After Mass on Remembrance Sunday, this year, I ‘bumped into’ a parishioner and simply asked him how he was keeping. "Not so good really," he replied, and so I asked him why. "I am really upset at the soldiers who have had their legs and arms blown off, trying to bring peace in Afghanistan – I can’t get them out of my head!" Just one week later, he apologised for being so emotional, and I hastened to assure him there was no reason to be apologetic.

A very dear friend of mine once came out with the profound statement that men have become very good at inventing ways to maim and to kill other men – not so good at helping those in need – the hungry, the homeless, etc.

Whilst my opening gambit focuses on war, its results are not that far away from the agonies then being suffered by another parishioner, who was in tears after the Heysel disaster, in 1985, when 39 Italian and Belgian football fans died at the European Cup Final. I know the situation is different, but the two images together, remind me once again, of how international events can affect people in their personal, everyday lives.

Psalm 39 (No. 38 in the Catholic version) has a most intriguing phrase in it, which in the translation that we use for the Divine Office goes like this; it is, in fact, the last sentence of the psalm:

"Look away that I may breathe again before I depart to no more."

Sometimes a phrase from the psalms strikes you, as this one did for me. It reads like a phrase of utter despair, and could be thought to be saying: "God, you can do no good to me – or to us – just give me / us a break, so that we can have some kind of a life before everything must end, for all eternity." And yet, deep in my own heart, that is not the way I think of God. I think of God being where my ‘home’ is, where I can feel ‘at home’, where I can breathe, relax and just be myself. How, then, does this phrase make sense? Who does it apply to? Perhaps, it throws light on the above experiences.

It could fit the ‘corporate life’ of people in our world, or of a nation – so it would seem. Our world has many nations that seem to live in perpetual suffering, where a break from what is happening would be a ‘godsend’, and, to be sure, what happens in them affects many of us. One such nation would be the Holy Land, another Iraq, and yet another, a country like Afghanistan. All these countries appear to suffer from problems caused by people who want to control, dominate – or eliminate – certain groups, and in saying this I make allowances for the fact that the actual situation, in these countries, may not be quite the same as that portrayed by the media. But, for God to look away so that the people may breathe again – gain some respite before nothingness – appears to be taking the view that God is, in some way, responsible? To ask that there be some relief from murder, domination, killing, murderous suicide bombers, systems of political control that causes lack of freedom, lack of movement, lack of jobs, money and safety … … I could go on and on … … is assuming, in one sense, that God is permitting such things, even if He does not directly will them; this argument allows men and women to misuse their power and influence, until at some stage, God calls a halt. In the meantime, can it not be good to have a break from it all – so that the oppressed may breathe again, before death comes!

There are places where people live in utter deprivation, caused by poverty and natural disasters, seemingly without any signs of easy cure. Haiti would be a country in point. One wonders how the poor people there can survive with all they have gone through; so many families bereaved after the earthquakes; so little sanitation; so much poverty and lack of basic necessities; so little normal living. And now, raging cholera that can kill in four hours! Again, probably, the actual situation is different to the images we form from absorbing the media stories – but, who knows? In this example, would it not, indeed, be wonderful if this situation that God ‘permits’ could change, for a period, ‘so that people may breathe again’ with enough food, water, good sanitation, secure health provision and the necessities of life?

For some people, a country such as England fits into the ‘model’ I have described. Here in the UK, there is relative wealth and a certain freedom for some sections of its community, but there is also malaise, a lack of moral uprightness, a sense that the young have challenges ahead – to face and overcome – if they are to enjoy a future of meaning, safety and reasonable security. I hear people say: "Thank God I have lived my life, and do not have to face it now as a young person!", and: "I feel sorry for the young and worry about their future!" What standards will they live up to, as they see values ridiculed, religion and its teachings rejected – or laughed at – and the future uncertain. Worries, worries, worries are what people face! "God give us a break so that I may breathe before I depart to be no more."

There is another psalm that we sing at the Divine Office which also gives the same message. In the hymn of Psalm 139 the words are:

O God, you search me and you know me.

All my thoughts lie open to your gaze.

 When I walk or lie down you are before me:

 Ever the maker and keeper of my days…..

Although your Spirit is upon me,

Still I search for shelter from your light.

 There is nowhere on earth I can escape you:

 Even the darkness is radiant in your sight. 

