YOU NEED TO WEAR A POLO NECK

-

 



"You need to wear a polo neck" said the cashier at the supermarket checkout. 


I wasn't sure that I heard her right and said, "pardon?" 


"You need to wear a polo neck" she repeated.


"Why do I need to wear a polo neck? I asked.


"You need to hide this" she said, pointing to my clerical collar.


"I don't need to hide it." I said.

 

Then she asked me if I had the app for the supermarket on my phone and I asked what the advantage of it would be, but I was too distracted by her comment to understand what she was saying now.

 

She was calm. I was calm. There was no hint of aggression in her tone and I took no offence, thinking that she might even be protective towards me, warning me that it could attract negative attention. Which it might, of course, and with good reason.

 

But it felt surreal and the phrase that stuck in me was, “you need to hide.”


It would be easier to hide at times. But it's not the best thing. And I wear my collar for ministry and sometimes when travelling it has given people the courage to approach me to ask me for prayer. Like coming back from my cousin's funeral in Birmingham, a man at the airport came up to me, looking quite distressed and asked me to pray for him. Even in the asking you could see the relief in his face. So, the collar is for service, not for me and certainly not to force my own faith on others.

 

We all have plenty of experience of feeling that we need to hide who and what we are. It is a strong undercurrent in Irish society that we particularly need to hide our Catholicism – not just as priests but many Catholics feel they cannot be open about the fact that they go to Mass,

 

Quite a different experience from England where one can wear what one likes and I never had any negative experience connected with the wearing of the collar. In Hastings Old Town there was general admiration for our congregation, though official England is still somewhat anti-Catholic and you sometimes hear comments like, “anything but Catholic.”

 

You need to hide.

 

I suspect that the anti-Catholic movement in Ireland is at its heart anti-Christ. Anti who He is and what He asks of us. We have seen plenty of examples recently of attempts to de-Christianize St. Bridget, reverting her to the status of a pagan goddess, while St. Patrick himself is almost totally sidelined in the celebration of the St. Patrick’s festival.

 

In the Gospel of the raising of Lazarus, we encounter a very clear and open declaration of faith on the part of Martha, faith in the person of Jesus, a faith that includes faith in the resurrection of the dead. The two go together.

 

“Jesus said: ‘I am the resurrection and the life. If anyone believes in me, even though he dies he will live, and whoever lives and believes in me will never die.

Do you believe this?’ ‘Yes, Lord,’ she said, ‘I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, the one who was to come into this world.’” (John 11)

 Do you believe this?

All of this has drawn me to the interior, hidden place of my soul, the place where the gift of faith abides. I have gone in there to ponder the quality of my own faith, the sincerity of it, recognising the times when I have been embarrassed when called upon to give public expression to my faith; times also when I have experienced doubt.

Faith is tested when we are confronted by the sickness and death of someone we love, a testing that doesn’t have to me that we abandon it but, like gold tested in fire, faith really comes into its own when we have to deal with such personal loss.

We see it here in this Gospel. They tell Jesus that the man He loves is ill and Jesus takes His time in doing anything about it, in fact He seems to deliberately delay, waiting two days. And then it is too late, because Lazarus has died before Jesus gets there. And the gospel insists that Jesus loves Martha, Mary, and Lazarus.

The child you love is ill, the child whom Jesus loves. The child dies. The woman you love is taken with no warning in the blink of an eye. We pray and we pray, seemingly to no avail and it is at that point that we are called to stand in the shoes of Martha who, in the face of death, can say, “yet even now I know” and “yes Lord I believe.” 

We just have to keep saying it. Yes Lord, I believe that You are the Christ, the Son of God. To say it even when we doubt it. It has the power of the Word of God in it, the power to transform. 

There’s another phrase from another Gospel story that has helped me in times of doubt. A Dad comes to Jesus to plead for his child who is ill and Jesus suggests that the man’s faith is lacking because he is looking for signs. And the father, with the desperation of love says, “Lord I believe, help my unbelief.” 

That simple prayer has sustained me in my times of doubt. 

Jesus is the Son of God. He is God. Word of God in flesh and blood like ours. It is an enormous reality that is beyond the comprehension of the human mind, a reality that can only be understood by faith.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

TIME OF MY DEPARTURE

-
Image
  A garden in the city. The only cool place on this rather hot morning. Beautiful. Nothing to do but watch the antics of two cats. The mother, who has been named Beauty and her unnamed kitten, whom I have decided to call Binti. A wild, frightened thing and very funny to watch. I think if I remained long enough in the garden and sat still enough she would become accustomed to my presence, not take off in fright every time I stand up. It's the morning after a very emotional weekend. Part of me feels like a traitor. It's the kind of road I naturally go down. But I really must start taking into myself the sheer depth and strength of the love that the people of Hastings parish have for me. That there is love between us has been clear all along. I know this in my head. But it's another thing to absorb it into the fibres of my being, to risk being possessed by it, overwhelmed by it, consumed. Consumed. I have been consumed by my work in Hastings. Only now do I realise it. People h...
Read more

