THE HINGE OF HISTORY

 

THE HINGE OF HISTORY

Countries, businesses and organisations search for a logo to announce, in a simple sign, who they are. It could be a coat of arms, a traditional emblem or a modern eye-catcher. The fish eagle (Zimbabwe), the harp (Ireland) or two ellipses in the form of a cross (Toyota) are examples.

Mention of a cross brings to mind the Christian faith and the climax of our annual remembrance of it is about to begin. The shadow of the cross falls heavily over Holy Week. It is one of the simplest logos imaginable - an upright and a crossbar - and yet this sign is the hinge on which life hangs. In every situation, the door leading to life either opens for us or shuts. It depends on whether we choose the cross or avoid it.

The gospels make it dazzlingly clear from the outset – ‘this child is destined to be a sign that is opposed’ (Lk 2:34) – and throughout his life - ‘the Son of man is destined to be rejected’ (Mk 8:31) – that the cross is the thread running through the whole mission of Jesus. It is the yeast that gives his whole life – and ours – flavour. If I choose to forgive, I may find it a great struggle but I will discover a  deep freedom within me. I will be like a person who has let down a great burden they are carrying. Phew! That was heavy but now I have let it go.

It is simple! No, it certainly is not. But we have chosen the cross and it has set us free. The cross of Jesus is the hinge of history on which everything hangs. All the events, from the beginning of creation, either open the way for us or block it.

Edith Stein died, aged fifty, in a gas chamber in Auschwitz in 1942. Though brought up in a strict Jewish family, she was not religious. But she was a seeker and turned to philosophy for answers. Inspired by Edmund Husserl, she made huge progress and became a renowned philosopher in her turn. But she remained restless in her search. One evening, in a friend’s house, she came across the life of Teresa of Avila and read it throughout the night. Delighted, she knew she had found the treasure she sought and was baptised. She continued to teach but her heart drew her to a total self-giving and she entered the Carmelites. When the Nazis sought out the Jews to exterminate them, she was swept up into the darkness but in her deepest being she knew she was following Jesus to the cross and she rejoiced.

Palm Sunday        2 April 2023        Is 50:4-7     Ph 2:6-11     Mt 26:14ff

 THE CROSS

The Christian faith is utterly simple and yet it has layers of meaning we have no capacity to understand now. ‘If a person has been granted the power to behold the truth, then all that their senses perceive is for them nothing more than the ultimate extremity, jutting into this dark world, of another world infinitely more real than this’ (Hugo Rahner). What we are capable of experiencing is only a faint taste of what is yet to be revealed.

People often express their thanks for the ‘gift of life’ and clearly that is the greatest thing about us. We are alive. I am. One of the earliest experiences of a child is to smile; to recognise their mother, their father. It is the first moment of relationship. But then we know life does not flow in a beautiful sequence of never-ending good experiences. Sooner or later, there is limitation, frustration, anger. In a word, opposition.

What we are invited to do in Lent is recognise there is another word for opposition: the cross. We are not to use this word lightly, as a negative nuisance in our lives; something to be avoided, ignored and, if possible, eradicated. True, if I have a tooth ache, I need to do something about it soonest. But if we change the word ‘opposition’ to ‘opportunity’, we reach a point, we already know this, that opposition is also a crisis, a moment of decision. How do I respond? And I will grow insofar as the choice I make is according to the true way of life or not.  All creation comes to fulfilment in the cross because it stands for the moment of decision. When faced with the cross I can become truly myself – or I can run away from myself. Two images celebrate this: one is the Carthusian motto: Stat crux dum volvitur orbis, the cross stands (as the fixed point of creation) while the world swirls around (intent on its own agenda).

The other image, perhaps comveying the same idea, is Salvador Dali’s Salvator Mundi, Saviour of the World, (the painting here) which shows the cross brooding over the world much as the spirit brooded over creation (Gen.1:2).

