HAPPY NEW YEAR?

The First Sunday in Advent is the beginning of the liturgical year. Advent, for many people, is either barely present in the rush of work, school, travel plans and buying presents, or it is seen as a kind of minor version of Lent, vaguely gloomy and depressing. I take this opportunity once again to quote in extenso the admirable Advent meditation of Dom David Bird OSB, a Benedictine monk.

During the season of Advent, the Church proposes for our attention four truths which are general enough and profound enough to shape our whole spiritual life.

 The first is that, whoever we are, whatever our vocation, whether our life is happy or sad, fulfilled or frustrated, useful or a waste of time, interesting or boring, in harmony with God or sinful, it is destined to change; and what we consider normal now will, one day, become a thing of the past. This is true at every level of life and for everybody, and is even true of the whole creation in which we live. All will eventually end, because God so wills it. God is not in favour of every change, but his Providence is at work in every change.

   The second Advent truth is that Christ is present in every change, even if the change has been brought about against his will, and, at the end of every change, Christ will manifest himself to each and every one of us in a new way, taking into account what has happened, if we allow him. This will go on happening until  his Second Coming in which the whole of creation will be transformed into a new heaven and a new earth, and his presence will be manifested in a new and definitive way.

   This Sunday we celebrate the presence among us of the Risen Christ, as we do every Sunday; but, because it is Advent, at the same time, we are warned not to be satisfied with the level of our Christian life, our own holiness or our degree of commitment, nor closed to Christ's challenges when they involve us in change.  While we are alive, we can be confident that Christ has much more for each of us, and that he wants to make us capable of receiving what he has to offer. He would prefer our firmament should cave in, our whole world collapse rather than allow us to sink into a mire of complacency that would make us impervious to his grace. The Church has given us Advent as an antidote to complacency.  To live is to change, and to be perfect is to have changed often, as Blessed John Henry Newman said, and Christ wishes to accompany us; and, round every corner, after every change, Christ is ready to meet us, to offer us something new.

   The third Advent truth is that when we meet Christ, we never meet him alone. Christ is in heaven and does not leave it when he comes to meet us. Where Christ is, there are Our Lady, the angels and saints. Whether in the Mass where we meet him as a Church, or in our hearts when we meet him in prayer, or when we recognise him as present in every situation, heaven and earth become one.

   We talk about Christ coming to us; but the early Church talked about our ascending into heaven, even as we remain physically on earth.   This is the theme of the Letter to the Hebrews and of the Apocalypse. It is a further paradox that, the more we are united to Christ who is in heaven, the more heaven is present on earth through us.

   Is it not strange that, in the early Church, when the Liturgy was at its most communal, when there was so much emphasis on the Church as the body of Christ, that Christians should have gone into the desert to become hermits? Was it a flight into non- Christian individualism? It may have been for some; but the classical Christian hermit was anything but an individualist. What united him or her to the Christian community was that both he or she and the community believed they were citizens of heaven before they were citizen of this world, precisely because they were members of Christ's risen body. The monk believed that, because of his own weakness, he could not really become what baptism had made him, a citizen of heaven, without entering a monastery or going into the desert.   Did you know that the word "cell", used for a monk's room, was believed to have the same root as "coelum" because, just as the Christian community was raised in the Eucharist to share in the liturgy of heaven, so the monk in his cell was raised up to heaven in his prayer, and his solitude was filled with Our Lady, the angels and saints who prayed with him, and even with all those on earth who are united to Christ in his risen body.  No space on earth was more populated than a hermit's cell! Moreover, people went to visit hermits and monasteries because they believed that, through the monks life of sacrifice and prayer, sacred spaces are formed where heaven and earth are united.

