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Mary, Mother of God

Nga mihi, welcome to a new year, the Feast of Mary Mother of God.

Fleur Adcock, a New Zealand poet is well-represented in New Zealand anthologies of poetry. One of her poems is titled Weathering.

Weathering

Literally thin-skinned, I suppose, my face
catches the wind off the snow-line and flushes
with a flush that will never wholly settle. Well:
that was a metropolitan vanity,
wanting to look young forever, to pass.

I was never a pre-Raphaelite beauty,
nor anything but pretty enough to satisfy
men who need to be seen with passable women.
But now that I am in love with a place
which doesn’t care how I look, or if I’m happy,

happy is how I look, and that’s all.
My hair will turn grey in any case,
my nails chip and flake, my waist thicken,
and the years work all their usual changes.
If my face is to be weather-beaten as well

that’s little enough lost, a fair bargain
for a year among lakes and fells, when simply
to look out of my window at the high pass
makes me indifferent to mirrors and to what
my soul may wear over its new complexion.

May I suggest that on this feast day of Mary, Mother of God you gaze on the illustration and read the poem.

Let Mary, the Mother of God, have hair turning grey, nails chipped and flaking, a waist thickening, and the years working all their usual changes.

The illustration is a detail from a painting by Peter Paul Rubens titled “Old Woman with a Basket of Coal, 1616 – 1618, Old Masters Picture Gallery, Dresden, Germany

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3rd Sunday of Advent – Year C

Across the road from the parish property of St. Mary’s Church, Otaki is land that is used as a market garden. (Well, when I was living in Otaki it was arable land!).

I found it enlightening to watch the seasonal cycle of the land.

One such period was the preparation of the land for new seeds by ploughing.

I offer the image of preparation by ploughing the land as an image for us to reflect on as we engage in the season of Advent.

The same land that until very recently had been producing crops for harvest now turns itself over to be used anew.

Some ‘apparent’ damage is done to the land – the plough is taken to it, and it is torn to shreds.

What had been productive now lies torn, shredded, useless.

And yet in that being laid to waste important happenings occur; the hard outer core is disturbed, nutrients are brought to the surface, the residue of what was crop is deposited deeper where it may decay, and, in turn, become a source of nutrients, and so nourish the newly planted seeds

Advent is the time of lying fallow; ploughed and harrowed but left for a period without being sown in order to restore its fertility.

Advent is a time where the ground lies open, receptive, expectant of the new seed.

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Inhabit Advent

Raidió Teilifís Éireann, shortened to RTÉ, is the national broadcaster of Ireland.

One of the programmes of the broadcaster is called ‘The Late Late Show’ hosted by Ryan Tubridy. It is essentially a talk show with guest appearances.

A recent show had the legendary Irish singer/songwriter Christy Moore as a guest.

One of the songs Christy sings during the show is titled  “December 1942”, by the Cork songwriter Ricky Lynch, that watches a train from the Warsaw ghetto arriving at Auschwitz “to unload its human cargo/met by demons and by devils and their savage dogs”.

The song is very sombre and Christy sings it with great feeling.

In conversation with Ryan Tubridy after the song Christy made a comment that brought me to attention, “you have to inhabit the song”.

My trusty Oxford Dictionary defines “inhabit” as ‘to live in a place’.

Roget’s thesaurus helps with words like ‘reside’, ‘occupy’, ‘dwell’, ‘stay’.

Maybe we are invited to ‘inhabit Advent’, to stay, to reside, to dwell in Advent!

On most occasions we ‘journey through’ Advent on our way to Christmas.

That is understandable, we have much to occupy us; the Christmas card list, Christmas presents, whose turn is it to host Christmas lunch, will Covid restrictions allow us to celebrate with joy and humour.

Then, if you are part of a Liturgy group in your local parish attention is drawn to the hymns for use at the celebration, do we have sufficient readers, and of course the biggie, “where are the figures for the crib?”, who put them away and where?

