AN UNSTIRRED STILLNESS (Surrender)

There's an unstirred stillness about fog. Silence of a Sunday morning, the sun attempting to break through, promising something, delivering nothing. The beautifully haunting violin of Spiegel Im Spiegel is the only sound to enter into the day, reminding me of my friend Fr Míceal. We used to listen to it together in the car. It's in the car now that it spontaneously pops up on my playlist. 

A high tide blubbers in the chambers of my soul, like the swell of the sea in the crevices of rocks at Ballyloughán. An echo of emptiness in the falling night.

A young man on a bench is doing something I've only ever seen in Argentina. He's pouring hot water from a thermos into a gourd cup with a steel straw. I nod at him and say, "Mate" - pronounced mathé, a kind of tea made with bitter herbs. His face breaks into a big smile, delighted at the recognition. A man alone and far from home. We are briefly connected in that moment. Briefly, and perhaps forever.

Aloneness hovers around the sea at dusk. Some of it content, some of it not. Loss speaks its name in the wind. A lot of it feels very unfair, even unjust. Definitely unfair. 

Loss has many faces, many names. And there's nothing at all that one can do about it.

Nothing but surrender. Perhaps not surrender to the experience itself but surrender to God in it, something that is written into the heart of our Pallottine Consecration - I surrender, give and offer my whole self.

From our student days there's a hymn within me that I often find myself singing - All to Jesus I Surrender - but its tempo is very dreary, even a bit depressing and I've searched for versions of it that are not so, but in the end they're all the same. I would love to find a hymn of surrender that is uplifting and victorious.

I did find a rather nice sung version of a Novena of Surrender which I've started doing recently. I sing it whenever I am beset by loss or resentment or jealousy. I have some awful fits of jealousy towards the privileged and entitled who can make their way where I cannot, who succeed when I cannot.

The words of this novena are wonderfully brief and simple: "Jesus, I surrender myself to you. Take care of everything." It is given by the Servant of God Fr. Don Dolindo Ruotolo

My prayer of surrender is never just for myself but for anyone who is going through similar loss - the loss of loved ones, the loss of access to loved ones, the loss of one's own place in the world.

A very interesting article was sent to me lately about the many priests who are without ministry and the effect it has on them and I realize that I am one of them right now - being nowhere, no one, nothing. 

"Dear God, I do not know where I am going" - the prayer of Thomas Merton that was famously prayed at Mass by my late colleague Bill Hanly. This prayer is very much in my heart and on my lips. And with Diana Ross I sing a bit lightheartedly "I'm Still Waiting!" A different kind of waiting.

Waiting, waiting, waiting in the spirit of Psalm 40. And God has yet to stoop down, to hear. Well, He has heard but maybe He too is waiting.

It was said of me recently that I am very frustrated by the fact that I still haven't been given an appointment after all this time. People exaggerate greatly. I am not very frustrated, not even mildly so. I have been patient in the waiting, trusting that God has a plan, but I must confess that my patience has thinned somewhat of late because I miss the purpose for which I am Ordained.

It is lovely having all this time at home, necessary even that I am near my family right now and I think the neighbours have concluded that I am retired. And all of it is good but I am a ship in harbour and that is not what a ship is built for - unless it is a wreck, like our dear Naomh Éanna. And, thank God, I am not yet a wreck! I will be one day, and then I will serve differently.

And however important my family are to me - we are very, very tightly knit - I was not Ordained for them. And I do not want to become the ageing priest who lingers too long in another's house, while they sit politely waiting for him to leave. I have seen it happen to other priests and I have sensed it happening to me. This ship must sail.

One who has sailed Home is Sister Assumpta White whose funeral we celebrated in Tipperary on Saturday. A legend of fidelity and service that are the hallmarks of a Christian calling that is rooted and founded in the love of Christ.

Like all funerals it was an opportunity to renew old acquaintances. Nuns I had come to know forty years ago when giving retreats in Borrisoleigh. We have all aged and one of the quoted to me, "all is changed, changed utterly, a terrible beauty is born." And I said, not terrible beauty but a great beauty. And I mean it, because in the eyes and faces and the many challenged bodies, I perceive an incredible beauty. So Blessed. So broken in ways. But Blessed!

One of the broken held my two hands and my gaze with her two blue eyes and I wonder if she realizes at all the enormous dignity she possess.

As Mam and Dad would say, it was a great funeral. None of the excesses that are so common now, just a simple act of worship and gratitude. And afterwards Maggie, Joe, Ciara and myself went for lunch in the shopping centre, at home in each other's company. Belonging.

Belonging is what Tom O'Donnell spoke of the next day in Templeglantine church where we gathered to celebrate the 50th anniversary of his Ordination.

Tom is one of those who inspired me to join the Pallottines 54 years ago. He was a great support to me in Argentina when I was Provincial and we reconnected again this year during my visit to Argentina in July.

Johnny Sweeney, who lived in community with Tom for a number of years, spoke at the end of Mass and said that the highest praise you can offer someone in Argentina is to say they are "the bread of God." Tom is that and it is what we all aspire to be. Let it be done. Amen.