TO BE A PILGRIM

As a Dominican I’m the proud owner of a “T” shirt with a woodcut picture of a friar, mounted on a horse.   He’s one of the characters in Chaucer’s ‘Canterbury Tales.  The legend on the “T” shirt reads, “The friar knew the taverns well in every town."  Was the friend who gave the shirt trying to tell me something?    Fortunately the inscription didn’t complete the quotation, “And every innkeeper and barmaid too!”
 

 Various pilgrim groups have been kind enough to invite me to go with them, usually as their chaplain -not an arduous task.  My main responsibilities consisted in saying daily Mass with a sermon. I was also expected to be available for confessions and counselling.  Most people were too busy praying or sight-seeing to require much attention from me.
 

 Each pilgrimage was, in its own way, a wonderful, fascinating experience, even though we didn’t entertain each other with colourful, still less, bawdy tales.   But we did have some amusing incidents.  Travelling with a group for any length of time provides a fascinating exercise in group dynamics.   As we got to know each other we found there were some people who got on our nerves, while other became good friends.
 

As for getting on people’s nerves, I was guilty when we had a parish pilgrimage to Lourdes.  This was principally for  the sick, with a percentage of able-bodied people caring for them. These carers were wonderful young people who paid their own way, while devoting their time and energy to looking after the sick.  We slept in dormitories, each with a mixture of sick and able-bodied carers.  That’s where I became an irritant.   My snoring kept others awake.  There are few things more irritating than the snorer enjoying a good sleep, while keeping others awake. Fortunately there was an easy solution. I was told to wear a belt with its buckle in my back.  That would force me to lie on my side and would stop my snoring.  It worked, and harmony was restored.
 

Each place of pilgrimage has its own character, its own spirituality and devotion.  Lourdes is usually associated with the sick. Many people go seeking a cure for a mental or physical ailment.  But a statue there brings a wonderful insight into the deepest kind of healing. This statue depicts a blind man, kneeling. The legend runs, something like this, ‘I came seeking a cure for my blindness and re-gained my faith!’   For me, that sums up the true meaning of Lourdes.  Certainly some do seek and find cures for their ailments, while  other people's healing may be more profound. They receive the grace  to cope with sickness in a positive and fruitful way, associated with the saving power of the crucified Christ.
 

I can remember a power struggle on one pilgrimage.   The official leader thought he was so competent that he could dispense with the cost of a currier and guide.   As a result, we found that at one hotel he hadn’t booked enough beds for the group.  Some of us ended up sleeping on couches on the landing.  The hapless organizer managed to lose two elderly pilgrims. They had become confused and lost through combining the local wine with their medicines.  Fortunately they turned up at the police station and were returned to the fold. After this misfortune it wasn’t surprising that someone else tried to take over the organization of the pilgrimage!
 

A pilgrimage is usually a package holiday with a difference.  It should be a religious journey, reflecting our travelling through life, with all its joys and sorrows.  We pilgrims are the People of God journeying to the Promised Land; we are the Pilgrim Church, travelling towards the Kingdom of heaven.   When that’s  arduous -as surely it will be at times -we can identify with Christ on His pilgrimage to Calvary.  For those who rough it on their pilgrimage, the actual journey is as important as arriving at a holy place. That’s very true of  the Student Cross pilgrimage to Walsingham - the ancient English national shrine to Our Lady.  During Holy Week university members walk over 100 miles, sleeping rough and carrying a life-size cross.  That is a powerful witness to their faith in the Crucified Christ.   When the journey is smooth and comfortable, arriving at a sacred shrine is what really matters.
 

 

Though I’m not one for mass rallies, I have found that seeing other people praying encourages me to pray.  It convinces me that there are countless people from all round the world, who share my faith.  I’m not alone; I’m not an isolated lunatic!  If going on pilgrimage deepens my prayer life and strengthens my faith, that’s a real cure!