In all of this, God is just ‘too much’ – too much ‘on top’ of me: he does not even allow me to breathe! God is like this, for me, when I feel I cannot look him in the eye – so to speak – when I feel that He and I do not really see eye to eye. And now, we are beginning to get to the truth of the matter.  These feeling arise only because I have estranged myself from Him, and this is the reason the psalmist seems to be seeking a ‘break’ from God’s presence. God is just too ‘good’, too ‘pure’, too perfect’, in the face of my own deficiencies, my deceits and double dealing. Until I can ‘come clean’ with God, who knows me through and through, I will not experience the amazing gentleness of God – that amazing gentleness that God has for me, personally.   "God visits us like the dawn from on high," or, as the Italian version of the Benedictus puts it: "as the sun rises in the morning" (Luke 1; 78).

The first psalm referred to in this blog, Psalm 39 refers to this personal sinning, and at the sin of jealousy and judging of others, but in the light of how ‘frighteningly’ short life is.

"I said: I will be watchful of my ways for fear I should sin with my tongue …..O Lord, you have shown me my end, how short is the length of my days. Now I know how fleeting is my life…. In you rests all my hope. Set me free from all my sins, do not make the taunt of the fool…take away your scourge from me. I am crushed by the blows of your hand. You punish man’s sins and correct him…." 

It is often the case that when disasters befall nations – even natural disasters – people attribute the cause of such tragedies to the personal sins of the people; on a personal level, when tragedy strikes, the individual can think this is because God is punishing me for what I have done wrong. I disassociate myself from this way of thinking; it is ‘riddled’ with irrational guilt – not the virtuous guilt by which we know the ‘fear of the Lord’. All too often, irrational guilt is linked with deep despondency, or discouragement – despair, to choose a better word – and that is the breeding ground for evil to enter into one’s life. It says: "What the heck – I may as well give up trying as there is no way I can live according to beauty, goodness or love".  

Often, unwittingly, we create conditions in our personal life that leave us very unhappy, unable to find peace for the situation we find ourselves in; in this there may be a whole variety of reasons. Furthermore, this personal state of affairs could be a contributory factor to the disasters that face communities. However, we should never forget the fact that people, consciously, make personal choices – evil and wrong decisions – that are designed to stir up wickedness leading to corporate disasters, in the political field, or even in nature – take the effects on the environment, we human beings have wrought, for instance.  

Returning to the line of the psalm: "Look away that I may breathe again before I depart to no more," I am driven to the conclusion, using that God-given instinct, that God comes to us without ‘pushing’ Himself onto us – not through force, but seeking our acceptance of Him. He comes like the gentle breeze, not in the ‘earthquake’, ‘wind’ or ‘fire’. He is immensely patient, waiting and waiting, for us to find Him, and then to feel secure in his Love. We do not really need to run away from him, even though – through guilt – we may feel like it sometimes. As we now come to Advent, to the time when we await his coming, let us grasp the realities of our situation – my situation, and that of the whole of humanity – and, calmly, let him come to fill our lives with his peace. 

As we do so, the anecdotes annotated at the start of this blog, are also relevant. Our own personal lives are deeply affected by what goes on around us – and even much farther afield. There, too, God can help us to live in Him, in joy and in peace, because we can pray for those less fortunate than ourselves; we can play our part in acting for the good of all, in practical ways – like supporting everything that points to unity, rather than division – and we can even offer our small contributions, in money, or in kind, to help those less fortunate than ourselves.

In November, each year, we remember all those who have passed on before us. November is known as the ‘Month of the Dead’, but actually, it should, more appropriately, be called the ‘Month of the Living’, because we know that, those who have gone before us, are not in an empty void for ever. I would rather call it the ‘Month of All Saints’! Those who have died are truly alive, if in union with God, for the life we have been living on this earth, is a preparation for the life to come, the life of pure, and total, happiness in heaven, for which people yearn. This assertion is based on our faith, but it is faith that, at one and the same time, is also knowledge – not in the sense of things we see – like material things, but in the sense ephemeral qualities such as love and wisdom; we all know what they are, though we cannot see them with our eyes.  There are many other qualities like admiration, compassion, awe in the presence of things much greater than ourselves and grief; all of these are very real to us, and truly, we know them to be real – yet invisible.

Photo of the Michelangelo ‘Pieta’ 

To move on, the significance of that heart-breaking moment when Mary was with her dead Son, at the foot of the Cross, came back to me last Sunday, when, in the ‘Readings’, we thought about the ‘End of the World’. We have all, from time to time, reflected on that Crucifixion scene and ‘observed’ the fullness of life ‘snuffed out’ – out of love for us – together with the utter beauty and simplicity of grief, an experience that all human beings face. Yet, look at the face of Mary!

