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2nd Sunday of Lent

Fr Michael Mahoney sm is a Marist priest of the New Zealand Province of the Society of Mary (Marist Fathers and Brothers). Michael has taught in secondary schools, has spent 28 years as part of the Marist mission in Brazil. Michael is also a highly recognised mountain guide in New Zealand, and was a member of a New Zealand expedition to Mount Everest! Yes, you read that correctly.  In 1977 there were eight members of a New Zealand Everest Expedition, and what was peculiar to this attempt to climb the mountain was that the group used no local porters, nor was extra oxygen taken. Each of these decisions brought extra effort on the climbing group. Michael, and another member of the group ascended as far as the  South Col (26,200 feet).Strong winds, bad weather and exhaustion made them abandon the expedition. So close and yet so far!

Listening to Fr Michael speak to a group of schoolboys about the expedition and the climb two of his comments have a clarity about them that have made them unforgettable for me. When asked by an adventurous boy of about 16, “Why didn’t you keep going?” (The South Coll is at 26, 200ft, the apex of Everest is 29,032ft – but what is 3,000ft among friends?), Fr. Michael’s response was simple, “If we had kept going I would not be standing here today. An essential lesson of mountaineering is knowing when to stop climbing.” To a question from another, “What was the biggest thing learned?”, again Fr. Michael’s response was direct, “the human person was not built to live on a mountain top!”

This Sunday’s Gospel is familiar to us; we have Luke’s account of the story of the Transfiguration. (Luke 9: 28 -36). Jesus, along with Peter, James and John “ went up on the mountain to pray” (v.28), and as we know from the story there is the marvellous encounter, “the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became dazingly white.” Then there is the moment of revelation, “This is my Son the Beloved; listen to him.” (v. 35) The response of St Peter may well be our response, “let us build three tents”, in other words, ‘let’ stay here!’. The words of Fr. Michael resonate in my ears as I write this, know when to stop climbing and we are not built to live on a mountain top! In Christian spirituality I suggest mountains are worthy of a visit, however not to take up residence (where the rarefied air will soon kill us!), rather we are to live and minister at ground level where we can breathe and live and hence be of value.

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Keep the flame of faith alive in our heart(h)

There is an old Irish custom which is called grieshog.

Grieshog, is the process of burying warm coals in ashes at night to preserve the fire for the following day. Instead of cleaning out the hearth, people preserved the day’s glowing coals under beds of ash overnight in order to have a fast-starting new fire the next day. In the morning, the householder brushed aside the ashes and added new fuel to the still-hot coals to stoke the fire up for the new day’s warmth and cooking.

The process is an extremely important one. Otherwise, if the coals go out, a whole new fire must be built and lit when morning comes, an exercise that takes precious time, uses wood already chopped and stored,  and slows the more important work of the new day.

The primary concern, then, was that the fire from yesterday not be permitted to burn out completely at the end of the day.

On the contrary, the coals hidden from sight under heaps of ash through the long, dark night were tended carefully so that the fire could leap to life again at first light.

The old fire did not die, it kept its heat, in order to be prepared to light the new one.

It is a holy process, this preservation of purpose, of energy, of warmth and light in darkness.

What we call death and end and loss in our lives, as one thing turns to another, may in these terms, be better understood as greishog, as the preservation of the coals, as refusing to go cold, and being the warmth of tomorrow.

The Irish have another tradition associated with grieshog.

Besides burying the last hot embers of the day in ash overnight in order to start the next day’s fire quickly, they would also carry the hot coal of the fire from house to house as well.

When a young person marries and moves or when a family moves house, they take a hot coal from the first hearth to start the first fire in the new hearth.

As we begin a new Lenten season and move to our being engaged in the process of Synodality perhaps a moment’s reflection is in order for each of you as individuals and as a faith community to reflect on the question “what hot coal from the first hearth do I/we carry to light the fire in our new hearth?

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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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Ash Wednesday

On 20 December 2021, an eruption began on Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai, a submarine volcano in the Tongan group of islands.

The eruption reached a very large and powerful climax nearly 4 weeks later, on 15 January 2022. Hunga Tonga is 65 km (40 mi) north of Tongatapu, the country’s main island.

Much of the island of Tongatapu was covered in volcanic ash.

An interesting news item some days following the January eruption mentioned that many residents were collecting the ash from the streets and putting the ash on their gardens!

Volcanic sites are frequently the most fertile sites on earth.

Volcanic ash’s primary use is that of a soil enricher.

Once the minerals in ash are washed into the soil by rain or other natural processes, it mixes with the soil to create an andisol layer. This layer is highly rich in nutrients and is very good for agricultural use; the presence of lush forests on volcanic islands is often as a result of trees growing and flourishing in the phosphorus and nitrogen-rich andisol.

It triggered a memory of my own from my childhood; the home I lived in had an open fireplace which was used extensively throughout the chilly winter months.

When cleaning out the fireplace the residue ash was frequently spread onto the garden. Apparently, wood ash is an excellent source of lime and potassium for the garden.

Not only that, using ashes in the garden also provides many of the trace elements that plants need to thrive.

As we approach Ash Wednesday there is the opportunity for each of us to re-imagine the ritual of the blessing and reception of the ashes, re-imagining the ashes, not as a symbol of sinfulness and the need for repentance, rather as a symbol of nourishment, a symbol of enrichment, a symbol of fertility.