From the beginning of the Christian era, we have recognised that the cross is not just the great event in the life and mission of Jesus; it is above all the central event of the whole of world history – the make or break event of humanity. When I wear a cross around my neck, it is not for decoration, still less a talisman. It is an expression of a commitment to make the kind of choices Jesus made, choices that give life, even if they lead, in the short run, to Calvary.

 

CINDERELLA – AN ADULT CHILDREN’S TALE

 

CINDERELLA – AN ADULT CHILDREN’S TALE

Once upon a time there was a little girl called Cinderella. Her mother was very ill and before she died, she called Cinderella and encouraged her to be patient and kind.

She then died and the father married another woman who had two daughters. Both the step-mother and her daughters made life miserable for Cinderella who used to go to her mother’s grave to cry and pray.

The king decided to hold a party for his son, the prince, so that he could meet many girls and choose one as his princess. The stepmother and her daughters went to the party but they left Cinderella at home. She was sad and cried as no one seemed to be kind to her.

Then she had a vision of a kind god-mother coming to her and giving her a beautiful dress and shoes and providing a carriage to take her to the party. But she warned that everything will go back to normal at mid-night.

Cinderella wondered if she was dreaming; but she got into the carriage and went to the party. When the prince saw her, he was delighted and went to her and they danced together the whole evening. But when the clock started to ring twelve times to show it was midnight, Cinderella remembered the words of the god-mother and ran out of the party losing her shoe as she went.

The prince ran after her but she was gone. But he saw the shoe and determined to search for the one whose foot the shoe fitted. He went from house to house but no girl’s foot fitted the shoe.

Eventually he came to Cinderella’s house and tried the shoe on first one of the step-sisters and then the other. But the shoe fitted neither of them. He asked the step-mother if there were any other girls in the house and the stepmother was reluctant to tell him of Cinderella. But eventually she had to.

The shoe fitted her foot perfectly and the prince knew this was his beautiful princess. He took her away and married her and later they became king and queen and lived happily ever after.

This is a story which has been told in different ways in different places for thousands of years; how the poor, the weak and the sad can suddenly become transformed.

In the gospel we have just read, Peter, James and John who, up to that time were confused and afraid, were thrilled, delighted, by what they experienced on the mountain. They could not believe that Jesus could be transformed into this dazzling being.

Jesus revealed himself to them in this way to give them a glimpse, a taste, of what they too would become. They, and we, will one day become something beyond our imagining.

But first, like Cinderella at midnight, they had to come down from the mountain and enter into everyday life again where they would try to be patient and kind. Bu they do so with the knowledge that they will soon be transformed into something beautiful.

Jesus was particularly keen they should understand this as he would soon enter into his own terrible struggle and humiliation on the cross. This world is a cruel place, as Cinderella knew, but it is God’s world and he is transforming it day by day through our struggles. 

 

AFRAID TO ASK

 

AFRAID TO ASK

On a cold winter’s night in July 1973, guerrilla freedom fighters visited St Albert’s Mission on the edge of the escarpment in the north of Zimbabwe, rounded up about 280 students and staff and led them down into the valley planning to enlist them in the struggle. When the Rhodesians learnt what had happened, they sent planes which dropped flares in the area where the guerrillas and students were walking. They then sent soldiers but were unable to attack as they were afraid of killing the students along with the guerrillas. Later the students became tired and the guerrillas allowed them to rest hidden in an eroded depression (donga). The guerrillas were now on their own and the army attacked. The guerrillas withdrew and the soldiers captured the students and stayed with them until trucks arrived to take them back to the mission.  

While they were waiting, one soldier’s rifle accidentally went off and killed one of the students, Hedrick Mandebvu (14) from Highfield, a suburb of Harare. She was the only casualty among the students and Fr Isidore Chikore, who knew the girl, later said she was exceptional and used to gather her friends and lead them in games and dances. And she would take them to the church and explain the Stations of the Cross and other pictures to them. Going down the escarpment, she took out her rosary and told her companions, ‘We must pray now’. Fr Lorenz von Walter, one of the priests at the mission, believes her sacrifice saved the mission.