   The fourth Advent truth is that heaven changed radically when Jesus, having died and risen again, ascended into his Father's presence. The Incarnation had brought about a new relationship between God and his creation. When this relationship was perfected by Christ's obedience unto death and became the central reality in heaven by means of Christ's ascension, heaven became the new reality into which the whole human race and the whole of creation were destined to be transformed.   It became the ultimate destiny of all that is. Jesus said that this generation will not pass until all these things shall happen; and in a certain and real sense this is exactly what took place when Christ ascended into heaven. For this reason, the early Christians never changed the texts in which Christ foretold the end of the world. We are in the last days, not, as the Jehovah Witnesses believe, because some world-destroying calamity is about to happen, but because every time we celebrate Mass, every time we pray, every time we meet Christ in the circumstances of the present moment, we are brought into the Father's presence by Christ in the Spirit, and we share directly in heaven which is God's final solution for the whole of creation; and every time we go to Mass or simply pray, Christ, Our Lady, the angels and saints enter our world through and in us.

   Advent is the time when we remember that this life receives its value only in so far as it incarnates God's will revealed to our faith in Christ's presence.  As the gospel today teaches us, we must be awake, ready to receive him and not pass our time in debauchery and drunkenness.   In every situation we must pray, "Come, Lord Jesus," and he will be there.

   In this world of change, we find Christ's will in the present moment. We must not try to re-create a past that is agreeable to us, because God's will is not to be found there. Nor must we seek our fulfilment in an imaginary future, because that is our own creation, not God's. We must find God's will where Christ is, in the present; but we must not be so attached to present circumstances that we try to hold on to them when it is God's will that they be changed.

   We must become Advent Christians for whom everything in this world, past, present and to come, must make way for the Christ who comes. Only our self-will stands in the way.
 

Dom David Bird, OSB (from his blog Monks and Mermaids at http://fatherdavidbirdosb.blogspot.fr/

THE SIMPLICITY OF HOPE

Jean Vanier: “Hope lies in the true encounter”

I recently put on Facebook a link to an interview in Le Figaro with Jean Vanier, perhaps the greatest living Canadian and winner of the 2015 Templeton Prize. In the context of a summer examination of the classic virtues, the Figaro's journalist, Guyonne de Montjou, asked him to comment on Hope. Vanier is such a remarkable man that it seemed worth while translating the interview into English, which herewith. NB: unlike English, French has two words for hope: espoir and espérance. The latter is slightly more formal and grand. So I have used the capital H to express it.

Introduction:

The work of Jean Vanier, 87, shows and expresses his Hope. “L’Arche” which he founded more than 50 years ago, counts 150 communities in 38 countries. In those homes, mentally handicapped persons live together with those who accompany them, for six months, for a year, for a lifetime. Via the daily routine, Hope is established and consolidated: hope for a world in which no one will feel excluded. 

When we speak of Hope, who comes to your mind?

First of all Nelson Mandela, who spent twenty-seven years in prison, most of them at hard labour. Maltreated, threatened, he knew – in his body, in his bones – that one day he would come out. Why? I don’t know. Where does that knowledge come from? That’s the real question. What I see is that he had the certainty that in the end justice would prevail. For him, it was inconceivable that evil would have the last word. That gave him the strength not to resign himself. Beyond evil there is always something else that draws us. That’s what Hope is. I strongly believe in that little inner voice that calls without ceasing and encourages us to see far.

Why do you say that Nelson Mandela’s Hope was rooted in his body?

 Because we are spirit AND body. At the beginning we spend nine months inside a body, in security. And then our life begins with that cry that also expresses the anxiety toward the infinity opening out before us. We cry because we no longer know what to do. For me, Hope lies in that cry of the newborn who calls for the arms, the security, who looks for communion. And so, for a bond, an encounter, tenderness.  Something in human life is marked with the seal of the Infinite, with that hunger for the Beyond. And also with the need for relation.

You describe Hope as “the little inner voice”. Charles Péguy, in his poem “The Porch of the Mystery of the Second Virtue” (1912), speaks of “little Hope”. Why is Hope so discreet? How would you define it?

The “little inner voice” is not a feeling. It’s deeper than that. It is an attraction to justice. To Truth. To Love. It’s a pull, a drawing, it’s not the fruit of discernment. The Second Vatican Council defined the place where we hear that little voice: in the individual conscience, that holy and intimate sanctuary where God speaks to each human being to help it to orient itself toward justice and truth. To turn it away from evil. The little voice is an attraction.

