From Prison to Praise!
Sweltering hot days are rare enough here in Ireland,as we all know. And on the rare occasion we do get them, the whole country comes to a standstill as we all try to make the most of the sunshine. I remember one such day when I was a teenager. It was such a lovely afternoon.I took off for a long cycle from Kells to Trim with a group of friends. The only thing was, it never even registered with us to take a bottle of water because the weather was never really hot enough to merit bringing bottles of water out with us! So the day started well. Everything was going well for a long time, until we all realised that it was so hot, the thirst was starting to cripple us, and that we wouldn’t get much further if we didn’t get water somewhere. Remember, this was long before the days of bottled water and kids didn’t have to money to buy water anyway!
Luckily we knew that there was one of those Old Style pumps a mile or two down the road, not too far from Athboy but I can tell you, the last stage of the journey to that pump was hell on earth for us.To eventually get to the pump and wash our faces in the clear cold water and drink as much of it as we wanted was like heaven on earth for those few seconds of relief…
I can just imagine how frustrating it would have been if we had got to that pump only to realise it was dry or worse still, to know that there was plenty of water in the well only to discover that the handle of the pump was gone and we couldn’t draw water!I guess Jesus must have felt frustrated that day at the well when he sat and waited in the middle of the day under the scorching Middle Eastern Sun.There was plenty of water in the well…but it was no use to him…he didn’t have a bucket so he had no way of drawing the water out of the well.And remember, Samaria was hostile territory. As a Jew, Jesus shouldn’t really have been there in the first place!With that, along comes a Samaritain woman with a bucket…
and Christ was faced with a choice, he could observe the strict Jewish laws and stay clear of the woman or he could break convention, do the human thing and ask her to give him a drink…
What’s striking about their meeting is that Jesus can say the most direct things to her without hurting her feelings or humiliating her…He’s like a mirror standing in front of her…He gets her to be brutally honest with herself…and to recognise that all that she has been thirsting for in life is rignt here in front of her…in the incarnate Son of God thristing himself for a drink of water…
The great Spiritual writer, Henri Nowen, talks about Jesus as the wounded healer…Its in solidarity with our woundedness…its in taking on our fragility…not judging us… that Christ draws us into his loving friendship and makes us whole again. The Samaritan woman is testimony to thatnot alone does she listen to Christ and embrace his acceptance…she goes back to the village and whatever she tells her friends,they too come to believe in Jesus and the one who is sent by God to save them…
In a sense, Patrick’s story mirrors that of the Samaritan at the well. He was a foreigner…an alien…an outsider…an oppressed slave in hostile territory. But it was precisely when he was at his most fragile and broken, when he was farthest away from God, when there seemed to be no light ahead, that Patrick heard the voice of Christ calling him into his loving friendship and setting him apart with a mission to go back and bring the Good News to the Irish.
There’s a beautiful line in one of the psalms. It goes like this: “By day the Lord will command his loving kindness, by night, his song all around me, utter praise of God” I always think of Patrick when I hear those lines. Because if it weren’t for God’s grace and steadfast love, Patrick would never have survived a day of his captivity.
And if it weren’t for the music of God’s praise echoing in his heart, the darkness of his captive nights would have crushed Patrick entirely.So Patrick’s is a story woth remembering today…and indeed celebrating…because it’s a story of God’s love triumphing over human brokenness and hopelessness…And it’s a story of God’s song of praise breaking through even the darkest nights of human despair.
Our country stands at a crossroads of crisis today with voices urging us in all directions. Some of those voices would want us to batten down the hatches, and desperately hold on to establishments and institutions of the past that have served us well, but that have caused us much pain and hurt too. And some are the voices urging us away from the past towards a new self sufficient but amnesiac Ireland, only too willing to forget all the good that was done by our religious communities and organisations.
The life and example of Patrick, our Patron could well serve to help us find the way forward. Because Patrick wasn’t afraid to challenge traditions and customs, But he did so always with the intention of doing the will of Christ, whom he had encountered personally and convincingly, and of setting the flame of God’s love alight in the world around him…
We’re almost half way through Lent…Easter is just around the corner.Perhaps its time for us to be honest with ourselves and to listen to the voice of Christ calling us into his loving friendship and showing us the areas in our lives where we most need his help not in a way that hurts or humiliates us…but with a love that is so genuine, we can stand before him with courage and in peace and ask for his forgiveness…
You know, Easter is a most appropriate time of the year to go to Confession..Many of us have given up going to Confession…many of us see Confession as old fashioned and pointless…Perhaps we could change our attitude towards Confession this Lent…
Lets use the next few weeks to prepare to make a decent and genuine Confession…So that we will allow Christ to challenge us out of our complacency like he challenged the Samaritain woman…and like he challenged Saint Patrick so that we too can allow God’s love to flow freely in us…and into the lives of everyone we meet. Amen
DG
Homily given for St. Patrick’s Day at St Étienne du Mont, 19th March 2017