FROM THE PSYCHIATRIST'S DESK TO BEING GANDALF

 

I found myself sitting across the desk from a young psychiatrist who communicated with me through her computer screen, a different doctor each time for six months, and none of them ever seemed to get me. They just thought I was suicidal, which I wasn’t, and I didn’t seem to have adequate words to express the true nature of my sense of the pointlessness of life.

It was a time in my life when I might have been relishing the fact that I had been elected Provincial of the Irish Pallottines, enjoying the “honour” given me. But there I was in an acute state of disintegration, embarrassed and ashamed. A priest in a position of authority, reduced to this.

And I realize now that the honour was in fact in that very place where I thought it was not. Throughout my life I have sided with the underdog, felt empathy for the poor and the suffering and have found myself to be “with” people, side by side with them in whatever suffering they were experiencing. But in this case it was no longer a thing of empathy from the outside. At the psychiatrist’s desk I became “one of” the fractured, fragile people. The “smell of the sheep”, as Pope Francis liked to say, that smell was me.

There’s an inescapable feeling of shame that comes from needing to see a psychiatrist, that horrible feeling of fear that you are breaking down and might never be put back together again. It’s easy for people to say that there is no shame in mental illness, and there isn’t, but when you’re in the middle of it then that is one of the many terrifying feelings you go through. If you haven’t been there, then it’s really hard for you to “get it”.

But it became the place of true honour. As the tomb of Jesus was the place of death and became the place where death was not, so the tomb of mental illness, physical illness, addiction can become the place where shame no longer is, where honour becomes the angel of resurrection and new life.

In weakness strength! This is a core Christian belief. When I am weak, then I am strong and God Himself says, “my power is at its best in weakness.” God’s power, not mine or yours.

It’s an aspect of our faith that the world doesn’t understand and possibly most Christians don’t accept because when we encounter the radical weakness or failure of those in authority we are shocked, scandalized.

Yet, Moses was a murderer who was chosen to lead Israel to liberty; King David was an adulterer and a murderer; St. Peter was a coward who vehemently denied ever knowing Jesus.

And it was Peter’s love for Jesus that qualified him to become the Shepherd. It’s interesting that the Chapel of the Primacy of Peter is on the shore of the Sea of Galilee where Jesus, after His resurrection, asked Peter three times, “do you love me?” – indicating the primacy of Love over everything else. I would have thought that the place of Peter’s Primacy might have been where he declared his faith in Jesus as the Son of God, when Jesus gave him “the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven.” But the Primacy is in Love for Jesus, without denying the authority of the keys.

There's a similar suggestion in the Icon of Our Lady Queen of Apostles which St. Vincent Pallotti has given us. They are all gathered in the Upper Room around Mary praying and receiving the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. The keys of St. Peter are placed on the ground beside him, again not denying their importance but giving emphasis to the primacy of the Holy Spirit.

It’s the question asked of us. Do you love me? Do I love Jesus? The answer to that question is the foundation of our Christian faith. Do I? Do you?

I get a lot of love! At school last Friday we had our annual Mary procession with the children brings bunches of flowers for the Mother of Jesus, each one (including me) wearing a crown in her honour. We prayed and sang hymns, and the children were eager to tell me how much they love me, hugging me, telling me little things about their lives, telling me that I smell nice. And mostly they were concerned for their classmate whose house went on fire a couple of nights earlier while the family were sleeping. An incredibly awful experience but, thank God, none of them was injured. What was touching about the children was their promise to me that they would give him their toys to replace those that he had lost and the drama they made of it helped him in some way to forget.

And telling me they love me, I tell them I love them too, but I also say that they should love Jesus even more. It was said to me by an adult who is impressed by the young people coming to Mass, “when the time comes for you to leave here, I hope they will continue to come because it is not about you but it's about Jesus.” That very thought stirs in me, that I will have failed if people’s presence at Mass is more about me than about Jesus. I pray that is not the case.

After school I was joined on my walk by a sixteen-year-old young man who belongs to the neighbouring Church of England parish. He’s very tall and peers down at me respectfully from his height! He likes to ask me questions about Catholicism and has an incredibly keen understanding of our faith. He is the one who, many months ago, told me that as he was reading the Gospel of the Last Supper it suddenly dawned on him that what Jesus said is true. “This is my body!” means exactly that. Not a symbol, not just blessed bread but the body of Christ.

On this day he wanted to talk about Mary and the saints. He has concluded that if Mary is the mother of Jesus, and Jesus is our friend then of course we would talk to her. We talk to the mothers of our regular friends, so why not the mother of Jesus! The same with the saints. On this we got talking about how God chooses sinners such as Moses and Peter. He would like Tolkien to be declared a saint.

And we went on from such lofty spiritual thoughts to Black Sabbath and heavy metal music. He was wearing a Black Sabbath t-shirt and, when he apologised for wearing it, I told him I have nephews who wear such shirts.

And then it was bodybuilding because he wants his body to be the best possible temple for the Holy Spirit! That must be the first time I have heard that as a reason for bodybuilding! But when he told me about steroids I told him to be very careful because they can seriously mess with the head.  I would like him at all costs not to do anything that might mess with his precious and lively head.

He tells the young woman who joins our conversation that I’m his Gandalf! They go on to talk about the music of Slayer, a band whose music I'm  not familiar with but when I looked them up later, the titles of their songs make me shiver.

It was a very interesting day spent in the love and the company of the young!