As we enter Lent, we are invited to be aware that anything can happen in our lives any time. I write this on 21 February, a day when we especially remember the young people of our country. Young people, like Hedrick, have a freshness, an awareness, that can become dulled as the years pass. But the Church keeps interrupting our ‘dullness’ with moments of awareness – especially Advent and Lent. We yearn for security and comfort. But, if we get them, they can be dangerous for our spirit. We can be lulled into complacency and put signs on our doors saying, ‘Do Not Disturb’. But it is precisely in order to be disturbed that we enter Lent. You can’t cook without stirring! In today’s gospel, Mark tells us the disciples were shocked by Jesus’ talk of his suffering, death and rising.  They did not understand and ‘were afraid to ask him’ (9:32).

How many times have we been ‘afraid to ask’? We can be paralysed by the imagined reactions of others. And we can be afraid of the answer we might get. Basically, we don’t want to be disturbed. How often Jesus said, ‘Do not be afraid!’ But his message does not get through to us. Can we listen to Jesus, to other people, especially children, and to our own heart during this time of Lent?

26 February 2023        Lent Sunday 1A    Gen 2:7-9, 3:1-7    Rom 5:12-19     Mt 4:1-11

AWASH WITH WORDS

 

AWASH WITH WORDS

Ignatius Zvaravashe, who died in 2019, was a Jesuit priest and a writer. He was born in Gutu, Zimbabwe, in 1943 and was a keen observer of traditional customs and use of language. He has recently been ‘discovered’ in the sense that his thought, expressed in his writings and in the memory of those who knew him, is being studied and appreciated. A seminar on his work was held at Arrupe Jesuit University in Harare this week.

One of the speakers, Dr Ignatius Mabasa of the University of Zimbabwe, set the theme of the seminar by speaking of Zvaravashe’s life as lived between two walls: one was the Christianity which he learnt in his early years and which became so much part of him that he became a Jesuit and a priest. The other was his deep roots in the tradition of the ancestors which was so much part of him that he saw all his experiences in the light of that tradition. Walls are solid things and that, no doubt, was why Mabasa chose them as symbols of the two worlds between which Zvaravashe found himself.  He was driven by a desire to punch holes in those walls for he passionately believed both Christianity and tradition were not opposed to each other but both drew their power from a common source: the story of humanity.

This drive was agitated, and irritated, by the seemingly common perception that once a person becomes a priest, he would put all his traditional upbringing behind him and embrace a new doctrine, ‘purified’ of all ‘pagan’ beliefs. Zvaravashe fought this idea vigorously and suffered much to draw out the deeper unity that underlies all human searching for meaning. He was misunderstood by many and perhaps especially his own Jesuit companions who were scared off by what they saw as his wild language. He was not invited to teach at the Jesuit colleges that trained younger Jesuits and even his period with the novices, as an assistant to the director, came to an abrupt end.

Where he was accepted, and with enthusiasm, was in his writings. His novels became set books in Zimbabwean schools. Mabasa described Shona culture as ‘awash with words’ and gave as a simple example people being dissatisfied with saying just ‘Thank you,’ when receiving a gift. They would wish to express their appreciation in many words, including poems and songs of praise. Echoes of the psalms. Other speakers at the seminar, Fr Dominic Tomuseni, Dr Aaron C. Moyo and poet Chirikure Chirikure, developed different themes from their personal knowledge of Zvaravashe and from their close study of his writings. The dean of AJU, Fr Evaristus Ekwueme, closed the seminar by announcing it is just the beginning. We will hear more of Zvarevashe.

FRONT

 

FRONT

I wonder why the ruling party chooses to retain the word ‘Front’ in its title? It was part of the title chosen by their predecessors in government when, in the early 1960s, they chose a military title for theirs. Then it was a ‘front’ against any black advancement and the Zambezi was often invoked as a frontier with chaos ‘to the north of us’, a chaos against which they were determined to build a solid defence.

