Category: Lent

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1st Sunday of Lent

In virtually every culture there is, somewhere, the concept of having “to sit in the ashes for a time” as a necessary preparation for some deep joy or fulfilment.

For example, we see this in a story many of us will be familiar with from our childhood years: the story of Cinderella.

“Cinderella”, or “The Little Glass Slipper”, is a folk tale with thousands of variants throughout the world.

The protagonist is a young woman living in forsaken circumstances that are suddenly changed to remarkable fortune, with her ascension to the throne via marriage.

The story of Rhodopis, recounted by the Greek geographer Strabo sometime between around 7 BC and AD 23, about a Greek slave girl who marries the king of Egypt, is usually considered to be the earliest known variant of the Cinderella story.

The version that is now most widely known in the English-speaking world was published in French by Charles Perrault in 1697.

Another version was later published by the Brothers Grimm in their folk tale collection in 1812.

The name itself, Cinderella, holds the key: It is derived from two words: Cinders, meaning ashes; and Puella, the Latin word for young girl.

In the Perrault edition we read,  “When she had done her work, she used to go to the chimney-corner, and sit down there in the cinders and ashes, which caused her to be called Cinderella”

Etymologically, Cinderella means the eternal girl who sits in the ashes, with the further idea that before she, or anyone else, gets to put on the royal clothes, go to the ball, and dance with the prince, she must first spend some time sitting in the ashes, tasting some emptiness, feeling some powerlessness, and trusting that this deprivation and humiliation is necessary to help bring about the maturity needed to do the royal dance.

Fairy tales are recognised as archetypal.

An archetype is a character, idea, symbol, setting, situation, or challenge that reflects a universal human condition that is recognisable to anyone from any culture or place around the globe because of its universality.

So, in any fairy tale, we have hero and heroine, prince and princess, wise man and crone, wizard and witches, villains and knights in shining armour. We have wicked stepmothers and fairy godmothers, dark forests and wide rivers.

In this Sunday’s Gospel (Luke 4: 1 – 13 ) we have a rich image something similar to “ sitting in the ashes”.

The image is one of the richest images that flows through our holy book, the Bible.

The image is of the desert; of Jesus going into the desert voluntarily to fast and pray.

Scripture tells us that Jesus went into the desert for forty days and, while there, he ate nothing.

This doesn’t necessarily mean that, literally, he took no food or water during that time.

Rather he deprived himself of all physical supports (including food, water, enjoyments, distractions) that protected him from feeling, full force, his vulnerability, dependence, and need to surrender in deeper trust to God.

And in doing this, we are told, he found himself hungry and consequently vulnerable to temptations from the devil – but also, by that same token, more open to God.

The desert, by taking away the securities and protections of ordinary life, strips us bare and leaves us naked, both before God and the devil, and indeed our very selves.

This brings us face-to-face with our own chaos.

That’s an image for Lent.

Each of us is invited to that quiet space where we can ‘sit among the ashes’ and be fed with what, in the first instance appears to be the remains, the residue, the detritus  – and just what might be the most nutritious, the most nourishing, the most sustaining.

The journey of Jesus into the desert is archetypal.

A Mundari tribesman of South Sudan covering himself in ash.
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28th Sunday in Ordinary Time Year B

The old city of Jerusalem has been surrounded by walls for its defence since ancient times.

These walls have been destroyed and rebuilt countless times. A journey to the old city of Jerusalem often involves a walk along the much-excavated walls.

In 16th century, during the reign of the Ottoman Empire in the region, the Ottoman Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent decided to fully rebuild the city walls on the remains of the ancient walls.

The construction lasted from 1535-1538 and these are the walls that exist today.

The “eye of a needle” referred to by Jesus in the Gospel has been claimed, by some commentators, to be a gate in the wall of Jerusalem, which opened after the main gate was closed at night.

A camel could only pass through this smaller gate if it was stooped and had its baggage removed.

So a travelling merchant wishing to enter the city to trade the following day would have to leave his precious cargo outside the gate, or remove the cargo from the camel and carry it in himself!

This story has been put forth since at least the 15th century, and possibly as far back as the 9th century.

However, there is no reliable evidence for the existence of such a gate.

Whether there was or was not such a gate we may never know for sure, however, it does provide us with a worthwhile metaphor to sit and reflect with.

Am I carrying something that prevents me from entering through the gate?

    • An unresolved hurt?
    • An unreconciled relationship?
    • Anger taking up space?
    • A physical or mental illness yet to be integrated as a part of who I am?
    • Blame for the unexpected and unwanted death of a family member or close friend?

The wonderful experience is that healing is found at the gate!

Jesus says, “I am the gate. Anyone who enters through me will be safe: they will go freely in and out and be sure of finding pasture.” (John 10:9)

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26th Sunday of Ordinary Time Year B

One morning last week I witnessed quite an extraordinary spectacle.

