These days – if you are a priest or member of a religious order – it seems hard to stay afloat sometimes. Certainly the newspapers are full of religious doom and gloom, but a friend of mine cheered me up somewhat with a good story:
My friend had decided that after finishing school she was going to join a religious order. Shortly before she did so, an old uncle of hers who was a missionary priest came to visit her home. When she told him of her plans and how she was looking with excitement towards religious life, he was delighted but felt he had to say something.
He mentioned that in his view people he met could be divided into two types. During his life, he had often noticed these two types, as they came regularly to Rome where he was based. Such visitors, he explained, had one of two views about the place. They either felt that the city was magical – or they thought it was a disgrace. The ‘magical’ brigade was completely captivated by the magnificence of the metropolis as they cast their gaze towards the skies. The very beauty that surrounded them took their breath away. On the other hand, those who felt the place was a disgrace had looked at their surroundings in an entirely different manner. Their eyes looked downward and were disgusted by the squalor and filth they found around their feet.
‘Look upwards’, her old uncle advised, ‘and try to keep your gaze fixed on the goodness and beauty you encounter in life. If you allow your vision and to be dragged downwards, you will only be discouraged by the squalor of the gutter and by the worst excesses that mankind is capable of producing’.
Her story came to mind over the last few days as I prepared for a Mass I was due to offer at the university where I work as a chaplain. For months, wave after wave of horrific news about the Church and its decision-makers had been pouring forth from all directions. Clearly I was going to have to say something about this and I wasn’t looking forward to the experience. Bad news, scandals, horror stories and worse have been coming at us thick and fast. As a priest, I find myself expected to leap up and hasten to the Church’s defense. It’s not a task anyone is likely to relish – certainly I don’t - and it’s often hard enough to understand why decisions were taken in the way they were and even harder to explain the rationale behind such decisions to others.
Anyway, to get back to the Mass I was due to offer. We assembled, and the audience was mainly university students. When sermon time came, I began to focus on an area that has been much in my mind of late. What effect has this constant drip-drip of negative publicity been having on the faith lives of our students? Have they been able to look at the effects – in faith terms – on their lives, and if so, what have they noticed? I knew these questions would be difficult for them and, in return, I promised to share what effect these last months have had on me – insofar as I could work that out. The experience was revealing.
As students talked, one after another said they felt reasonably secure in their faith. They valued what they had been given and were going to stick with their beliefs. They nearly all added that they hoped to have children in the future and intended to bring them up as Catholics, but were unsure whether this would happen or not. Younger people today, they feared – without the secure faith foundations they themselves had been given – may well abandon membership of any type of institutional church.
When my turn came to speak, I talked about having to get up, time after time, before congregation after congregation. Insofar as I knew what I felt and could articulate it, my reactions to the seedy revelations about what had been going on within our Church seemed to induce feelings of shame and embarrassment. To this mix I added words of apology and remorse towards those who had suffered and expressed a good measure of rage towards those who had sullied the good name of the Church.
As I did so, I called to mind excellent ambassadors of Christ that I had known myself. Many of them are now dead but I feel certain that they would be turning in their graves if they knew how their memory had been sullied and dragged through the dirt by recent revelations. I suspected many of those listening were probably feeling confused and dejected. Probably many Catholics are at the moment. I did, however, have two images to cling to and hoped that one or the other might help those who find themselves in a dark place. They might help you too.
Firstly, when I spoke about the scandals and their effects some little time ago at a church meeting, one woman came up to me afterwards and said gently that she was afraid I was looking for answers in the wrong direction. She suggested that if one worries about the Church as an institution, and places too much hope in the individuals that make up that Church and how well they may act, one leaves oneself open to major disappointment. Much wiser, she suggested, to keep your eyes on Christ and His goodness and see where that leads you.
The second contribution was equally helpful to me. At the end of that same church assembly, another individual came forward to tell me how she came from a country place and how her family kept peacocks on their farm. She recounted how these birds were terrified of the local fox and high-tailed it into the nearest trees whenever it made its nightly rounds. The peacocks were given some warning of the visits, however, because the fox usually barked a warning as it approached and stayed away if it heard an answering call from the farm dog. For a short period, however, their dog had suffered from some sickness and had to be left with the vet. Then, and only then, did the fox seize his opportunity. As he made his nightly rounds and approached the peacocks, he found each one safely perched in its own tree. It took him some nights to work out a solution but on his third or fourth visit he finally did. He settled on one victim and settled under its tree. When he had its full attention as it fearfully glanced down at the perils below, the fox slowly began to circle around the base of its tree. The foolish bird, fixated by this potential danger, swiveled its head around and around to keep the fox in view. After a few minutes it became disorientated, fell out of the tree and was quickly consumed.
On subsequent nights, the other peacocks were fooled by exactly the same trick. They also perished. They had allowed themselves to become fixated by the catastrophe below them rather than looking at the splendor above. They might have done better if they had followed the advice offered by the old priest I talked about earlier. They should have kept their gaze upward. Perhaps we should too.