This month the Pope asks us that ‘the Church may offer new generations, through the believable proclamation of the Gospel, ever-new reasons of life and hope’.
There are two little stories that I like to tell when I’m giving retreats. Both stories are true. Now, I know everyone says that, but in these two cases the events related really did happen! Believe me!
First, there is the story of the young married couple, Paul and Mary. They have a little boy of three, named Johnny. Mary becomes pregnant again and she tells her little Johnny that Holy God is going to send him a little brother or sister very soon. Mary duly gives birth to another bouncing little boy whom she and Paul name David. Johnny is thrilled with his new baby brother. On the evening Mary comes home with new-born David from the maternity hospital, Paul, Mary and Johnny gather around the little Moses basket to look in awe and joy at their new little treasure. Then, suddenly, Johnny turns to his Dad and Mum and asks, ‘Could I talk to David on my own for a moment?’ Dad and Mum look at each other in surprise and withdraw, but only as far as the bedroom door lest Johnny should get a sudden urge to clobber his little baby brother in a sudden fit of jealousy!
Dad and Mum eaveson Johnny’s conversation, and boy, were they in for a surprise! Little Johnny leans over the Moses basket and says to the sleeping baby David, ‘David, what’s God like? I’m beginning to forget!’ The question, though touching in its innocence, perhaps strikes a personal chord in us all while, of course, at the same time being laden with Platonic philosophy and Augustinian theology which, I’m sure, Johnny didn’t quite have in mind! But, out of the mouth of babes...
The second story was told to me by a religious sister whom I was directing on retreat. She was on the General Council of her Order in Rome and so had to do a lot of travelling, visiting her sisters around the world. Once she was visiting some sisters who worked among the poorest of the poor in the slum areas around the city of Sao Paolo, Brazil. This sister told me that when she arrived by car at the slum her heart sank; she was terrified. She had never seen such poverty in her entire life. When she got out of the car, this little boy of about ten ran up to her, took her by the hand and said, ‘Keep a hold of my hand, Sister, in case you get lost in this world.’ This little Sir Lancelot stayed by her side throughout the entire visit, giving her courage and hope in the midst of apparent darkness and hopelessness. Sister told me that she has never forgotten the care that little boy took of her. He guided her by hand into the community.
What do these two simple little tales have to do with this month’s papal intention? Well, I think that Johnny’s question to his baby brother, ‘What’s God like, I’m beginning to forget’ puts words on the inner thirst for God, for the transcendent that we all experience at some time though some, and perhaps especially young people, might not so readily admit this or say it in this way. Yet, we all know and feel that no one person or experience ever satisfies us totally. Our hearts are, as one theologian has put it, ‘an unfinished symphony.’
Young people in their early twenties who are trying sincerely to live a life of faith within the Church tell me that they often experience their spiritual journey as a very lonely one. They find it very difficult to share with their peers what they believe because they fear that they will meet incomprehension if not downright ridicule. They need to be part of a community which will support their fragile life of faith. They need someone to reassure them, saying something like our little ten year old Brazilian boy said to that sister, ‘Keep a hold of my hand in case you get lost in this world.’
The Irish poet, Brendan Kennelly, writes, ‘Self knows that self is not enough.’ Hope cannot take place at the level of the isolated and independent individual. Surely hope begins with the discovery that I am not alone, that I am related to others, that I coexist within a community of other human beings. As the Irish Sister of Charity, Sister Una O’Neill once wrote, ‘Real community is the place where they know who you are and where they miss you if you’re not there.’ Such assurance would surely bring hope. Is this the experience of young people in the Church today? As a priest, when I look around the church on a Sunday morning – churches often almost devoid of people below the age of forty – I would love to be able to reassure young people that I do want to know who you are. I want to listen to the stories of your own inner searching. I miss you because you are not there. The Church needs you more than ever now. You are the very life blood of the future Church. You are our hope. Have we taken the opportunity to tell you that?
The American author, Susan McElroy writes very poetically, Hope is not a gift we can sustain simply by our own will. Hope is something we need to hear from outside ourselves sometimes. Like the fire needs the help of a branch to grow its warmth, we need a voice or a sight, or visitor, to fan the flicker of our hearts when faith grows dim.
Christian faith has grown dim in the western world. It is almost a cliché to say that the language of faith has grown tired; the rich symbolism of the liturgy is lost upon so many, often young and old alike, and yet we hear that people are thirsting for spirituality, for ever-new reasons for life and hope.
If the Church is to offer new generations ever new reasons for life and hope, it needs to ask itself a very basic question which Pope Benedict poses in his encyclical on hope of 2007, Spe Salvi (In Hope we were Saved). The Pope asks all Christians, “Is the Christian faith also for us today a life-changing and life-sustaining hope? Is it a message which shapes our life in a new way, or is it just ‘information’, which, in the meantime, we have set aside and now seems to us to have been superseded by more recent information?” For Pope Benedict, the present day crisis of faith in the West is essentially a crisis of Christian hope. He stresses that Christians must learn anew in what their hope truly consists, what they have to offer.
Surely these are questions worth pondering upon in the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland today, especially if we are to have any chance of ever giving a credible witness to young people to the Jesus we find in the Gospels. For too long we placed our hope on clericalism, power, sectarianism – laying burdens on people’s shoulders. We gave people answers to questions they did not have; we gave doctrine but where was the life of the imagination, of creativity, of joy, of the Spirit? We pray this month that the Church will be humble enough to learn again at the feet of the only Master, Jesus of the Gospels. If the Church learns again to heed the words of St. Francis de Sales, ‘to Live Jesus’, then it will surely have treasure beyond measure to offer to new generations.
We would do well to take very much to heart those now often-quoted words of Saint Francis of Assisi as he sent his young friars out into the world to preach: ‘Go out into the world and preach the Gospel. Use words only if you have to.’