Month: March 2024

On Saturday, September 19, 1981, on the Great Lawn, the central open space of Central Park, legendary singer songwriting duo, Simon and Garfunkel performed a free concert.

People arrived at daybreak carrying chairs or picnic blankets.

The Parks Department originally expected about 300,000 attendees but even with rain ongoing until the start of the concert, an estimated 500,000 audience members made this the seventh-largest concert attendance on record in the United States.

The duo sang many of their well-known and hit making songs like, Homeward Bound, Mrs Robinson, Scarborough Fair, The Boxer, and of course Bridge Over Troubled Water.

I was fortunate to be among the 500,000 strong audience.

It was the first time that a phrase we read in this Sunday’s Gospel (Jn 12: 20 – 33) made some sense to me, “Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. “

There are occasions when you are part of something bigger than yourself, perhaps an outdoor concert, a sporting event, or whatever (as I reflect and write I am reminded of the numbers present at different venues at the visit of Pope John Paul II to New Zealand (1986).

The sum appears greater than the parts, and yet the parts make up the sum.

As of 2021 there was an estimated 1.37 billion Roman Catholics in the world.

Persons from Africa, Asia, North and South America, from Europe, the Pacific region, the Caribbean, all form what we know as Church.

Imagine for a moment the variety of colour, of culture, of language present among the 500,000 at Central Park; something ‘other’ brought the persons together that ‘other’ overtook the colour, the culture, the language; in this instant it was the beauty of sound, of harmony, composition of music.

Indeed, one’s life was lost and yet somehow found!

Imagine, for a moment, a bowl full of fruit salad; each individual fruit adds to the vibrancy of the colourful whole.

The home in which I grew up in, almost invariably had a real Christmas tree.

It smelt like a Christmas tree!

It dropped its needles as real Christmas trees do.

As Christmas drew nearer and nearer the space under the tree became more and more laden with presents.

Different shapes and sizes, colourful wrapping to attract one’s attention.

Of course, with five brothers and sisters, and Mum and Dad included there was a good number of presents.

There were round ones, and square ones. There were tall ones and short ones.

Each was hidden in their wrapping!

The anticipation grew each day! With eagerness and keenness, the days before Christmas were ticked off!

Why did the days before Christmas take so long?

What lay on the floor under the tree were presents, gifts freely given by another; gifts willing received by another.

In the Second Reading from the letter of St. Paul to the church at Ephesus we read, “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not from you; it is the gift of God; it is not from works, so no one may boast.” (Eph. 2: 4 – 10).

Much like those wrapped presents under the tree, “this is not from you; it is the gift of God.”

Where, did the implication come from that I was responsible for my salvation?

That what I did (and still do!) is the cause of/will aid my salvation?

Where did “earning” God’s love enter my/our theology?

Where did “being good” become the criteria for God loving me?

There’s nothing you have to do. There’s nothing you have to do. There’s nothing you have to do.

Well, there is one thing: to receive a gift you need to open your hands, and in so doing what you are holding needs fall to the ground! (maybe that ability and willingness to open my hands is itself grace!)

God does not love me because I am good: God loves me because God is good!!!