would at least consider that their view may be wrong. By the same token, I have to be as open to my own opinions beings mistaken. The outcomes of the Synod, and the one which follows, will delight some and disappoint others within the Church. Would a knee-jerk reaction of a mass exodus of the disappointed benefit any of us?

This morning, I took these issues into my prayer. I had a strong sense of fallible human beings groping around for the truth. I even asked if this groping around for the truth is what we call Theology. Most of all, I had a sense of the deep mystery of God, whose depths we can never hope to understand. Holding myself before that mystery, which holds the answers to all our questions, which accompanies us as we muddle along in our searching and which is big enough to encompass in love each one of us with our vast spectrum of different views, I knew Who is in charge and prayed that God’s kingdom would be served and God’s will be done, although I daresay I still hope God will agree with me.

THE FEARS WE HIDE

Why would that make you fearful? If only i knew. It wasn’t as if anything truly terrible was likely to happen, and I was aware of that. Nevertheless, I felt afraid, or, at best, acutely anxious; so anxious that last night I felt physically sick. Part of the anxiety lay in my indecision. Would I go, or would I be better avoiding the stress and having another quiet day at home? I worked out the timing of the journey and was all prepared, but still the worry wormed around inside me.

This is a truth about me about which I have not spoken before. I find it embarrassing. I know people won’t comprehend what it is about, so I hide it beneath all manner of subterfuge. I have been fearful for as long as I can remember. As a child I used to look out of my window many times before I went to sleep because I thought the house was on fire. I have never been a social sort of person. Part of my make up is that I feel an outsider. In my teens, I was more than happy to have a very confident friend who would dive in to social situations, enabling me to hang back. Mind you, she did once “blackmail” me into going to a dance, much against my better judgement and had to apologise when she realised how miserable I was while there.

The first time, however, that I remember being overcome by the sort of social phobia
from which I suffer today, and which caused this recent crisis, was when I was 30 and taking a course training me to be a Child Care Officer. The academic work was great but I had not reckoned with how I would cope with the practical placements. I was sent to visit a family and I froze. I took the train to the where the family lived and I felt complete paralysis. When I went back into college, I told my tutor I couldn’t find the address. That was the beginning of the end for what I thought would be my new career.

By the grace of God, things have improved more than I could ever have hoped at that time. Those who know me have no idea what I goes on in the parts of me they can not see. I cope with life fairly well, but events keep popping up which still reduce me to being like a frightened child. Today I was due to go somewhere which, objectively, was completely unthreatening. Yet, for some reason, it became threatening to me and I could not face it.

I decided to write about a matter I have previously shared only with God in the hope that, bringing it out into the light, I may see it more clearly. I am fearful of publishing this blog because of how it may be received but feel I need to be honest
about this part of who I am.

Joy In The Ordinary.

There was nothing unusual about today’s car journey. It is one I make most Tuesdays to srock up on certain groceries. Yet it felt special. The truly fresh air coming in the open window was a treat after the weeks of a warmth which saps what little energy I have. I felt more alive than I have for a long time. As I turned a corner, I felt a surge of pure delight as I saw the thick carpet of bronze and copper coloured leaves hiding the grey of the pavement. It hadn’t been there the last time I took that road. The carpet stretched all along my route to the retail park. I felt a very particular joy as I passed near my childhood home and remembered walking to school and kicking up the leaves as I went.

I live in a city but beauty is not confined to more rural settings. I returned by a different way which included passing through he largest of our many beautiful public parks. That sparked a memory of hearing a teacher who had taken her class of very young inner city children to such a place and telling how one of them had exclaimed: “Sister, it’s like walking on cornflakes.” Remembering that child who had never before experienced autumn leaves and later hearing my much older friend telling of how, when she was at school she had been asked to take in a leaf, but didn’t know where she could find one in the urban setting around her home, I gave thanks, as I so often do, for having grown up surrounded by parks, woods, trees and green spaces. I give thanks, too for the beautiful places in which I have lived since.

