Author: Martin

Most of us are familiar with the notion of ‘Chinese whispers’, where a specific thought or sentence is passed, one by one, along a series of people, with the end result being that the original meaning is entirely changed by the end of the process. Such as: “Fred left the house unlocked this morning” somehow becomes: “Ted got the drain unblocked yesterday evening”! This of course indicates how different individuals hear, perceive and relay messages, and underlines the complexity of human communication.

Preaching – which we could define as the proclamation of spiritual messages – is of course a form of communication, and certainly has to obey the rules and the complexities of communication. But I would argue that it is in many ways a special case, perhaps even a ‘funny thing’ in that it has, or should have if it is authentic, an even deeper level of potential complexity: another speaker is involved – God. It might even be that God is speaking through the preacher’s efforts… or even in spite of their efforts!

I clearly remember from my days as an active Catholic priest one particular incident that taught me a valuable lesson. It was at a morning mass during a parish mission in Scotland. I had preached a short sermon (I can’t actually remember on what!) but a woman came up to me afterwards. She was very excited and proceeded to thank me most profusely. What a wonderful sermon I had preached, and how it spoke to her of God!

I’m sure I glowed in the warmth of her appreciation but I was taken aback as she proceeded to explain how my ‘message’ had struck her so forcefully: she had been struck by what was almost a throw away remark, if indeed I had actually spoken the words she ‘heard’. The truth was that she had heard something that resonated with what was already churning in her spirit – but, nothing really to do with what I had been speaking about! My words had simply been the occasion for what was a fertile seed to suddenly sprout! As she went on in delighted vein, I realised that she wasn’t talking about what was my message at all, but if anything what had been a very peripheral point. Maybe the sermon had merely been a sacred space for her to hear God speaking directly to her heart?

What had she heard? Most likely not much to do with my wonderful sermon. Possibly at most a word or two of mine, but likely taken out of my context and inserted into her own truth. I suppose that can happen with any oration or even in an informal conversation between two people. We tend to hear not so much what the other is saying but rather what resonates with where our mind and attention currently is. We might even be having a chat with someone but actually thinking about our lunch. Perhaps you’ve had conversations with someone and begun to realise that they are ‘somewhere else’?

People who attend services and listen to sermons will always come with an agenda – by that I mean that they will have joys, sorrows and divers other issues on their minds and hearts. The preacher may often fail to realise that his or her audience is not a blank canvas just waiting to receive his / her wisdom. The very service itself may be that sacred ground where God can, and does, speak His Word on all sorts of levels.

For God will make use of any means or occasion to plant His Word in the human heart. The problem is usually that people are not receptive, and then they complain that God is silent. Or they start by listening but other thoughts spawn in their mind.

As I say, preaching is a ‘funny thing’ – it is a very subtle and mysterious communication. I shudder sometimes when I think back on the responsibility of even trying to be a conduit for God. But He often makes up for our poor efforts.

I hope and pray that this short blog post enables you to hear His truth for you today on whatever level you need. The subject of the blog may not even matter for you!

His will be done in all things,

Martin

At this time of year Christians listen to the nativity narratives in the Gospel: the story of Jesus’ conception and birth. Jesus and Mary are the central characters of course, but Joseph of Nazareth, the husband of Mary and foster father of Jesus, is also a key figure.

Joseph, the man we read about in the Gospels, is an amazing man. His experience in the whole conception and birth narratives is not a sugary sweet, happy ever after one. In fact, he faces challenges that most ordinary men – and women – would baulk at and probably fail to endure.

Joseph is betrothed to Mary – a strong kind of engagement in Jewish society – and he looks forward to their marriage and to settling down with Mary and having a family, especially sons to carry on his family name and business. Instead, he hears the shattering news that Mary is pregnant – and he knows he is not the father. Again, in Jewish society of that time, this was a very serious matter: Joseph could publicly disown Mary and had rights for her to be punished, perhaps by stoning to death because of her apparent infidelity. Most ordinary men in that situation would be hurt, shattered, and furious to the point of seeking revenge. It would be hard to see how any love could survive such a betrayal. Joseph himself would be humiliated among his peers.

But Joseph is a special man, and he decides to break with Mary but quietly, perhaps making arrangements for her to go far away, and this is to protect her from gossip, shame, and legal punishment. His love for her has not died, but we would be wrong to think that he wasn’t suffering greatly. And added to this, Mary tells him she hasn’t slept with another man but the child in her womb is a miraculous gift – from God. This news might well have left him questioning whether Mary had lost her reason, and he could also suspect that she was trying to ‘pull a fast one on him’. Perhaps she wanted her child and also marriage to Joseph as well?