Photo of a Close-up of Mary’s Face 

She is lost in her own thoughts and grief – how could she be otherwise? But, in that very same face, the genius of Michelangelo has ‘captured’ her with a wonderful sense of divine serenity. Furthermore, she looks younger than her son, Jesus, and, even if you take into account the terrible sufferings throughout his Passion and death, nonetheless Mary would have been roughly fifty years of age, given that Jesus died at three and thirty. Michelangelo had a vast spiritual and theological knowledge; quite deliberately, he would have sculpted his statue to make her look young. As Jesus is the one in whom all human beings die to sin – and thence to ‘light’ – so this death of Jesus and his placement in the arms of his beloved mother, connects with our death and our human grieving; it links with us, and our experiences and feelings. I think it shows that in every circumstance of life, if we remain in God, then ‘Hope Springs Eternal’. That is what ‘youth’ is about and our world, compared to the God who exists before all time, is a young, vulnerable offshoot; yet despite all the vulnerability and limitations – including sinfulness and evil – we have a sure sign of hope that nothing can destroy, as long as we ‘abide in Him, and He abides in us’.

Now, in contrast, I invite you to look at how Michelangelo portrays despair; the contrast between Mary’s serenity – in grief – and despair is very marked; the two are ‘poles apart’ And, despair inevitably is the fate of one who refuses to abide in God, thinking he, or she, can go it alone.

Picture of the Damned going to Hell in the Sistine Chapel, by Michelangelo 

Tradition has it that, of all the disciples of Jesus, Mary, his Mother, did not need Jesus appearing to her, immediately after the Resurrection, as he did to Mary Magdalene, for instance.  This was because she ‘knew’ in her heart that, despite the dreadful tragedy she had experienced at the foot of the cross, all would be well. She lived, and experienced, what we now call the theological virtues of perfect faith, hope and love.  These ‘perfect virtues’ are gifts from God to a person, impossible to achieve without the help of God himself. Ourselves alone, we cannot – without divine help – achieve these qualities.

In conversation with a parishioner, whose husband died, very suddenly, last week, she told me in her sorrow that, when the paramedics arrived and tried their best to resuscitate him, his arm just ‘flopped’;  in her view, the life in her husband had already ‘gone’. This last action of the body, as death takes hold, is so well portrayed in the sculpture, below. Again, Michelangelo has caught, in the marble he worked so marvellously, a moment that is ‘eternal’. Each of us – in our own way – can read into this beautiful work of art, many different reactions’.

Picture of Jesus Truly Dead in the Lap of Mary 

Still in November, the Parish has ‘enjoyed’ two liturgies for those of our community who have died; many of them, I am sure, have achieved high levels of holiness. The first was the 11.00am Mass on the first Sunday of November, and the second – not a Mass but a ‘Service of Light, Song, Remembrance and Thanksgiving’ – embraced words of hope from the scriptures, to envelop us; projected photographs of those who have died in the past two years, brought back for a time, our beloved memories of them. At both liturgies, there was a sense of enormous grief, at the loss of those we have loved. This sense of grief happens for believers and unbelievers alike. On this note, I sometimes wonder whether the Christian actually feels more grief, than the person with no faith.  I question this, precisely, because the Christian has allowed the human ‘essence’, fully to develop and grow, largely because there is small reason to be afraid of any hurt we cannot bear. Without that knowledge, the hurt could be too much for some, and, in that regard, they may then protect themselves by not allowing themselves to become too close to another, as their loss would be so painful.

I make no apology for my essay on the subject of November and its timeless association with ‘Those Who Have Died’, because, as I said earlier, on the ‘other side of the coin’ there is hope, there is light, there is sainthood. This means that we can always reflect on our ‘everlasting’ and ‘youthful’ hope in the ‘Light of the World’ – Jesus – portrayed by the Paschal Candle, in any Church. Here, below, is shown the Easter candle from St. Mary’s in Leyland, together with the candles lighted at the service, this week, when people came to be in communion, with those that have gone before us, and whom we all remembered, before God, knowing they too will be in communion with us: each little candle shines a light for each and every one of them – lighting our way to them – and their way to us.

Picture of the Paschal Candle and Smaller Candles on the Altar 

I conclude with the very famous prayer of the now Blessed, Cardinal Newman; this beautiful prayer is printed on the memorial card, of my mother, now already resting in Christ, for 14 years. It was he who helped her to take the step to enter into full communion with our Church.  Blessed John Henry Newman, pray for us. 