TITLES

I have an aversion to titles. It seems to me that, in the UK, we are more obsessed with them than ever. Nowadays, anybody who succeeds in sport, the theatre, entertainment, literature, pop music is likely to be given a title and it appears to be a major social gaffe not to use that title when referring to them. If a television presenter dares to say Cliif Richard, or Kelly Holmes, he or she will be reminded that it is Sir Cliff, Dame Kelly. Why? The nation knew these people before they received their titles and still refers to them in their unadorned state. On game shows and quizzes featuring celebrities, they contestants will be mainly addressed as e.g. Mary Smith, Johnny Jones but then we have Dr Chris (this can be a PhD or a medical doctor), Professor Esmerelda, or Sir Algernon. Why?

I am an egalitarian. I believe we are all of equal value in the sight of God and that is good enough for me. The practice of adding a title before a name implies that the bearer of the title is superior to the rest. If some are to have their names preceded by a title, would it not be more respectful to afford the same courtesy to all? There was a time when quiz contestants were addressed as Mr, Mrs or Miss. As that custom has declined the use of more unusual titles has increased – or maybe there are simply more of these titles around.

Religious circles are not untainted by this trend. The letters to the Catholic journal “The Tablet”, often show names precede by Rev Dr, or Rev Professor or Dr and, as I read them, I wonder whether the writer believes his or her views will carry more weight than those expressed by simple Jo Bloggs or Jenny Wren.

One of the things I love and admire about Jesus is the fact that he appeared before the people without credentials and left the people to make up their minds about him purely on the basis of what they heard, saw and experienced of him. I have spent several hours recently sitting beside a bed in a hospice. I look around and it occurs to me that, in the last analysis, we are what we are before God, nothing more and nothing less.

In some ways, the class system in the UK is less rigid than it was when I was a child but it still exists and it is not helpful. In the Kingdom of God we will all be known for who we are and there will be no hierarchy of any kind.

The Canaanite Woman

I have heard the incident described in today’s Gospel as an embarrassment. I don’t find it so. This is an encounter which shows us Jesus in his raw humanity and it can provide us with tremendous encouragement. Here we have a Jesus who was wrong, who made a mistake who had to learn and to change his mind. What a relief that he shares these things with me. There is embarrassment in the story, that experienced by the Son of God.

Growing up as an observant Jew, Jesus would have learned that, when the Messiah came, he would minister to his fellow Jews, the Chosen People, or, as Jesus himself puts it, to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. When he addressed the congregation in his home synagogue by reading the passage from Isaiah about bringing good news to the poor etc, he would have had in mind the poor, the sick, the blind and the lame of his own people. As is true of all human beings, he had to learn, to grow into his calling. He wasn’t provided by his Father with a job description telling him how to act in every situation. We owe the woman in this story a debt of gratitude for showing us that the process he went through was sometimes painful.

We need events such as this to help us to understand Jesus. We need to ponder what was happening for him and to ask him to reveal himself to us. I could well have been that, when this woman started to cry out to him, that he was tired. All he wanted was to go off for a little quiet with his friends. Maybe he was also hungry. His judgement was skewed. He used what he thought was a legitimate excuse to stop work for the day and have some rest.

Jesus was not, however, so stubbornly set in his opinion that he couldn’t change it. His Father used this woman to teach him and he listened to and learned the lesson. He realised that he could not limit his healing or his love to people with whom he had an affinity and, in the presence of his friend and who knows how many others, he admitted he was wrong, cured the woman’s daughter and praised someone about whom he had been previously dismissive to say the least.

I rejoice in this chance to see a Jesus who failed, who made a wrong call, who had to humbly admit his mistake. It reassures me that he fully understands my errors of judgement and the shame I feel about them. I love to spend time with the Jesus we saw in last weeks Gospel, not the one who walked on water but the one alone in prayer. I imagine what he would have discussed with his Father and how he felt at that particular time. His conversation after this incident must have been about how wrong he had been. I can hear him say: “I really messed up today, didn’t I? I feel an idiot. I’m sorry.” and I know he gets it when I have to say the same. The kenosis of the Son of God is an immeasurable gift.