 

There’s something very special about a pilgrimage to the Holy Land -where the Son of God came down to earth; that’s where He achieved the salvation of the world.  Seeing the sites where Jesus lived and died, relating them to the Gospels, made these events more vivid.  The imagery of the water of life was powerfully brought home to me when we travelled across the barren Judean desert towards Jericho. By way of contrast, tropical fruit was grown there.  More than ever before I realized how the presence or absence of water made all the difference between life and death. I was  reminded of how Jesus made water a vivid symbol of our spiritual life. "Let anyone who believes in me come and drink!  As Scripture says, 'From His heart shall flow streams of living water.'  He was speaking of  the Spirit, which those who believed in Him were to receive; for there was no Spirit as yet, because Jesus had not yet been glorified,'" 
              (Jn. 7. 37-39).
 

 I must admit the pilgrimage to the Holy Land caused a special tension within me.  On the one hand I was a keen photographer, visiting an exotic place. At times I behaved like a typical tourist, eager to take lots of pictures, seeking mementoes, instead making the best of the present moment. I swung between praying and taking pictures –sometimes on my knees!
 

 Now, as I approach the end of my pilgrimage through life, I realize that God has been with me through this long journey.  I’ve met Him in many different ways, usually in the routine of life, but also in the joyful, sad and hilarious moments.  I’ve met the Lord in the variety of pilgrims travelling with me. They were very like some, but not all, of Chaucer’s pilgrims.
 

For me what matters most is the lasting effect of my pilgrimage, once it’s ended.  For more than eighty years I’ve been a pilgrim journeying to the most holy of shrines –the Kingdom of God.  If I don’t meet Him there my journey through life will have been a waste of time.  But if I do, all the hardships on the road will have been well worthwhile!  My life will have been a real pilgrimage.

Isidore O.P.

The next posting will be on 25^th October.

A HANDBAG!

“A handbag!”   Shrieked  Lady Bracknell in the play, “The Importance of Being Ernest.”    Jack had just told her that he’d been adopted after being found in a handbag at Victoria Station.  Her startled reaction only served to confirm my amazement at what women keep in their handbags.  But then, I’m but a mere male; I can’t be expected to understand such feminine mysteries!

So I should not have been surprised when a friend told me of her recent discovery.    Avis –not her real name –had three budgerigars and a couple of cockatiels. Brilliant were the flashes of blue, green, red and yellow as her feathered friends flew around her room.  Our phone chats were punctured by their squawks –especially loud when two or three of them perched on her head or shoulder.  Clearly, Avis and her budgies were very close! They felt really at home with each other.

So much so that one day she noticed a bright yellow budgie flying into her best handbag, left open on a sideboard. What was the attraction for her budgie?   Curiosity forced Avis to investigate.   To her delight she discovered the budgies had made a nest in her handbag.  Yes, in her handbag!  What is more, she –the budgie, not Avis -was incubating two eggs.  What was Avis to do?  The simple answer was, “NOTHING!”   She could not bring herself to disturb the nesting bird.  That meant she couldn’t use her best handbag until the eggs had hatched and the baby budgies had fledged.   In spite of this inconvenience Avis was overjoyed at the prospect of having a young family of budgies in her home –even though they would have left her handbag in a real mess.

This reminded me of a beautiful passage in one of the Psalms. It runs, “Even the sparrow finds a home, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may lay her young, at your altars, O Lord of hosts, my King and my God,”  (Psalm 84.3).  What a lovely idea –wild creatures making their homes in the House of the Lord.  Not just swallows, but ants and spiders.  We have a saying about being as poor as a church mouse.  The Lord welcomes all of them as His creatures.  As for us clergy, we call in pest control officers to remove these messy beasts!

