Rest a while

The Austrian poet Rainer Maria Rilke (1875 – 1926) has a fascinating little book titled, Letters to a Young Poet.

At the heart of the book is an aspiring young poet’s request to Rilke to let him know whether he ought to be a poet or not.

The young poet is insistent, sending copies of poems he has written.

At one point Rilke writes

“ . . . .  I want to beg you, as much as I can, dear sir, to be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms and like books that are written in a very foreign tongue. Do not seek the answers, which cannot be given to you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer. Perhaps you do carry within yourself the possibility of shaping and forming as a particularly happy and pure way of living; train yourself to it – but take whatever comes with great trust, and if only it comes out of your own will, out of some need of your inmost being, take it upon yourself and hate nothing.”

Perhaps Rilke’s advice is advantageous for us, given the question in today’s Gospel (Mk. 8: 27 – 35)

“Who do you say I am?” (Mk. 8:29)

‘Try to love the question’ – who do you say I am?

‘Live the question’ – who do you say I am?

And live along some distant day into the answer.

Rilke’s final words of advice to the young man, perhaps had been written for us “and after all I do want to advise you to keep growing quietly and seriously throughout your whole development; you cannot disturb it more rudely than by looking outward and expecting from outside replies to questions that only your innermost feeling in your most hushed hour can perhaps answer.”

Keep growing quietly and seriously.

Don’t look outside for answers to questions “that only your innermost feeling in your most hushed hour can perhaps answer.”

 

My name is James, the son of Anna and Barnabas.

Being completely deaf, I was deprived of so much that others take for granted.

I had never heard my parents call my name.

I had never heard the shouts of children at play, the song of a bird, of the wind in trees, the ocean as it fell upon the shoreline.

I never heard a word of comfort or encouragement.

The fact that I was practically dumb as well added to my sense of deprivation and isolation.

And when you are different, people, often, are afraid of you. People avoid you. People hurry past you.

I was full of self-pity.

One day a man came to my village, I couldn’t hear his name, but I could tell from his dress he was a Jew.

What on earth was he doing in a Gentile village in the Decapolis?

Many of those from the village gathered around him.

I followed them.

Many of the villagers looked at me with scorn, “What are you doing here?” their eyes said, ‘you should have stayed at home” the grimace on their face declared.

This man took me aside from the crowd and gave me all his attention.

Now, I felt important.

He did not speak to me as it would have been a waste of words.

Instead, he touched me. A tender, patient, loving touch.

He made me feel what I couldn’t hear.

Then he put his finger into his mouth, touched mine, and said, “Be opened!”

And I was!

I heard children laughing, birds singing, the wind in the trees. And I laughed with the children and sang with the birds.

Why am I telling you this?

I discovered many new things in the months that followed.

My first discovery was that a touch offered in love heals!

Also, I learned that many people listen without hearing; many have loose tongues that would be better tied; many have ears to hear, and tongues to proclaim.

But why proclaim if no one is listening? And at times all are proclaiming so loudly that no one can hear.

Hearing and speech are great gifts. They are heart gifts.

It is only with the heart that we can listen rightly, and only with the heart that we can speak truly.

You know the very best thing about receiving my hearing? I heard my Mother and Father call my name!

And the very best thing about receiving my speech? I could proclaim, “I love you!”

The mother of a recently married young woman came to the parish house to request the Sacrament of Baptism for her newlyborn grandchild.

From somewhere inside of me, my wisdom figure spoke ‘for’ me! “Do the parents wish that their child to be baptised?”

Silence!

“They do not go to Church,” the mother acknowledged into the silence.

“If the parents wish that their child is baptised we can set a date” I suggested. “Invite the parents to call and make an appointment.”

“They are not interested!” exclaimed the mother (of the bride), “what if the baby dies?”

I replied with genuine honesty, “God will meet the child with open arms!”

The Gospel today makes for uncomfortable listening, especially the line, “the doctrines they teach are nothing but human commandments.” (Mark 7:7)

In a tradition as old, as rich and as broad as the Catholic Church, there are bound to be some “only human regulations.”

A clear example would be the traditional teaching about Limbo, where the unbaptised babies supposedly went.

It caused a great deal of pain and distress, as parents and grandparents and other family members concluded their deceased babies would never, ever enjoy the presence of God.

St Augustine believed in Limbo.

Pope Benedict XVI set it firmly aside. Still, it took fifteen centuries…

The Vatican Museums in Rome feature extraordinary art and historical treasures.

Visitors can explore a vast collection amassed by the Catholic Church and the papacy over centuries. Highlights include iconic Roman sculptures and some of the world’s most significant Renaissance masterpieces.

The museums contain roughly 70,000 works, of which 20,000 are on display, including the Sistine Chapel with its ceiling decorated by Michelangelo.

They rank second in the list of most-visited art museums in the world after the Louvre.

One of the items on display is a bust of the Roman god, Janus.

This bust is of two heads looking in opposite directions.

I am reminded immediately of this statue as I read today’s Gospel (Jn 6:60 -69).

“So Jesus asked the twelve, “Do you also wish to go away?” Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.” (vv. 67ff)

“Lord to whom can we go?” – such a declaration of faith.

However, from the mouth of this same man we hear, “Now Simon Peter was standing and warming himself. They asked him, “You are not also one of his disciples, are you?” He denied it and said, “I am not.”  One of the slaves of the high priest, a relative of the man whose ear Peter had cut off, asked, “Did I not see you in the garden with him?” Again, Peter denied it, and at that moment the cock crowed.” (Jn. 18:25 – 27)

Can it possibly be the same man?

“Who can we go to?”

“I am not!”

Nicholas of Cusa [1401–1464]) was a German Catholic theologian who coined the phrase  the coincidentia oppositorum – or “coincidence of opposites” .

Such a phrase sums up the life of St. Peter.

And mine/ours!

The “coincidence of opposites.” – This is what we all resist and oppose much of our life.

How do you live with your own contradictions and inconsistencies?

There has been a theology which maintains we “eliminate” one of the opposites.

Maybe it is not about ‘eliminating’ rather, holding the opposites, as Jesus did on the cross. To live inside this space of creative tension is the very character of faith, hope, and love.

An example from my own life.

I am an ordained priest in the Roman Catholic Church. As such I am called to live a life of celibacy (that is to remain single)

I am also a professed member of a religious congregation, (The Society of Mary). Part of that profession is a vow of chastity.

I am also a male, with all the sexual energy and potential that is inherent in being male.

There is the possibility for conflict between the ordained, professed state and the primary energy inherent in being male.

In my early years I presumed fidelity meant eliminating. However, eliminating meant denial of an essential part of my constituent being.

I now believe, and I need acknowledge the belief is mine, that I am now invited to live within the “tension of opposites!”

And, don’t we all? Frequently, as an ordained priest I sit in the confessional and hear the same penitent week in and week out confessing the same fault. It says little for the efficacy of the Sacrament. Or does it?

Might it be that living within the “tension of opposites” is where we are called to live and the Sacrament of Reconciliation ceases to be an exercise of expulsion and elimination but rather an expression of the “coincidence of opposites.”

Remember, Jesus was crucified between two thieves, a Good Thief and a Bad Thief, and he spoke with both! “There they crucified him, and with him two others, one on either side, with Jesus between them.” (Jn 19: 18)