Knowingly or unknowingly, our present government retains – not only the word, with its militaristic connotation - but the attitude of ‘we’ and ‘them’ which was the coinage of the Rhodesians. Every decision, every policy, was then, and is now, underwritten by an outlook that kept, and keeps, the front in place. You may advance so far but no further. We, on this side of the front, intend to keep things as they are.

A front can be a barrier. And a barrier is a sign of fear. But it can also be an invitation. And then it becomes a sign of growth. ‘Look to him and be radiant; so your faces will never be ashamed’, cries the psalmist (34:5) and when Peter was in the depths of his humiliation, ‘Jesus turned and looked straight at him’ (Luke 22:61). It was a look of love and compassion but it was also a con-front-ation. Peter was a new man from that moment. To face someone or something can be a moment of healing. To engage with people who are different from us, opens us up.

‘Engage’ was the catchword of the French youth in 1968, and when it comes to revolutions, as usual, the French like to be out in front - that word again! After all, the phrase avant-garde is theirs. In Matthew’s sermon on the mountain, Jesus is explicitly avant-garde; he moves beyond the front the Jews had built. ‘You have learnt how it was said to our ancestors …’ about killing, adultery, and the rest. ‘But I say this to you …’ and he goes far beyond the frontier the Jews had built and probes the deeper meaning of relationships between people. He knows it will be tough to break down the barriers but he puts the choice all the same: ‘fire and water is placed before you, choose what you prefer,’ (Ben Sira 15:15).

To face someone or something can be a liberation. People choose to visit the sick – not just their relatives, the handicapped and those in prison. Often, they will say, ‘I receive far more than I give.’

12 February 2023        Sunday 6A      Sir 15:15-20        1 Cor 2:6-10            Matt 5:17-37

FOLLOW ME!

 

FOLLOW ME!

‘Follow me!’ You would need to be full of confidence, perhaps like St Paul, to say that to another! I once committed myself to another’s lead on a mountain side when we were lost. But what happens when someone you trust lets your down? I had trust, appreciation and admiration for the first leader of this country for twenty years (from 1974). But then, in 1995, my trust crumbled. I felt let down.

Now it has happened again. Someone, whose compassion for people with disabilities made him a star for thousands who followed his example, has been found to be a weak fragile human being. I was one of those who was deeply inspired by Jean Vanier and, like so many, became involved in the work he began. Now it turns out that he was leading a double life: announcing the ‘good news to the poor’ on the one hand and exploiting vulnerable young women on the other. Jean was such an influential person that the organisation he founded commissioned an inquiry involving experts from many professions to study the evidence and make their judgement.

Those of us who hoped for some soothing conclusion that would somehow diminish the impact of the revelations are not only disappointed but now know the situation is much worse than we feared. We are prepared, perhaps, for a political leader to dash our hopes. But it is harder when a man, seemingly embedded in the gospel, proves to quite other than we thought.  (The work he founded, l’Arche, is untainted by his behaviour and lives by its own, often heroic, values).

What do we do when we feel let down? Get angry? Start blaming? Become cynical? All these. But they don’t help. In the end we have to reflect; was I transferring my ideals onto another, allowing that person to carry the crown I am too scared to wear? Was I allowing another person to be my hero because I had not the courage to be a hero myself? Have I hid in another’s shadow, content to bask in their glory while evading the responsibility of cultivating my own?

When Jesus said, ‘you are the salt of the earth, you are the light of the world’, he was talking to each of us – not to our leaders. We are, each of us, individuals, responsible for our own choices. These people I mention were human beings, tainted by their own unprocessed lusts. Despite their gifts, they could not cope. In the end they let us down. Instead of getting angry with them for failing, can I try to embrace the struggle of being ‘salt’ and ‘light’ myself?

5 February 2023    Sunday 5A  Is 57:7-10   I Cor 2:1-5  Mt 5:13-16