FESTIVAL OF THE UNEXCEPTIONAL: Celebrating the Ordinary

We were talking about cars. The flash sporty ones and car shows that he attended. He has a lot of knowledge. I don’t. But I’ve loved all cars since I was a boy. There weren’t that many of them in Mervue in the 1960’s. Enough, though, for me to fill a notebook with their registration numbers, make and model. Ordinary cars of ordinary people.

Of the sixteen homes in Ceannt Avenue, there were four or five cars and I would tell friends that my Dad was getting one next year. A pale blue Anglia, like the one uncle Josie had. It never happened! In our teen years Mam would lament the fact that we were still “the walking Monsons”.

Back to the conversation with my friend! He told me about the Festival of the Unexceptional that he attended, a car show at which they celebrate the ordinary cars of ordinary people who tell of the significance of their particular vehicle in their lives. I looked it up online. Fabulous!

It strikes me that Christianity is a Festival of Unexceptional, ordinary people who enrich our lives and reveal the face of God to us. And when we ponder these Unexceptional people we realize, of course, how exceptional they actually are. How utterly precious and beyond price.

Hastings has been such a Festival for me. I came here more than eight years ago with this Word in my heart, “of You my heart has spoken, seek His Face it is Your Face O Lord that I seek. Hide not Your Face.”

And the face of God has been revealed to me here, countless times and in varied ways.

First and foremost in the Eucharist, especially the Sunday Mass, which has been the cornerstone of our life as a parish. We have something very special going on here that has its centre in our Sunday gatherings. People have given me the credit but it is not of my doing. It is our experience of Jesus here, it is all of us together that has made this parish what it is. We have ministered to each other in a natural and uncomplicated way. Thanks be to God.

The Face of God in ordinary people has been a most striking aspect of my life here, sometimes in the most unexpected and unlikely of places. Where God seems not to be, there I have found Him.

And He is of course where you would expect to find Him. In the sick, in the dying. In parents and children. At home in families. In those who live solitary lives. He has smiled joyfully on me in school. I have encountered God on High Street, in the neighbours who stop to chat and in the variety of characters that makes Hastings Old Town what it is.

I have encountered Him on the seafront, in His wonderful creation and the magnificent sunsets that surpass those of my native Galway Bay.

Recently I went to anoint a woman who was approaching the end of her life on earth. She suffered greatly. As we prayed I could see the radiance in her and, as I was about to leave, I said to her, “you have a beautiful face!" “Do I?” she asked as she smiled with pleasure And then, “ah, sure you’re only saying that!" “I’m not” I said, “it’s true!"

A few days before she died, this woman, Bebe, saw a tall black man with glasses, standing next to her bed her, smiling at her and all she wanted to do was follow him. She died the same morning as Father Emmanuel and, when I heard all this, I cried again because it seemed to me that it was he who visited Bebe; that in the mysterious period of approaching death these two were brought together across the miles of earth and sky; that somehow Emmanuel did get to minister in Hastings after all.

I tell people that Hastings has been the highest point of my life as a priest, like the summit of the mountain of life that I have been given to climb. The mountain of my transfiguration. I say this and people respond, “I bet you say that in every place that you leave.” Not true! Prior to this there have been exceptional experiences, most notably Shankill and my experience in Tanzania holds a special place in my heart.

But here, as He did in the Gospel, Jesus has taken us to the top of this high mountain where we have witnessed His beauty and Glory in prayer and in our encounters with each other.

And the voice of God the Father, speaking of Jesus, speaks also of us, “this is my beloved Son.” Beloved Son, beloved daughter. This is who we are.

My entire life has been one of striving to become like Jesus as much as is possible. It is what St. Paul asks of us, that in our minds we must be the same as Christ Jesus. We Pallottines have been given the life of Jesus Christ as the fundamental rule of our community and Pallotti urges us always to consider what Jesus would do or say in any given situation. To consider and do as He would.

I have failed many times in this aspiration, here in Hastings as elsewhere. Some people are disappointed by what has not been achieved. These failures are among my regrets. But they also spur me on to never give up striving.

In John 6:37 Jesus says, "I will not turn away anyone who comes to me." This ministry of welcome is an essential part of the life of a priest. To welcome and to facilitate what the Holy Spirit is doing in an individual's life. A watchman at the door of God's house. Watchman and not Lord of the house, not Lord over anyone who seeks to enter for whatever reason.

I have been tempted at times to judge, to question people's motives. Tempted to despair when people disappear once they have got what they want from the Church, from me. But something has always held me back. Some One!

And then I have seen a spark, flickering into a flame of faith. God at work in the one whom He loves. Small, imperfect steps. God's work.

The death of Father Emmanuel has heightened in me understanding that it is God - not I, not we - who is in charge. He will ultimately do what is necessary. We need to learn how to discern what He is doing.

The abundan of love that has been shown me here is staggering and it is a challenge to me to let the extent of it penetrate my inmost being.

For I wonder again, who am I that I should be so blessed. And I am back again to the boy I was in Mervue. I was a Gideon in life, least of the least. To myself I was nothing, of no consequence and here I am now. Nothing has become something; no one has become someone.

So I must allow all this to penetrate to my very core, take it home with me and bathe in it until I am soaked right through, trusting that "all will be well" with the people I leave behind. 

This weekend, November 8th & 9th, as I celebrate my last Masses as parish priest of St. Mary Star of the Sea, Hastings, my heart will be so full as I say farewell to the  people I love to the point of tears. Full and immensely grateful. Always in each other's hearts in the Heart of of the One who holds us all in being.