But what’s so amazing is that the Lord, the All-Holy Lord, welcomes us sinners into His home.   Instead of clearing us out, He invites us in, especially if our lives are in a mess. His mercy transforms us from being pests into becoming God’s children. As far as He’s concerned we’re neither rejects, nor outcasts, even though the self-righteous may consider us unfit for their company.  But not so Jesus; He seeks us out and makes us welcome. And it is we who recognize our need for Him. We, and so many others, have good reason to rejoice that He wants our company.  Not only does He welcome us into His Church buildings, made of bricks and mortar. He even welcomes us  into the intimacy of His very life, And so St. John’s letter tells us, “And we have known and have believed the love which God has to us. God is love, and he that abides in love abides in God, and God in him,”  (1 John 4. 16).

Wonder of wonders, not only does God want us to be at home with Him, but He wants to be at home with us.   That’s why He sent His Son into the world to become one of us.  Now, through the Holy Spirit we become the very temple of God –His sacred abode.  Eagerly St. Paul reminds the Corinthians. “Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God?” (1 Cor. 6. 19).

In us Almighty God has certainly chosen some unlikely places to make His abode –much weirder than a budgie making its nest in my friend’s handbag.  As for us, the Psalmist sums up what should be our deepest longing, our most fervent prayer, “One thing I asked of the Lord, that will I seek after: to live in the house of the Lord all the day of my life,” (Ps. 27. 4).  He is our lasting abode; nowhere else will we find real happiness; nothing else matters!

A final question.  Do we treat strangers as unwelcome pests?  Or do we show them God’s hospitality–illustrated by Avis allowing her beloved, messy, budgie to make its home in her best handbag?

Isidore O.P.

The next posting will be on 4th October.

WHAT GOES ROUND COMES ROUND

 

The children were having a great time on the Merry-Go- Round, or Carousel.   Round and round they went, seated on motor bikes  mounted on vividly painted horses with enormous bright eyes,  seated behind the steering wheels of flashy cars, chugging along in railway trains.

Alas, all good things come to an end! Soon their ride came to a halt.    Laughing, and chattering, parents and children  made their way home.

‘What goes round comes round.’ I thought to myself, and then,   ‘But what if these children were to go round and round and round and round, on and on and on and on?  They’d eventually become bored at the sheer monotony of it.   What if this continued - in spite of their boredom,      then their anger, and eventually their fear,  as they realized they were trapped in an experience that had lost its merriment?    What had been great fun would then take on the drudgery,                       the sameness, the awful routine of a treadmill.’

Recently   the theme of my meditations, my prayer life has been,   ‘What goes round comes round.’     You see, as a somewhat retired priest I’ve ended up where I started  - young and inexperienced.    It’s like this. In 1959 I received my first posting as parish priest.      Now in 2013 I find myself assistant priest in the very same parish.        I’ve gone round from one place and come back to the same place.

During these fifty or so years of journeying back to where I started   so many interesting things have happened to me,  such a variety of activities!          Flavoured with joy and sorrow, hope and anguish, success and failure,  self-congratulation as well as self-accusation.

As a backdrop to all of this there has been the constant routine   that has structured my life and shaped my personality…a regularity, a predictability,  within which there has been so much variety,  encountering so many different people, involvement in experiences and  projects,              some weird and wonderful, most  common-place, dull, forgettable.

For me, a priest,  to have celebrated but one Mass in the whole of my life,  to have preached but one sermon,  would have been  momentous, a privilege beyond .        Without boasting I can claim that to have celebrated Mass thousands of times,   and to have preached thousands of sermons.        Don’t imagine for a moment that on every occasion I’ve felt on top of the world         – in a state of sublime ecstasy.         I’d have been  totally exhausted if I’d been through  extreme and intense joy of any kind, emotional or spiritual, for a long time. So I admit, without surprise and without shame,  that over the years there have been times, even seasons, when I felt a dreary weariness at the thought of having  to celebrate yet another public Mass and to preach yet another sermon.