Then there is the real biggie – can you have midnight Mass at 8pm?!!

All the while, Advent, while not forgotten, does in fact run a distant second.

Let us ‘inhabit Advent’.

inhabit advent

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Christ the King Year B

The feast of Christ the King has not always been a part of our Christian calendar; the feast was established in 1925 by Pope Pius XI.

When I close my eyes and ruminate on the word “king” many words and images come immediately to mind; a jewel-encrusted crown, a big palace with many rooms and servants, privilege, wealth, power, and authority over, a bell is rung and others come running to be of service.

None of this sits easily with me in relation to Jesus.

Then when I consider the word “kingdom” images of wars and dominance, getting bigger by beating other people into submission and taking over their land and their indigenous way of life and supplanting that way with a supposedly “superior” way.

Again, there is within me a disquiet.

Then along comes, Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde, an Irish poet and playwright, known to most as simply Oscar Wilde (1854 – 1900).

Wilde wrote a short story titled “The Happy Prince”, a story I read and heard read on the radio throughout my childhood.

Now I know that a prince is not a king, however, they are a sort of ‘baby’ king!

In Wilde’s story, I found an entry into today’s feast.

A short synopsis of the story, and as you read have in mind the Jesus of the Gospels: During his life on earth, the prince had lived a very sheltered life.

When he died the people erected a statue of him in the main square of the capital city.

The statue was gilded all over with leaves of gold. It had two sapphires for eyes and a large red ruby on the handle of the sword. One cold evening, a little swallow, on its way south, landed at the base of the statue.

As he was resting there a few drops fell on him.

He looked up and saw that the Happy Prince was crying.

“Why are you crying?” the swallow asked.

“When I was alive, I saw no suffering,” said the Prince.

“But from my perch up here I see that there is a lot of unhappiness in the world. I’d like to help but I can’t because my feet are fastened to the pedestal. I need a messenger. Would you be my messenger?”

“But I have to go to Egypt,” the swallow answered.

“Please stay this night with me.”

“Very well, then. What can I do for you?”

In a room, there is a mother tending a sick child. She has no money to pay for a doctor. “Take the ruby from my sword and give it to her.”

The swallow removed the ruby with his beak and bore it away to the woman and she rejoiced.

The doctor came and her child recovered.

The swallow came back and slept soundly. The next day the prince asked him to stay another night.

Then he asked him to take out one of the sapphires, and to give it to a little match girl down the square.

She had sold no matches that day and was afraid she would be beaten when she got home.

Once again the swallow did as he was asked.

As he was running these errands of mercy, the swallow’s own eyes were opened. He saw how much poverty and suffering there was in the city.

Then he was glad to stay with the prince and be his messenger.

One by one, at the Prince’s urging, he stripped off the leaves of gold and gave them away to the poor and needy.

Finally, he arrived back one evening.

The night was very cold.

The next morning the little swallow was found dead at the base of the statue.

By now the statue was bare, having been stripped of all its ornaments.

The prince had given away all his riches, but he could not have done so without his faithful messenger, the little swallow.

Christ, our King, gave himself away totally while he lived on earth.

Even as he died, he was still giving to those who were receptive. And from his lofty perch in heaven, he surveys the plight of God’s children on earth. But his feet are fastened, his hands tied, and his tongue silent.

He needs messengers.

He needs us.

He has no hands but ours, no feet but ours, no tongue but ours.

And it is his riches, not our own, that we are called on to dispense – his love, his forgiveness, his mercy, his good news….

What is involved is helping in simple things, things that are available to everyone – giving a hungry person something to eat, or a thirsty person something to drink, welcoming a stranger, or visiting someone who is sick or in prison….

To do things such as these one doesn’t have to be either wealthy or talented.

All one needs is a warm and willing heart.

Everyone can do something – yes, even a little “swallow”.

A Note of caution: if like the swallow, you give of your time to your “King” you may never get to Egypt!