Joseph must have been in a confused and tortured state of mind. He then gets a vision from an angel who confirms Mary’s bizarre story. Does this revelation settle his dilemma and reassure him? I doubt it, and it’s worth pointing out that neither Mary or Joseph would have had much support from a deeply religious and conservative society. Maybe they had a trusted friend or perhaps even a spiritual advisor, but likely they had to hold this difficult knowledge inside themselves, unable to confide in anyone.

Joseph decides to put his trust in what Mary and the vision have told him – not an easy thing to do, and he must have been riddled with self doubts. And so he walks the walk with Mary all the way to the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem, and then spends years raising this child who is not born of him. Did things get easier for him as time went by? We are not told but we can suspect that he had to struggle with his faith in God’s purpose for the rest of his life.

An amazing man indeed. Could you or I keep faith in God even in the midst of the most bizarre and troubling of circumstances? I suspect that without a thorough grounding in prayer and a strong relationship with God built over many years, it would be beyond most of us to endure. We look for logic and purpose – yet God’s ways are not our ways!

We can learn a lot from Joseph of Nazareth,

Martin

When Jesus walked this earth two thousand years ago, it’s perhaps easy to imagine that most folk would have flocked to see and follow him. And indeed, the Gospels do relate that at certain times thousands went many miles even to remote and desolate places in their eagerness to see, hear and even touch him. There were times and places where he struggled to be alone, to pray and to rest, such were the demands from needy and troubled folk.

Was there something visibly striking about this man Jesus? Something in his manner that affected people – perhaps even unnerved them? Children certainly seemed to be attracted to him. Some public sinners risked greater scandal and abuse to reach him. For some people, encountering Jesus was truly life changing. His words and his deeds were remarkable, and the Gospels explicitly state that “he taught with authority”. Something about what he said and did resonated with his very physical presence.

And yet, not everyone was a fan. We know that the civil and religious authorities were alarmed and greatly concerned by him to the extent that they conspired to bring him down and eventually to destroy him. He directly acknowledged this by saying that his values would conflict with the values of the world, and those who lived his values, would encounter suffering and worse. He never denied the Cross that loomed in his future. He even turned and steadfastly headed for Jerusalem where he knew his life was in danger.

Truly, in his lifetime Jesus knew and experienced the warmth of friendship, the adulation of popularity, and the unceasing demands of a people desperate for healing. But he also knew opposition, mockery, deceit, slander, and even betrayal. His very disciples, those closest to him, were also clearly slow to understand his message, even to the point of quietly doubting and arguing behind his back.

Acclamation and scorn in equal measure? And yet, there is perhaps a reaction which is even worse than scorn and opposition… disinterest. The Gospels are not so explicit in this regard. We may wonder if Jesus ever met with disinterest: people who were simply not impressed by him. Did Jesus leave some people ‘cold’?

In my experience I have met individuals who appear not to have a single “spiritual bone in their body”, so to speak. For these people, any talk of eternity, of supernatural or transcendent matters, is simply nonsensical, irrelevant – even boring. I suspect if you’re reading this then you are not one of these people!

In the book of Revelation (3: 15 – 16) we read:

“… you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! So, because you are lukewarm – neither hot nor cold – I am about to spit you out of my mouth.”

Pretty strong words, which the writer of Revelation attributes to God’s own Spirit. It’s almost as if God will accept followers and even enemies, but has a hard time with those who sit on the fence. In this sense, God welcomes the sincere atheist, who is after all someone who has thought deeply about spiritual matters and decided against any divine reality. God can cope with atheists! He can cope with sincere agnostics! At least they have paid a kind of compliment to Him by addressing His existence.

Given that God is not optional – He is the very ground of our being, who we come from, who sustains us, and who we are going to – perhaps the biggest insult that any person can give Him is to simply disregard Him. Mind you, God has a thick skin, and is merciful beyond all telling, so no one is cast off and He, as Jesus tells us in the Prodigal Father (Luke 15: 11 – 32), waits patiently for all His children to recognise and come to share His abundant life.

Ultimately, when we do discover the enormity of His love for us, no human being could ever remain unmoved by such love. The challenge of faith is to open ourselves to that love here and now,

in His love, always,

Martin

I was brought up, a ‘cradle Catholic’, in what I now know was a very traditional Irish Catholic religious environment. When I was young the spiritual message was clearly: “If you are good, God will love you and reward you – in the next life” – pretty much the opposite of what Jesus taught. Sin was everywhere and each sin was clearly measured in degree of severity, with some sins leaving you teetering on the verge of eternal damnation. God was judge and executioner – after all, look what He had required of His own Son Jesus. And while daily life for a working class kid in London of the 1960s was okay, there was certainly a constant backdrop of fear. Weekly churchgoing, and all the various practices of Catholic school, were a kind of eternal insurance policy, what some have facetiously called a ‘fire insurance policy’. Sad to say, there was little encouragement to develop any depth relationship with God, but how could you when He was so scary?