I LIVE TO SERVE - In Loving Memory of Father Emmanuel Msuri

-
Image
  We stand in the temple of our reality, in the presence of God, like the two men in the Gospel. What brings us close to God has been given us. The One who is close to the broken-hearted has humbled us with sorrow so that we might come near to Him. There are two things that bring us into intimate union with Him – the humbled contrite heart of the sinner who cries out for Mercy and the humbled heart that is broken by sorrow. Heart-broken. One prays, “O God be merciful to me a sinner” and the other simply says “O God…” We are shocked and heart-broken by the unexpected death, at the age of forty-seven, of Father Emmanuel Msuri whose arrival here in Hastings we have been waiting for with great anticipation. This was to be another kind of Advent; the meaning of his name not lost on us. Emmanuel – God is with us. He was not known personally to any of the parishioners, with the exception of Alexandra who, as leader of the welcoming group had been in contact with him by email. But, t...
Read more

THE SUPREME ADVANTAGE - In Loving Memory of Fr. John Fitzpatrick SAC

-
Image
Three former Provincials - Derry Murphy , John and me Thurles Cathedral bell rings out the midday Angelus .  I pray it out loud for John. We are alone and this is one of the prayers I associate with him. "May Thy Divine assistance remain always with us." Then there is only the sound of him breathing through his final sleep on earth, a sleep that began more than two days ago. We thought then that he would go quickly enough. He thought it himself. His last words were something like, "it's time for me to go to the Lord." But the Lord has His own time in the mystery of things. And I am in no rush, being home on holidays with all the time in the world. Like his sister Rita said yesterday, isn't it good to have all the time we can have with him, even if we want him to be free of this final struggle. But there's actually little sign of struggle, just a slow, steady and heavy breathing. There were moments of obvious pain yesterday but even then he doesn't u...
Read more

Farewell Homily for Fr Eamonn Monson by Deacon Duncan Brown

-
Image
Farewell Homily for Fr Eamonn Monson (Readings: Ezekiel 47 : 1-2, 8-9, 12 | 1 Cor 3 : 9-11, 16-17 | John 2 : 13-22) It’s not easy to say goodbye to someone like  Fr Eamonn Monson  — not just because of the years he’s spent with us, but because of  how  he’s spent them: fully, generously, and at times delightfully unpredictably… especially if you happen to be a pigeon. Yes, it’s fair to say that Fr Eamonn has always had a generous heart — and apparently a generous spare room too. One pigeon took up residence in the presbytery, another decided the church itself would do nicely and most recently a pair started hanging out in the porch Whether they came seeking spiritual guidance or just good company, who’s to say? But they clearly recognised a kind soul when they saw one. The River of Life – Ezekiel 47 In the first reading, the prophet  Ezekiel  sees a trickle of water flowing from the Temple — a stream that grows deeper and wider until it becomes a river brin...
Read more

FROM THE PSYCHIATRIST'S DESK

-
Image
  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 ...
Read more

FROM THE WOMB BEFORE THE DAWN

-
Image
    “From the womb before the dawn I begot you…” (Psalm 110)   Maura Monson, Andrew Molloy, Eamonn Monson, Rosaleen Monson & Noreen Carr A Sunday morning sky of two parts. To the West an ominous deep blue grey, to the East the astonishing unfolding of dawn. Hundreds of screeching, swirling seagulls are black against the emerging light and strangely luminous against the dark clouds. I’ve been up since shortly after 3am, waking as I often do now in the fourth watch of the night – that period between 3 and 6am that’s spoken of in the Bible. It was during this watch that Jacob wrestled with God and during this watch that Jesus walked on water. I was born during this watch at 3.30am and for many years I could not sleep until after that time, my nights being a constant battle, a time of conflict and injury. Now I tend to sleep early and wake up during the fourth watch and it is a quiet, peaceful, blessed experience. Perhaps I am being brought to new birth. We’re told that i...
Read more

FESTIVAL OF THE UNEXCEPTIONAL: Celebrating the Ordinary

-
Image
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 w...
Read more

The Call of St. Matthew (Caravaggio)

-
Image
When Jesus enters the room My hands are still on the money Fingers fiddling My mind distracted by it My soul oppressed by its demands My heart tangled in its deception Then glancing sideward I see the Hand outstretched Finger pointing like a new creation’s Dawning light And when He speaks It is clear that I cannot Serve both God and money It is He that I must follow However harrowed be my life I grow younger as I near Him A beauty ever ancient Emerges ever new Sitting with Him at table We sinners are drawn in To an intimacy Most Divine Mercy
Read more

My Home at the Feet of Jesus

-
Image
  Martha and Mary. We miss the point when we get caught up in the argument of the two sisters and, most people come down on the side of Martha because she is us. We are her. We are busy. We want to be distracted. And we ask a fair question, “what would the world be like if everyone sat down like Mary?” Nothing would get done! But, of course, we miss the point. Martha and Mary are not the point. The point of it all is Jesus. It is He whom we serve. It is to Him that we listen. On a personal level, this Gospel has been significant for me since the first time I read it. As a young student I “knew” that I belonged in the place that Mary occupies. I felt that keenly and lived it to a great degree as a young priest in Tanzania. I feel it now as a call to return to the place where I truly belong. My home at the feet of Jesus, listening to Him. The new translation of the Lectionary adds another personal dimension for me. It is the word “portion.” Mary has chosen the “good porti...
Read more