    Similar to my experience as a priest must surely be that of the couple  who have  been happily married for many a year.      They couldn't possibly have survived an  endless honeymoon                   of gazing into each other’s eyes,  embracing, making love with their spouse,                                      day after day, year after year.        They’d have tasted the bitter as well as the sweet,   the worst as well as the better.        Happily, the verdict will be,       ‘What  an immense blessing, a great privilege…but it hasn’t been easy!’

Much of this also applies to lasting the commitments of friendships and to life-long careers that, for the most part are worthwhile, gratifying and fulfilling.      These will have been punctuated with  irritations and frustrations,   or simply feeling fed-up and bored.       With the passing of time what, who, is most delightful to us  can on occasion have lost most of what used to charm us.

I suspect  that these days we find it hard to be fascinated by anything or by anyone for long.  It’s not that anything too bad has to have occurred.      It’s rather that we see that the ‘shelf-life’ of commitments is meant to be short.     Replacement is the order of the day.       When we become disappointed or dissatisfied,  rather than take the trouble to rekindle the fire that has all but gone out,  we tend to look to be fired up by something, someone that is fresh, to stimulate us.

If this occasionally happens to us let us admit it! Let us not feel ashamed!        These ‘off-moments’ are a necessary part of life’s journey, yours and mine.        From these we are to learn that long-term enthusiasm must not be taken for granted.     It does not remain simply because we would like it to.       We must deliberately, explicitly, cherish what we value,   take care of it, refresh it, and even repair it,   so as to recapture our sense of wonder that leads to thanksgiving!

WHAT GOES ROUND COMES ROUND .     Sometimes, somehow, we have to get round to making ourwaygodsway.      And God’s way is that His love endures forever.

 

Peter O.P.

The next posting will be on 20th September

 

 

 

BLACK BEAUTY

What a black-eye!  How on earth did Brother Oculus get such a shiner?  After all, he was a very peaceable person –not the type to provoke a violent argument.  And we Dominicans tend not to settle our differences with fisticuffs.  Heated arguments are about as far as we go.  Had our brother been attacked by an intruder while we were all asleep?
 

Such were the questions which distracted our community’s early morning prayers.  Not surprisingly, we were all bewildered. We could hardly wait to ask Br. Oculus to satisfy our curiosity.  What, had hit him?  Did his puffed, closed eye hurt? A stupid question, since it must have been very painful. Various remedies were suggested, including the application of a piece of raw steak.  Not very practical, since we didn’t have any. I must confess I couldn’t help being fascinated by the beautiful yellow, blue and green of his bruise. As for his ruddy nose, that looked as if something had hit it very hard.
 

Far from giving us a dramatic account of a heroic encounter, Br. Oculus looked rather sheepish and embarrassed by our solicitous questioning. But he had no choice. So, reluctantly, he began to explain his battle wounds. And what a tale he had to tell –one which no fevered imagination could have invented! Eagerly we awaited his explanation. What on earth could have happened to such a gentle, devout brother?  Who could have treated him so brutally?
 

Hesitantly, nervously he explained what had happened.   In his zeal to be an exemplary poor friar he had decided to dispense with electric lights whenever possible.  To achieve this end he’d carefully paced the length of the corridor to the point where the corridor itself took a right-angle turn. And so should he have done! Folly of follies! This was a thrifty brother who wanted to save electricity, especially in a post war time of austerity. Probably unfairly, and in self-justification, we suspected him of feeling superior to his wasteful brethren! But until that night his measured approach to moving around the priory in the dark had worked without mishap.
 

But for some unknown reason on that fateful night Br. Oculus had quickened his pace.  As he increased his speed he lengthened his stride.  That, of course, threw out his calculations.  As our unfortunate brother charged down the corridor he crashed into the solid end-wall, his speed adding to the violence of the impact of soft flesh on a hard brick wall. Speeding motorists can also misjudge distances and end up crashing into something!  No wonder his protesting eye took on such an angry colour!
 

