Posts filed under 'Loyola Hall'
He might have blinding lights and inaudible voices to bring him to his knees but I have something Paul doesn’t have—a photograph of my conversion.Photo might follow if I can get the scanner to work! Here it is, just after dawn, in Venice, the summer of 1980, waiting to get into the Youth Hostel. I was desperate, at my lowest, loneliest ebb, an ardent atheist, sick to the stomach, feeling utterly alone in an empty universe, not seeing a way to get through the day. I knew I had to take the shot. A few minutes later I was sitting on cold marble at the back of a church, emptying from its morning mass, praying, turning to a God I didn’t believe in, for I’m not sure what… help surely, hope maybe, peace? I was undone when I found all three.
Now of course, once I was feeling better I forgot all about the embarrassing lapse and got on with the day, with life. And that might have been that, were it not for the photograph and the next ebbing of the inner tide, and the one after that…
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January 26th, 2006
George Bush is on the phone to Tony Blair — I wish I could do the accents: “Tony you wanted an exit strategy, we got an exit strategy. Forget all the democracy bullshit and rebuilding crap – what say we just duke it out mano a mano. One of them and one of us, hand to hand, clean fight, winner takes all. Work wonders for the budget deficit. Get the boys home early. Look good in the approval ratings. And think of what we could charge for the TV rights! Fight of the minell… fight of the milemiu … century.”
“George that’s a great idea. Wonderful! Trust you to come up with something so super. But who will we choose? We’d need the best. I can ask the SAS…”
“Tone, don’t you bother your pretty little head over it. I’ve got just the man.”
So the day comes and the world is watching – satellite, cable, internet (I’m afraid BBC lost out to Sky). Helicopters circle. The sun is at its height. Out steps the allied champion … trained in every martial art and killing technique, muscles on muscles, a dark look in his eyes and a swagger in his gait.
And no one to meet him. No opponent. Because of course it’s a fix, a foregone conclusion, who can stand against Sergeant Goliath and the world of power behind him. The band plays.
It’s the same the next day – the TV audience even larger, the marching bands louder, the hype at a fever pitch. Out steps Goliath, gleaming. No one to face him. No matter how much he taunts and insults the manhood of Iraq.
The pattern repeats itself … another day, another week, into another month. Until Day 40: the last chance. The audience, which had gotten bored and turned to Desperate Housewives, is back in force. This is the day. Out steps Goliath, from the security cordon bristling with guns. There’s George on one side, Tony on the other, dwarfed, exultant, holy in their military fatigues. Suddenly between them the hero is on his knees, then on his face. George and Tony gobsmacked. A hunk of rubble lying there, tossed by some scrawny Iraqi girl. The cameras even missed it.
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In only a few chapters of Mark, Jesus has gone from hero mobbed by adoring crowds to wanted man with a tongue too sharp for his own good. Mark asks the question of power. Who holds it? And how far will it go in its own defence? But above all – how weak do you have to be to defeat it?
January 19th, 2006
I always get tripped up, this being the year of Mark’s gospel, when John sticks his nose in like today. Just as I’m beginning to get my head round Mark’s Jesus, John’s version pops up—and they could hardly be more different.
Next Sunday we’ll have Mark’s version of today’s events—the calling of disciples—and it’s all peremptory demand and prompt response. He says ‘follow’—right out of the blue—and, God help them, they do. And we wonder what kind of a person could command that kind of response, what kind of charisma he must have had? And what kind of a person could leave all behind on an instant’s command?
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January 15th, 2006
More than the other gospels, Mark throws Jesus at us all of a sudden and all of a piece. Monday he appears from nowhere with his peremptory demands: repent, come, follow. Tuesday he is breaking Sabbath, silencing demons, impressing with an inner authority. And today, Wednesday, he heals, he silences and he seeks silence, and he prays. He prays and learns.
Who is this Jesus? If you only had these three days of Mark to go on who would you say he was?
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January 11th, 2006
Whenever Jesus starts talking about sheep all I can think of is mint sauce. I know I’m supposed to be thinking warm, woolly thoughts about care and concern, finding and feeding. But deep down what I think is ‘gravy’—why is Jesus comparing me to an animal being fattened for the slaughter? I don’t want to be a farm animal. I don’t want anyone eyeing me up for the table, nicely roasted with a sprig of mint on the side.
That’s the problem with words—you speak them meaning one thing but they get heard in ways you couldn’t imagine.
Saint Nicholas has accrued some strange stories on the way to becoming Santa Claus. One of the early ones places him, against the evidence, at the Council of Nicea. Once, when Bishop Arius was expounding his views, Saint Nick couldn’t contain himself and punched Arius in the face. He was thrown into prison but released the following day after the bishops were visited in dreams by the Virgin Mary telling them he meant well—it was only love for her son that made Nicholas so rough with heretics.