Prayer of Cardinal Newman

Exactly 92 years ago, today, the First World War came to an end. What a waste of life of so many young men in Europe and what untold heart-break of so many, let alone the agonising suffering that came out of that experience. Yet many years later, the experience of an Irish Jesuit priest, and Chaplain to Irish regiments that fought in that ghastly war, inspired me and has remained with me. He was Fr. Willie Doyle S.J. M.C., a typical Irish country lad who many consider a saint. He was fearless in going out, across the battle-fields, to administer the sacraments to the dying soldiers; he was loved by the troops, and was a man of utter integrity. Our Irish novice master, Fr. Bruno, who first told us about him, explained that Fr. Willie kept himself, daily, in the presence of God, by making invocations in his heart, each moment of the day, and it is that practice that impresses me. It is by no means easy to keep God constantly in our hearts and minds and, I suspect it, was much more difficult in the First World War, than it is for us. Yet … how good are we, at doing what St. Paul asked: ‘… keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus’? Below, I include a copy of the last letter he wrote to his father: in it he refers to all the family; he had six elder brothers and sisters, and was from Dalkey, Co. Dublin. His letter ‘betrays’ his own humanity. Just three days after writing it, he was blown up by a bomb.

 Photos: (1) Fr. Willie Doyle (2) Facsimile of His Last Letter to His Father 

In August 1916, Fr. Willie took part in the fighting at Ginchy and Guillemont. His description of Leuze Wood is striking: 

"The first part of our journey lay through a narrow trench, the floor of which consisted of deep thick mud, and the bodies of dead men trodden under foot. It was horrible beyond description, but there was no help for it, and on the half-rotten corpses of our own brave men we marched in silence, everyone busy with his own thoughts...... Half an hour of this brought us out on the open into the middle of the battlefield of some days previous. The wounded, at least I hope so, had all been removed, but the dead lay there stiff and stark with open staring eyes, just as they had fallen. Good God, such a sight! I had tried to prepare myself for this, but all I had read or pictured gave me little idea of the reality. Some lay as if they were sleeping quietly, others had died in agony or had had the life crushed out of them by mortal fear, while the whole ground, every foot, was littered with heads or limbs, or pieces of torn human bodies. In the bottom of one hole lay a British and a German soldier, locked in a deadly embrace, neither had any weapon but they had fought on to the bitter end. Another couple seemed to have realised that the horrible struggle was none of their making, and that they were both children of the same God; they had died hand-in-hand. A third face caught my eye, a tall, strikingly handsome young German, not more, I should say, than eighteen. He lay there calm and peaceful, with a smile of happiness on his face, as if he had had a glimpse of Heaven before he died. Ah, if only his poor mother could have seen her boy it would have soothed the pain of her broken heart."

Out of the complete ‘nothingness’ of destruction can come goodness – and life – and meaning. God, in his mysterious wisdom, knows all this through and through, and the absurdity of the Cross and the abandonment of Jesus, is the only possible explanation, or meaning, for it. Out of his complete ‘nothingness’ comes the Resurrection – and his presence – with us, each moment. Each one of us has to face the seemingly ‘utter meaninglessness’ of death and the ‘real’ question we ask ourselves is: "Will it just be ‘nothing’ after we die? Or, is there another life, after this?" For myself, I cannot understand how people can face the emptiness and nothingness of life, with all that we go through, without that certainty of the Risen Jesus – close to us – known by us, personally – and together, in the beautiful life we can build on this earth. The modern atheist phenomenon, so peculiar to Western Europe of today, is actually immersed in this question of ‘nothingness’. Shakespeare put it so well on the lips of Hamlet:

Who would fardels* bear,

To grunt and sweat under a weary life,

But that the dread of something after death,

The undiscovered country, from whose bourn

No traveller returns, puzzles the will,

And makes us rather bear those ills we have

Than fly to others that we know not of?

Thus conscience doth make cowards of us all….

(* fardel means a burden in Shakespearean language)

Whilst at Loppiano, and from where I have just returned, I found that this ‘emptiness’ – ‘nothingness’, if you like – is actually the ‘raw’ material that came together to make the town where all lived – and still, today, live – the New Commandment of Jesus; without Him all are individuals in isolated, single, ‘nothingness’, but then, Jesus provides the ‘glue’ that holds all together in a place of joy and peace; here, each and every single person, in each and every small group, all in all, come together and live – breathe life, into the ‘little town’, united in togetherness. Jesus is alive in that place, and where he – who is Love – is, there cannot but be joy and peace. I was most interested to fine this expressed, also, in art.