We, his fellow students, were faced with another problem. How should we react to the sorrowful plight of our battered brother?  Obviously with concern and compassion at the injured face and damaged reputation of someone who had made such a mess out of meaning so well.  Sadly, our reactions were more robust and less noble. Our initial, instinctive, sympathy for our wounded, heroic brother collapsed into fits of laughter.
 

I must admit that later I reflected, with shame, that there was a certain smugness in our mirth at the deflation of our austere brother.  Not that he intended to show us up by this peculiar, hidden expression of poverty, which we only discovered through his unfortunate accident.  Perhaps we resented his asceticism as a judgment upon our not showing his kind of austerity.  Maybe we were only too eager to see his mishap as vindicating our use of electric lights.   I don’t know.
 

Certainly, in many a community there are those who studiously go round putting out lights, while others instinctively switch them on.   Each will justify his behaviour, either on the grounds of economy or safety.  Each will give a religious spin to his arguments.  The same is true of those who open windows and those who shut them!
 

What does God, what should I, make of all this?  I suspect the Lord is amused at our petty antics.  Are we all taking ourselves too seriously and allowing things to get out of proportion?   Perhaps those who prefer to walk in darkness should learn to ‘take it light.’   Are we making much ado about nothing?
 

Perhaps we should heed the West Indian saying, ‘Cool it man,’ and be more relaxed with ourselves and each other–especially when there's a heat wave.   I’m sure it would help all of us to meet God if we could learn to see how petty and ridiculous we can be. Especially in community life we need to be able to laugh at ourselves and with each other –even when that results in a black eye. Thank God there’s a certain craziness in Dominican life –otherwise we would all go mad!

 

• Isidore Clarke O.P.  

IT'S GOOD TO BE HERE !

“It’s good to be here!”   That how we feel when we’re enjoying a holiday.  We’re glad to get away from our daily routine. We welcome the break.  The company’s good; so too the scenery, the accommodation and the food.  We enjoy relaxing on a beach, sight-seeing or shinning up a mountain.  At least for a while, we are at ease with ourselves and content with the world. For a time we can put aside our daily cares and relax.

 

That’s how Peter, James and John felt on the Mount of the Transfiguration.   True, this was no holiday break. It was something much, much better.  There, on the Mount, Jesus revealed something of His divine glory. As they relaxed with Him they experienced something of the heavenly joy to which God has called us –the sublime happiness of resting in the Lord.

 

No wonder Peter exclaimed, “Lord, it is good to be here!”  No wonder he wanted to prolong the wonderful experience of the Transfiguration.  We are so like him when we want a holiday never to end, or never to be separated from someone dear to us.  That’s how I feel when my twin brother has to return to the W. Indies, after an all-too brief holiday together.

 

During these musings on the feast of the Transfiguration my mind leapt off at a tangent.   It often does!  What, I wondered, about the times and situations, which are far from idyllic?   Given the choice, we would much prefer to be elsewhere, doing something else.    Instinctively we think, “It’s not good to be here; I wish I were somewhere else, doing something different.”  We’ve all felt like that!

 

I’ve found that if I allow that kind of resentment to persist I will always be miserable.   Far better to come to terms with what can’t be changed and try to make the best of it.   That can even be true when things go wrong, say, if we become ill, or our bosses move us from a job we enjoy to doing to something else, in another place we may not like.  That hurts, and it would be dishonest to deny the pain.  But that happens to all of us.  It’s certainly part of our Dominican vocation to be moved from house to house or country to country, job to job.

 

When things go wrong, have you had some well-intentioned person try to comfort you with the words, “It must be God’s will.”   I have, when I’ve been very ill -and it’s made me furious!   I can’t believe that a loving God could be vindictive and delight in my pain. But I can and do believe that He wants me to turn what in itself is so negative and destructive into something positive and creative.   That was certainly true of Christ’s crucifixion, through which He saved us from the power of sin and death.