No wonder then that the vast majority of my fellow Catholic kids effectively gave up on any pretence at religious practice, and maybe even any belief in God. Some commentators actually attribute the rise of atheism and agnosticism in Western countries as largely the result of this fear-based religion.

How was it then that I became a priest in the 1970s and 80s? Certainly the much needed and long overdue reforms of the Second Vatican Council (1962 – 65) were hugely influential in my becoming a member of a religious order and then a priest. Sad to say that the ‘fresh air’ of Vatican II has been largely stifled by a traditionalist reaction which has been in many ways encouraged by a number of popes. Even so, the post conciliar Church is light years away from the old sin-soaked and punitive religion of my childhood. In this sense I was a ‘Vat II priest’, trying to emphasise a God of love, stressing original blessing rather than original sin, and I hope and pray that in my years as an active priest I brought consolation and hope to many good and decent Catholic folk.

Yet I think the wonderful renewal brought about by Vat II is only part of my story. In my poem The Family Rosary I try to express how it was that I seemed to have a ‘sense of God’ as a child. Somehow, in my old fashioned and traditional upbringing there was a kernel of spiritual awareness that was no result of my own doing. It was a pure gift. It might be too simplistic to simply attribute it to experiencing nightly rosaries with the larger family, but I do think this had a deep effect on me. I’ve tried to express this in an earlier blog A Sense of God. As I say, this has been a gift – a gift from God, that was mediated by the faith of my parents and grandparents and wider family. It has little to do with my own efforts, and I can only be thankful for having received this ‘treasure’. What I have done with this treasure is entirely another matter.

My Catholicism is alive and well. It is a long way from the faith of my childhood, and I acknowledge that much in the Catholic world is still entrenched in negativity, but God is with His Church and will never forsake it. Neither will I.

At this stage in my life now I feel that I am only just beginning to understand some key truths, and part of this new awareness is leading me to find wisdom within my Catholic tradition and also in other spiritual traditions. Spirit-filled teachers such as Fr Daniel O’Leary and Richard Rohr are foremost in my searchings, and if I say anything of value in these blogs, much credit has to be given to these men and other like-minded teachers. Isn’t it so true that all pilgrim searchers stand on the shoulders of giants?

I pray you also find wise and loving spiritual guides – they do exist – but we need to constantly discern and recognise the Spirit by the fruits thereof. And we need to not just search, listen and discern, but also to practice a daily contemplation to internalise this wisdom and adopt a radical attitude of gratitude.

Let me conclude by stating: God is love, life is good, and all is gift.

Blessings,

Martin

Fr Richard Rohr OFM, whom I regard as a modern prophet, founded the Centre for Action and Contemplation (CAC) thirty five years ago in the US. Richard’s vision was to encourage people of all faiths and traditions who sincerely desired to take part in action in support of the poor and marginalised to base their work – and their life – on developing a deep spirituality, without which even the best intended actions can become compromised. In other words, to work for God and for the good of humanity, you first have to know God and be rooted in His love through a deep relationship with Him.

Richard rightly stresses the crucial need for a daily practice of contemplation if we are to open ourselves to the divine and allow God’s Spirit to enthuse and direct our actions. But contemplation is challenging to many and sadly has fallen away in the western Christian world to the extent that it became the preserve of small numbers of monks and hermits. Certainly in the Catholic tradition and in my upbringing there was little or no formation in any depth of prayer relationship with God, as Richard gently explains in the following meditation.

This blog is somewhat unusual in that it really is a pointer to another man’s work and wisdom, but I offer it in the hope that it might reach an even wider audience. As such, this link to what Richard calls a ‘sit’ is actually a priceless treasure. If you are open to the ‘real’, that is, the reality that faith in God underpins all creation, then you should appreciate just how special and matchless this meditation is. It may well encourage you to start a practice of meditation that can – truly – change your life.

For myself, since it was first shown on Friday 21^st October, I have used it every day to focus my poor attempts at meditation and it has been a real encouragement and support to me. See for yourself just how impressive is this man who clearly practises what he preaches, and therefore speaks from a sacred place.

Be aware of course that YouTube videos usually come with noisy advertisements, but make your way past these to the real treasure!

Virtual Sit Meditation | LIVE Friday, October 21 | Center for Action and Contemplation – YouTube

You can also find out more about CAC here:

Center for Action and Contemplation (cac.org)

Wishing you a very special blessing from God – if you have eyes to see and ears to hear!

Martin