Is Hope the same as optimism?

No, optimism is a psychological attitude. One is optimistic because one feels too vulnerable to contemplate the glass as being half empty. Optimism, I believe, is less profound than Hope. Andrea Riccardi, the founder of Sant’Egidio, an association of more than 50,000 people in the service of the poorest and of peace, writes in his book on Pope Francis that every community is rooted in a history and is oriented towards “the hope of a utopia”. For example, at L’Arche, we help the shattered ones, the persons who are handicapped, to grow. We know that relationship lies at the core. As we live together, the mission is clear. We welcome people like Pauline, a 40-year-old paraplegic who all her life had been treated as garbage, to give them confidence in themselves. We do not want to change them, we simply want to encounter them with tenderness. We are filled with the utopian idea that the world is changing; instead of arming for war and showing that one is stronger than one’s neighbour, we feel that another world is possible. Each day we discover that communion is what’s important: a bond, via bodies, eyes, hands. Here we receive people who have been humiliated. And they begin to dance, to live, to grow, and to fill us with joy simply because of a bond of listening. But it is difficult truly to describe what is so small, so intimate, so discreet. I am convinced that the bond of communion between mother and child is the beginning of the red thread of the whole of life. We are always looking for that bond of understanding. Communion is linked to littleness, to humility. In order to obtain it, you say to the other, “At bottom, I’m no better than you. I need you.”

Someone else who, to you, incarnates Hope?

A man who I think incarnates Hope today is Pope Francis, precisely because he listens to that little inner voice. He doesn’t know where it will lead him, but he knows one thing: that we are healed by the poor. To go to the periphery, to the edges, means to listen to the way the marginal people, the poor, the burdened evangelise us and lead us to their wisdom. That is his essential message and it seems to me to carry Hope with it. The wisdom of the poor is the opposite of that of the world which always invites us to move up. Moving up is, somehow, pushing others aside in order to win. Going toward the wisdom of the poor touches humanity at its earthiest, its fleshliest and its most bodily. It is a cry. A cry to be recognised. I am moved by every story of humiliation. The humiliated cry out to be recognised. The great problem of our time is the separation between rich and poor. A billion and a half people live in shantytowns. And each day, another 100,000 people in the world join them, drawn by the big city’s ideal of consumerism, its materialist model. What do those humiliated people need? Someone who sees them and who believes in them.

Why to you does the cry of the humiliated, the poor, the handicapped represent a call, a plea?

Because it awakens something in the depths of my heart that gives me life. St Francis of Assisi tells how when he came out of prison, when he was barely 24, he found himself mysteriously attracted by a group of lepers even though previously he had found lepers repulsive. Something had changed in him. So he moved in with those lepers and shared their life. When, after two years among them, he continued on his way, he wrote, “I found a new gentleness in my body and in my spirit.” Finally, that experience of shared living had let him see the leper within himself. Often, when our heart is hard, if we protect ourselves and refuse to hear the cry of the poor, it is because we are afraid to reveal our own poverty. Recognising one’s limits allows one to enter into communion with the other.

In the midst of a society like ours, where the prime objectives are performance and success, where does one learn humility?

By not knowing. I knew a man who was perfect, who was successful in his marriage, in his career, in his family. One day. one of his daughters was born with a mental illness. He was completely lost. It was that little sick girl who taught him that there is something more to life than success. I think one learns humility when one looks for simple and true relationships. When one visits prisons, or the sick, one discovers that those one thought worthless are in fact terrific people. Everyone can do that. One doesn’t need a degree for encounters.

Do you think you have acquired a certain wisdom?

Not at all. I learn every day. A pharmacist, a woman, taught me something. Sometimes people come to her who suddenly say something very important. She told me that one of her clients came with her young son, and explained to her that he had lived through something dramatic and tragic. She was at once sad and furious. The pharmacist listened to her with great attention without saying a word. She showed her, with her regard, that she empathised with her suffering, that she felt compassion. But she said nothing. I asked her, what is wisdom? That woman answered me, “wisdom is the space, the time of silence, the regard which explains that you have understood the other’s suffering without necessarily speaking.”