 

Only in this sense can I agree that my suffering and pain must be God’s will.   He wants to help me to turn that into an opportunity for growing closer to Him. Almost certainly, only the wisdom of hindsight will enable me to say that it was good for me to be in that chaotic, painful situation.  In the meantime, part of my suffering lies in having to live in a fog of confusion and misunderstanding.  That in itself can be good for me –if it forces me to place my trust in God’s loving care for me, when I can’t understand what’s happening to me.

Hopefully I will have the docility to say, “Thy will be done” –and mean it.  Hopefully, with God’s help, even the most uncomfortable situation can become an opportunity for me to grow closer to God. I must trust that that is where He wants me to serve Him, and that He judges that is best for my eternal salvation. If so, it’s good for me to be there, in that situation –even, or perhaps especially, when I’d rather be somewhere else, doing something different. 

St. Paul reassures us, “We know that all things work together for good^* for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose,” (Rom 8. 28).  God can give us the serenity to identify with the imprisoned Paul, who could write, “I know what it is to have little, and I know what it is to have plenty. In any and all circumstances I have learned the secret of being well-fed and of going hungry, of having plenty and of being in need.  I can do all things through him who strengthens me”  (Philippians 4. 11-13).   Such trust in God can give us the confidence to say, “Lord, it is good to be here” –in whatever situation we find ourselves!

Isidore O.P.     

The next posting will be on 23rd August.

FAMILY PRIDE

 

The male lion - what a magnificent, noble beast!  The ‘King of the Jungle’ -his roar strikes terror into his prey.  What a powerful image of Israel’s fear of its enemies, ‘Their roaring is like a lion, like young lions they roar; they growl and seize their prey, they carry it off, and no one can rescue it,’ (Is. 5. 29). No wonder Amos exclaims, ‘The lion has roared; who will not fear?’ (Amos 3. 8).    Its paws can tear its prey apart; its powerful jaws can readily crush and devour anything it fancies to eat.  Clearly, a lion should be approached with great caution!  Mess about with lions at your peril. The same is true of the devil, as St. Peter warns us, “Discipline yourselves; keep alert.  Like a roaring lion your adversary the devil prowls around, looking for someone to devour,” (1 Peter 5. 8).

 But I have had to modify this terrifying image of the fearsome lion. While searching the internet, I stumbled across a beautiful picture of a male lion with its cub.  I was immediately struck by the tender bond between fearsome father and  vulnerable child.  The normally unapproachable, intimidating male lion could so easily have made a meal of its tiny, defenceless cub. And yet he welcomed it with gentle tenderness. The head of the pride of lions seems to smile with such pride!
 

 As for the tiny cub, I’m amazed at its trust.  It dared to approach the handsome, powerful male lion, to rest its nose tenderly against that of the Lord of the Jungle. That’s something I’d never dare do –even though I’m much bigger than the cub.  And the simple reason for its confidence –the cub dared to recognize him as his ‘father.’  And the father acknowledged the cub as his child.

 

 What a wonderful image of our relationship with God!  The King of the Jungle powerfully expresses the unapproachable, awesome majesty of the Lord of Heaven and Earth. We must never lose sight of that. And yet we dare to draw close to Him, without fear of being destroyed. And the simple reason for our confidence? Almighty God has shared His life with us.   He recognizes and welcomes us as His children.  That gives us the trust to approach the awesome God of Majesty –not the King of the Jungle, but Lord of Heaven and Earth. Because He acknowledges us as His children we dare to call Him ‘Father.’  That gives us the confidence, the trust, the love to presume to approach Almighty God without fear of being destroyed.

The picture of the relationship between the lion and his cub has given me a beautiful insight into a new way of meeting God.  This combines respect for His awesome majestic power, while daring to approach God, who is full of tenderness and love.  The reason for this confidence?  -the bond of love between our heavenly Father, and us, His children.

Isidore O.P

P.S. I would like to thank the photographer -unknown to me -who took the magnificent picture which inspired this posting.  Please send me your name, so that I can publically express my gratitude.

