Enter the Mystery

On Monday Evening, after our first visit, we celebrated a Mass for St James the Apostle, followed by a procession of Our Lady and Benediction.  Here's the homily from the first evening.

When I was, maybe, seven years old,
back in the seventies
when children were allowed to roam
and have adventures on their own
without a grown up being present,
I climbed the roof of a local factory,
where Christmas decorations were made,
having crawled through a gap in the fence,
me and a friend by the name of Lee Rose.

It wasn’t the first time
we’d embarked upon such an adventure,
or crawled through the gap in the fence,
to throw stones at the windows,
or run away with the glitter and tinsel
of Christmas decorations
in the summer sun.
but it was the first time I fell from the roof,
into a large vat of dirty rainwater.

Dripping, we escaped to his house
where his parents dressed me in borrowed clothes,
and I returned home,
telling my own parents
I’d fallen into the river.

Days later, at school,
with an aching right arm,
I was sent home,
and we went to the hospital
where an x-ray told me I’d fractured my arm
and so I returned home in plaster,
my right hand immobilised.

It wasn’t until I was maybe 18 or 19 years old
when the story came up in conversation with my parents
that I revealed I hadn’t broken my arm by falling in the river,
but this had been an adventure
climbing the walls of a factory roof.

There’s a poem by Sylvia Plath
about a time when she lay in a hospital bed,
incapacitated by having much of her body covered in plaster.
She begins with the frustration and hatred of the situation:

“I shall never get out of this! There are two of me now:
This new absolutely white person and the old yellow one,
And the white person is certainly the superior one…
.
…At the beginning I hated her, she had no personality —
She lay in bed with me like a dead body
And I was scared, because she was shaped just the way I was

…I blamed her for everything, but she didn’t answer.
I couldn’t understand her stupid behaviour!

…Then I realized what she wanted was for me to love her:
She began to warm up, and I saw her advantages…

…Without me, she wouldn’t exist, so of course she was grateful.
I gave her a soul, I bloomed out of her as a rose
Blooms out of a vase of not very valuable porcelain…"

How do we deal with sickness and illness,
with pain and with suffering?
What things wound us,
restrict us,
cause us pain,
or define us?
What limits us,
disables us,
or burdens us?

And what or who
do we blame for everything,
to simply gain no answer that satisfies?

Let’s return to that conversation
between the mother of James
and Jesus
She worries and waits,
wants rewards for her sons.
Something to keep them going
as they experience this strange new world they’re entering.
She worries about their future,
like any mother,
who doesn’t want to see their child
come to harm
or fall from a factory roof.
She wants a promise of glory.
She needs certainty.

‘Are you willing to drink
of the same cup of suffering as me?’
asks Jesus.
There, in that moment,
as they stand on the verge of a new adventure,
seeing the gap in the fence,
they seem more than willing.
But that time of suffering is sometime in the future.
and it seems so easy to them now -
they are so brave
in that moment,
when suffering seems so far away.

In the days after Pentecost,
as the church grows and moves
and changes the world,
they too will lay down their own lives
for the One who came not to be served 
but to serve,
and to give his life as a ransom for many.

Why have we come all this way?
For some of us,
It’s a return we have made,
again and again,
a habit or hunger of faith,
and many of us will be grateful to Fr Graham
for whom this Mass is offered
and who did so much 
to give people an experience of pilgrimage
over so many years.
For others,
it may be your first time.
but whatever has brought us here
we’ve found the gap in the fence,
away from the usual,
stepped into a new world,
a new adventure
with new possibilities
although we may carry with us
a fracture or two.

For here,
we don’t,
we can’t,
leave behind our pains and burdens,
the fractures of our lives.

It is to this place
that we bring them,
seeking healing,
the balm of love,
and the prayers of a Mother,
who knows what it means to suffer
but who also knows the deepest of joys,
and who draws us close and closer
to her Divine Son.

Yes, here we can lay down our lives at the feet of Jesus.
It may only be for a few days,
or just a few hours within those days
or maybe just a few minutes,
the briefest of moments
when we have that clear vision,
as we imagine
what life can be -
when we simply trust in Jesus.

But it also means
learning to love our wounds,
to be gentle and patient,
recognising the marks they leave on our lives,
how they change us
and give us a new perspective of the world,
and on our life with God.

“I blamed her for everything,"
 wrote Plath of her Plaster alter-ego,
“but she didn’t answer.
Then I realised what she wanted was for me to love her.”

Some of you 
will have heard me use the image of a painting
by Stanley Spencer
who painted a number of scenes of
Jesus in the wilderness
One of my favourites
is Jesus and the Scorpion.
Sat in the hot, dry sand
Jesus holds and nurses in his cupped hands
a black, shiny scorpion,
a creature with the potential
to hurt and to harm,
to cause pain and even death,
And yet there is, on his painted face,
a look, yes, of bewilderment and fascination,
but also of love and compassion.
He loves this thing
which can hurt and harm.

Life is fragile.
We are like that earthenware jar
described by St Paul in the first reading,
prone to cracks and fractures,
needing love,
easily broken,
difficult to repair,
but carrying within us a rich treasure,
the risen life of Christ.

“I gave her a soul, I bloomed out of her as a rose
blooms out of a vase of not very valuable porcelain”

Perhaps,
during these few days,
after having slipped through that hole in the fence
to be here,
the adventure 
is nothing more
than recognising our frailty,
and the fragility of life,
and discovering again
the rich treasure that lies within.

So, enjoy!
Take each moment as it comes.
Do not rush too much through this week.
Learn again,
or discover for the first time,
what it means to be at God’s disposal,
to lay down our lives at his feet
and the joy it can bring.

This is a place and time
of prayer and worship,
of stillness and silence,
but it is also a place of fun and laughter
of joy and happiness,
of conversation and being a little carefree at times,
of resting and rising,
of sleeping and snoozing!

Here, in this place,
is the Holy House of Nazareth,
where our salvation began,
and where a young girl,
open to God,
and so completely overwhelmed by his love
seemed to have no option
but to say ‘Yes’ to him,
and where she began to bloom
“as a rose
blooms out of a vase
of not very valuable porcelain.”

Look at us all,
cracked pots,
with the potential to bloom!