Then there’s the benevolent Nicholas. There’s the story of the three sisters too poor to have a dowry. Their father was on the verge of selling the eldest to make ends meet when Saint Nick got wind of it and quietly threw a bag of gold in the window while they were sleeping. The young girl married and moved on but still the family struggled and the father started eyeing up the next oldest for sale. Again, in Nicholas threw a bag of gold and another happy marriage was made. But by now the man of the house is seeing a pattern. He lets it be known the youngest daughter is on the market and then lies in wait through the night to catch the mystery gold flinger. In flies the gold and a chase ensues through the streets ending up with a breathless bishop and a properly penitent father. And this time the story gets its happy ending.
The saint’s icons show him with three bags or balls of gold—from which pawnbrokers get their sign—but a later story says they are the heads of three children caught and murdered and stuffed in a pickle barrel by a wicked innkeeper. Saint Nicholas comes calling and receives lavish hospitality from the landlord but before the saint will tuck into his dinner he asks for a pickle with it. It’s better than Columbo. The saint in magic mode resurrects the children and the baddie gets his comeuppance. … Though in some versions the three children grow up to be ruffians and murderers themselves.
Maybe that’s the root of other stories about St Nick in which he rounds up naughty children and takes them away in his sack to be drowned.
So who is he, Saint Nicholas? Hitter of heretics? Benefactor of poor? Wonder worker? Scourge of naughty boys? Or red and round usurper of Father Christmas? And why am I wasting your time with these tangled tales?
Who knows the meaning of any life till all the stories have been told? But are nothing more than the sum of the stories told about us? Nicholas must be squirming in heaven on days like this, protesting it wasn’t like that, that’s not what happened, that’s not me. Or at least he would if it wasn’t for God knowing him through and through and telling his story truly, deeply. That’s something we all have to look forward to, that and the look on God’s face as he tells it.
December 6th, 2005
Listen to two of the principal prophets of the Judeo-Christian tradition: Isaiah and John; Old Testament and New Testament.
Isaiah delivers his message as consolation to the people aching in their exile; John shouts his as last-minute, change-your-wicked-ways warning. But they speak with a single voice. What do they want? What do they promise? What do they demand?
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December 4th, 2005
“I could have been a contender” says Sylvester Stallone in the film “Rocky”. And most of us know what he means.Did you spot the ‘deliberate’ mistake? D’oh! I really meant Marlon Brando in ‘On the Waterfront’
One of our team, trained long ago as a zoologist, was reading the TV guide this afternoon and sighing wistfully at the thought of a new David Attenborough extravaganza about creepy crawlies—“That could have been me”, he muttered. I don’t think he meant the insects…
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November 24th, 2005
Both readings raise a question of purity: the purity of our worship, the purity of our worship spaces, the purity of our prayer.
Judas and his brothers set out to purify the sanctuary of Jerusalem from the defilement of their enemies. They make their sacrifices, re-dedicate their altars, offer their communion; they adore, they adorn, they sing, they feast.
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November 18th, 2005
At first sight there’s a contrast between the two readings today. The first reading is all full of haste and energy and speed. The Word coming to the rescue, saving the Israelites, giving them safe passage, re-making the world to make us free. And not just quietly let loose but light-hearted, skipping like lambs, singing like children. As the image goes it is God who takes the initiative and we who can only respond with songs of joy.
But the gospel good news sounds less promising: there’s not much singing and skipping going on. Just a promise that if we pester enough, if we threaten violence, if we are irritating enough then God might manage to right our wrongs. It sounds like the initiative has to be all ours and the labour unrelenting.
I reckon though we jump to conclusions if we put it that way around—if we see God as the harassed judge delaying the justice that we are nagging for. Isn’t it a cop-out to leave all the justice to God—aren’t the reins of righteousness in our own hands? Aren’t we the ones who make the laws and bend them? Aren’t we the ones who elect the politicians we deserve? Isn’t justice ours to make or break?
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November 12th, 2005
Seems like dreams can go two ways. Ever had one of those nightmares where you are being chased down long corridors through tangled forests towards the ever receding safety of a half-open door? That door can go two ways: slam shut behind you with a flood or relief or slam shut in your face with whatever ravening monster ready to wake you up frantic and panting. Dreams can go two ways.
This parable isn’t quite a nightmare—though Matthew tries to make it one. You might be mortified if the door to the wedding feast slams shut but its not life or death—it’s only a party—though ‘I do not know you’ is ominous enough. And all because of a little oil. 50% of us consigned to oblivion over a little oil.
The door’s the problem here—not the oil, not the lamps, and not the bridesmaids. The sound of that door slamming is decisive; when that door closes you’re either in or out. Tough!
Is this the God we know? Tough on crime. No excuses. You had your chance? It’s certainly the God some people swear by. There’s a whole religious industry built around misreading our second reading, waiting for the door to slam shut so the righteous can be carried aloft to watch their unfortunate families and friends left behind and locked out of heaven. If that’s your God you don’t need to worry about global warming or waging war for oil—it’ll all be over soon anyway and before the dream becomes a nightmare you’ll be on the right side of the door.
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November 6th, 2005
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