  Photos: (1) Ciro with his raw material (2) Christ the Worker on the Cross (3) Owl out of old cleaning brushes

Ciro is a person from country roots in southern Italy, an artist who loves working with his imagination and his hands. When a group of us, new to Loppiano, went to see him, it was just after the murder of a crowd of Christians, at a Church in Iraq, and he was talking about them and comparing this to ourselves, living in peace and tranquillity. The contrast, between the sufferings of those ‘persecuted’ Iraqi Christian brothers and sisters, and ourselves, was on his mind. Sane people, of all religions, condemn such killing, for ideological motives. Such killings are the fruits of a single minded human logic, carried out in the self-interests of people who are – on the face of it – convinced of their views, to the total exclusion of others of a different ‘creed’; they who appear slightly different can become an enemy to be obliterated – variants who can be discarded as something useless. I suspect a similar absurd logic was behind the waging of the First World War, with all its sad consequences. We hope that, through these things which reflect abandonment, meaninglessness, death and destruction, people may begin to realise, that the killing and murdering of others, usually, does not achieve the result hoped for, in the first instance. Perhaps, beyond that, people will begin to grasp the idea, that the way to achieve great things in life, comes from co-operation between people of different cultures and ideas, rather than their destruction. This, I think, takes us back to the mystery of our nothingness that we experience, and which can be forced on people, by others, through war or other sufferings.

Ciro uses ‘rubbish’ discarded by people for his art work. He explains that these things are not just objects that have been ‘thrown away’; each and every object has been used by people, by individuals, imbued with all the sorrows and joys of their lives, and so each one, in reality and in a certain sense, is sacred. He uses these ‘cast-offs’ for all his art work, and it expresses, for him, his joy in living, yet ‘earthed’ in the experience of life which includes his feeling of great sadness about that massacre in the Iraqi Church. It is art that connects with the experience of war and killing, for to treat human beings as objects to be trampled underfoot, and eliminated, is equivalent – in the realm of objects – to being thrown away as of no further use.

Photos: (1) The Murder of Innocents (2) Horse shoes, hammer, scrap (3) Shepherds adore

He has made many pieces of art, so numerous, that his catalogue runs to 80 pages of photos, and he gives exhibitions in Italy, France, Austria and Belgium. Nothing is outside of God, for him, and his works are specifically religious, or not; yet all is in God, and for God.

Another artist at Loppiano – a little more esoteric – is a Chinese focolarino, Lau Kwok Hung, who has a wonderful explanation for his art. In conception, it all originates from the Chinese culture of which he feels so much a part – and in which he tries to express the mysteries of life and death – suffering and love, joy and sorrow, night and day – that we experience. He explains that Chinese calligraphy is really the medium and inspiration, as well as an aspect of living experience; in that noble culture, the expression is very different than anything in our European world. Each day, just to enter into the ‘mood’ for doing his work, he practices calligraphy, and he then went on to explain how the ink, itself, has its own ‘life and power’ – power that he cannot control. He draws the line with his special pen, straight or curved, and the ink does its own manoeuvre, spreading or not as it wills, according to its density and the absorption of different papers, outside his control. The art forms below are part of this experience:

  Photos: (1) Hung explaining his calligraphy (2) The orchestra (3) Jesus Mary and Joseph flight to Egypt

His art is very particular; using metal and wires, (though not always), he shows the ‘emptiness’ that we are, and then the fullness, on that emptiness, on the faces that are appearing out of the nothingness. His ‘Flight to Egypt’ won a prize at a local exhibition in Florence, and you can find him  on his website at: www.atelierhung.com

 Photos: (1) Song of the Voyager Meng Jiao 800 BC (2) Chinese Junk (3) Horse

I conclude by ‘tossing in the air’ the thought that there is a link between Fr. Willie Doyle and these modern experiences – modern expressions of nothingness, emptiness and meaninglessness. Here, today, it is expressed in art – and in life.  For Father Doyle, they were expressed in the apparent meaningless slaughter of millions of men in the First World War, but the two concepts – death and life – emptiness and fullness, if you like – are, and always will be, connected. Perhaps, there is something of the atheist in everyone including us who believe in God. Everyone has to confront the concept of ‘meaningless’. I like the saying, which goes: "A Christian is an atheist who, each day, gets up and decides to believe, while the atheist is a believer who, each day, gets up and decides not to believe". All human beings have the same experiences. For some it leads to no belief at all; for others it leads to the understanding of the deepest meaning of life, based on faith; and even we – in our day, if we only try – can learn to keep our hearts and minds fixed in Christ Jesus.