In these times of families in mourning and where terrorism creates a desire for revenge, do you think that every man, the most radical of ideologues or a sanguinary criminal, is capable of amendment?

Of course. Who am I to judge him? I believe that each human being contains a seed of innocence.  It is buried inside him and functions as a base. I call it the seat of conscience, which goes deeper than the person himself. It is the inner place where one’s being is not shaped. That is why I think we should sometimes become like small children again, and touch the other’s innocent side. I believe that each true encounter between two people implies that virgin point, a certain humility, an attitude that can say, “I am no better than you.” When we help someone up who has tripped and fallen in the street, it changes us. Every human being is capable of that. Each man, whatever his way in life, whatever his suffering, hopes that someone will regard him with tenderness, without judgement, to discover the place of his innocence. One simply has to learn to welcome the other. And then one changes the world.

An example?

In the United States, a friend of mine, a doctor in a palliative-care unit, was called to care for a mafia boss who had throat cancer. All his life this man had wanted to be strong. And now, suddenly, he discovered someone who touched him with tenderness. Vulnerable now, he saw this doctor coming to his aid with goodness and gentleness. All his life he had believed that adults were bad and that one had to defend themselves from them. That was why with all his strength he had constructed a shell: deep down he must have had a fear of suffering. I believe that this story helps us understand the role of the encounter: it is the ingredient that nourishes Hope.

Doesn’t your sense of Hope for man sometimes come close to a certain naiveté?

 Perhaps. I’ll admit that sometimes I’ve been wrong. For example one time, I was working in a prison retreat in Winnipeg in Canada. They had seconded to me a pleasant prisoner, agreeable, near the end of his sentence, to help me. He was my secretary and was indeed devilishly efficient. He wanted to do his rehabilitation in the East of the country. So I recommended him to friends of mine to welcome him and help him with his first steps. I gave him their address. A few weeks later I had a call from my friends thanking me for the contact . . . the man, the ex-prisoner who had gained my trust, had disappeared with their stereo! Trusting is not always simple. There is always a risk. If I had listened more to the prison staff, I would have been more on my guard. They had warned me that this prisoner knew just how to inspire trust.  

What circumstances taught you about Hope?

What helped me most was the confidence of my father [Georges Vanier, diplomat, later Governor-General of Canada – RK]. I’m a Canadian, but I spent part of my childhood in England where my father was a diplomat. At the age of 13 I expressed the wish to join the Royal Navy. My father who had spent three years in the trenches near Amiens in World War I, said, “If that’s what you want to do, do it. I have confidence in you.” If he had said no, my life would have been different. The confidence he had in me was decisive, his greatest gift. I remained in the Navy for eight years. When I left it, I knew I had to go. Then I started L’Arche with the same conviction that this was my way. The little inner voice, still, that profound, intimate pull toward justice. Today, it seems to me that the most important thing is helping children to have confidence in their desire. That isn’t all that simple. To teach them how to trust that pull toward what is good. One can make mistakes, certainly, but time will tell.

What do you want to say to the young?

The other day I hosted a group of young people. They all had their smartphones in their pockets! I told them, “Here we don’t need experts in communication. What we are looking for is experts in presence.” Being present: it seems such a little thing! And it takes time . . . I spend time with you and I can’t spend it with someone else. But it is the only way to communion. Once one has tasted it, one can’t do without it. I still hope that when one person has changed, others will change. Deep down, that’s what my Hope is. “Encountering, meeting” is the keyword of Hope. It is the poor who will lead us to peace. In our world we need to create places where people can meet, play, live, experience something together. Once everyone has had a taste of that, everyone wants it to recommence. In a class, we need to pay attention to the student others make fun of; in society, we need to care for the person suffering beside us. Rather than in moving up, it’s in coming down to the humblest that we find ourselves transformed.