A WOOING HE WOULD GO

 

They don’t make them like that anymore –strict, no-nonsense priests who ‘tell it as it is.’ The one I have in mind would each month remind his country village congregation of eight different ways they could get themselves excommunicated from the Church. (I suspect that few of the present generation have a clue what excommunication is all about!)

No surprise, then, that this gruff cleric would advise priests of recent vintage that there’s no need to tell people about love. ‘They’ve had enough of that already. Tell them about the Last  Judgment!’

All the same, as a host he was a most considerate man. There was a time when the bishop visited his parish. After lavishly dining the Most Reverend Gentleman this pastor suggested it might well be time for him to sleep off his meal. Now, who told the parish cockerel to start crowing at that very moment?!!?

The poor bird did not live long to bewail its folly. “Off with its head,” bellowed our priest to his house-keeper, with all the authority of an eastern potentate.  Problem solved. The bishop slept soundlessly.

You might well conclude there's small chance of a priest’s life becoming boring. Let me tell you about the desperate  love-stricken young man who sent distress signals to this priest I’ve just been describing to you. 'Father, come to my rescue. . I'm going crazy. I'm in despair!'

This was an excellent fellow - handsome, talented, jovial, popular, the heart and soul of any gathering.  He could stand tall in any company, confident in the knowledge that the ladies were leaping fences to grab hold of him. Also he had a flashy car – I vital requirement of ‘him who would a wooing go!'

Already he had made his choice. The time had come when he longed to claim this adorable girl of his dreams as his own, not simply as a ‘steady date’ but as a partner for life.  In many ways, for many days, she had been signaling that she was well-satisfied with him.

And yet, such is ‘the mystery of love,' at the very moment he was about to lay bear his heart to her and plead his cause he’d lost his nerve, lost his voice. His whole being had collapsed into something resembling a wobbling jelly.

Who better, then, to be his advocate than the one man who had never been known to be at a loss for words; the one man who did not know what it was to be timid or shy; who better than this same most intimidating of priests? In the crazy world of sweet romance it was easier for him to ask, beg, this holy terror,  to speak to his lady-love on his behalf than for him to approach her himself.

Wouldn’t most of us think he was out of his mind to ask this rough-spoken priest to do for him the serenading and the wooing? My mind boggles at the thought of what words this crusty priest would have found, what cooing sounds he would have made, to persuade this ‘Princess’ that this young man was just the one for her?

What would his lady-love think of him for being too timid to speak for himself? Wouldn’t she despise him for this? Did he really expect the good Lord to work a miracle that would cause honeyed words to flow from this hard-as-rock ‘reverend?’  And yet, with God all things are possible.  Hadn’t He made honey  flow from the rock for the sake of His people in the desert?

I’m guessing our priest welcomed this outrageous challenge. Anyway, having groomed himself as befitted the occasion he went down on his knees and raised his hands to the heavens. He charmed  this bewildered girl into joyful submission as sweet words flowed from his most-times sour mouth.

And wasn’t she relieved! She had been agonizing about how much longer she would have to wait before her boy-friend ‘popped the question.’ Would she have to propose to him? At that moment she so much admired  her young man's resourcefulness in seeking the assistance of someone who had a ‘gift for words.’

With ecstatic joy she encircled  this proxy-suitor within her arms and placed a juicy kiss upon his cheek. A passer-by might have concluded that, wonder of wonders, this most off-putting of priests had somehow gained himself a wife!

Coward that I am, I’m leaving it to you to tease some spirituality out of this grand saga. I ask myself, ‘What does this say to my approaching the Lord of Lords in prayer? How do I stand in comparison to the ‘wooing ways’ of this priest?’

I dare not think what would have been the outcome if I’d had to assume  the priestly role in this drama?  Mywaygodsway?...No way!!! Please God!!!

Peter Clarke, O.P.