I was sitting having a cuppa at about 10.30 am, gazing at the tree which sits in the middle of an area of lawn outside my lounge.

The tree is naked of leaves at the moment, so the branches are very obvious.

There alighted onto one of the branches a Tui.

 

Now for those who may not know the Tui is a boisterous medium-sized bird native to New Zealand. It is blue, green, and bronze coloured with a distinctive white throat tuft.

This white tuft has given rise to it being named ‘the parson bird’.

The Tui is also known for its distinctive song type.

As I watched the Tui and was listening to its song, two smaller birds alighted onto tree branches near to where the Tui was.

Suddenly the Tui melodious tones stopped, and the bird’s attention turned to the newly arrived birds.

Tui are very territorial and they can become aggressive. They vigorously chase other birds away with loud whirring wings and Tui was no exception and this is exactly what happened.

The Tui chased the birds away! “This is MY tree!”.

The melodious song had become a noisy warning,

“Stay away, go and find your own tree!”

Reflecting on this Sunday’s First Reading and Gospel, the “Tui incident” became a strong metaphor.

In the first reading (Numbers 11: 25 – 29) we see how Moses regarded the ‘opposition’, and in the gospel reading, we see Jesus.

In the Book of Numbers, we read “The young man ran to tell Moses: ‘Look,’ he said, ‘Eldad and Medad are prophesying in the camp.'”

Moses’ response showed a wonderful generosity of spirit: “If only the whole people of the Lord were prophets, and the Lord gave his Spirit to them all!”

The situation in the gospel reading is an exact parallel, and Jesus’ response is just like that of Moses.

In Mark’s Gospel we read, “John said to Jesus, “Teacher, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him, because he was not following us.”

The response of Jesus, “Anyone who is not against us is for us.”

There is room on the tree for more than one bird! To frighten away I need to stop singing!

In the document Nostra Aetate, the Second Vatican Council stated: “The Catholic Church rejects nothing that is true and holy in these [non-Christian] religions.

“She regards with sincere reverence those ways of conduct and of life, those precepts and teachings which, though differing in many aspects from the ones she holds and sets forth, nonetheless often reflect a ray of that Truth which enlightens all people.”

This is not a sell-out, as some have claimed; it is in the spirit of Christ, who praised the “faith” even of a pagan Roman centurion (Matthew 8:10).

Only a truth that is very unsure of itself feels always compelled to make an enemy of the other.

There is room on the tree for more than one bird. To frighten away I need to stop singing!

I have a choice, I can be like the aggressive, territorial Tui, vigorously chasing everyone else away; or I can add my voice to the others gifted with the spirit of proclamation, and the song we make is the song of our world awakening to the absolute beautiful sound of our world awakening together and singing praise to God.

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25th Sunday of Ordinary Time Year B

Imagine four persons in a room: The first is a powerful dictator who rules a country.

His word commands armies and his shifting moods intimidate subordinates.

He wields a brutal power.

Next to him sits a gifted athlete at the peak of her physical prowess, a woman whose quickness and strength have few equals.

Her skills are a graceful power for which she is much admired and envied.

The third person is a rock star whose music and charisma can electrify an audience and fill a room with soulful energy.

Her face is on billboards and she is a household name.

That’s still another kind of power.

Finally, we have too in the room a newborn, a baby, lying in its bassinet/crib, seemingly without any power or strength whatsoever, unable to even ask for what it needs.

Which of these is ultimately the most powerful?

The irony is that the baby ultimately wields the greatest power.

The athlete could crush it, the dictator could kill it, and the rock star could out-glow it in sheer dynamism, but the baby has a different kind of power.

We have a new language we only use around babies (usually unintelligible to anyone!), the radio and TV volume are dependent on the sleep pattern of the newborn, as is the time to start up the motor mower.

The baby can touch hearts in a way that a dictator, an athlete, or a rock star cannot.

Its innocent, wordless presence, without physical strength, can transform a room and a heart in a way that guns, muscle, and charisma are unable to.

We watch our language and actions around a baby, less so around athletes and rock stars. The powerlessness of a baby touches us in a deeper moral place.

And this is the way we find and experience God’s power here on earth, sometimes to our great frustration, and this is the way that Jesus was deemed powerful during his lifetime.

Jesus, standing wordless before Pilate might be the most power-filled moment in the entire Gospel story.

The entire Gospels make this clear, from beginning to end.

Jesus was born as a baby, powerless, and he died hanging helplessly on a cross with bystanders mocking his powerlessness.

Yet both his birth and his death manifest the kind of power upon which we can ultimately build our lives.

They are two moments that are still celebrated the world over.

The world stops at Christmas and Good Friday.

Most shops are shut, public transport changes it schedules, usually meaning fewer services, and, maybe ironically, our Churches are most full!

When the Gospels speak of Jesus as “having great power” they use the Greek word, exousia, which might be best rendered as vulnerability.

Jesus’ real power was rooted in a certain vulnerability, like the powerlessness of a child.