If There's a Ballroom in Heaven

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These have been days of catching up with the past. It's been too long, years of not being in contact and the, in one day, the doors of sickness and death opened and brought me back in touch with two men from my days as Rector in Pallotti House in the 1990's. Neither of these men know each other. Both sent me their phone numbers.

Agustin came to us from Argentina as a very young man, not with the idea of becoming a priest, but he needed a place to stay until he got established. We got on very well from the start and remained friendly even after I told him it was time to leave and get his own place. 

He did well and now has a wife and two children, one of whom I baptized here in Shankill fifteen years ago.

So, he sent me a voice message and, after recounting the illness of his friend, went on to thank me for all I had done for him. "I owe you so much" he said. And, if there is anything I need him to do, he will do.

He owes me nothing at all, and it is enough now for me to hear the happiness in his voice which brings joy to my heart and a great smile to. My face. He has that effect. And, I look forward to seeing him soon. 

Joe was a student with us and left to find his true vocation in marriage and fatherhood. His own Dad has died at the ripe old age of 93 and had, as a parent, become part of our community life. We used to have a parent's day coming up to the Summer holidays and this helped us all to become part of each other's family, meeting over the years at ordinations and funerals. 

Mattie and my Mother got in very well and enjoyed dancing together. And, being both from farms, they had the language of the land between them, and they loved talking as much as dancing. 

Father Ian at the funeral said that if there's a ballroom in heaven, then Mattie is dancing there with his beloved Bridie. And I see him dancing with Mam and the two of them laughing. And I see them all dancing with God who dances with shouts of joy over them (Zephaniah 3).

Having seen Joe again now, I'm keen to see him soon again. The loveliest of men.

There's something quite special about a farmer's funeral, something special about the people gathered there in the church in Claregalway. As a priest you get a sense of who and how people are as they approach to receive Holy Communion. Their's is a humble and unapologetic faith. Unpretentious. Earthy without being worldly; heavenly in its earthiness. Their hard working hands, female and male, stretched out to hold the Body of Christ so respectfully. And whether they receive on hand or tongue, you sense that there is no debate about either and certainly no drawing attention to the self, no standing out. No admiratio.

There is beauty in it all in abundance. They know that, either in the stables of their farms or in the most majestic of churches, Jesus is at home among them, because He has become one of them.

This is the kind of faith Mattie Cormican lived. Heaven and earth, spirit and flesh interwoven.

Father Ian spoke many beautiful words, taking us on a journey into a very noble place. I was struck when he spoke about the Truth of the harvest – the harvest of the fields and the harvest of our lives. We don’t reap everything that we have sown. Some of it gets lost, some attacked by the forces of nature, insects devour some and we have to accept what remains. Of the part that remains, the wheat is separated from the chaff which is burned in the fire of God’s infinite Love. It’s not the hellish burning that we might think, but the saving fire of Divine Love. And when we come to give an account of our lives, the dross is everything that we possess, our money, property, our successes. The wheat is who we have become.

The Truth that burns in our hearts has been occupying my thoughts recently, that interior burning that recognises Jesus, recognises what is real, what is true. It transcends thoughts and feelings, is not subject to them. It is a knowing at the deepest level of our being. The sum of all our words is, He is the All. He is everything and He is in everything.

At Communion we heard a rather beautiful rendition of Treasure in the Field. I’ve found a treasure in the field that neither time nor death can steal. I will sell what I have, give all that I own to hold this treasure as my own. Jesus Lord of my life…


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