There
is a place near my home town in Ireland (Killoran, Balinasloe) called
‘The Bishop’s Chair’. My father brought me there a several
years ago (14th Jan 2000). It is a hard place to find as it really is
out in the middle of nowhere. This ‘chair’ which is in the middle
of a field, was where at least two bishops, between 1679-1701,
ordained many priests in secret. At the time it was illegal to be a
Catholic priest and if they were caught they could have been
executed, so they had to ordain them in secret. It is very moving to
visit it even though there is not much to see today, but just to
think of the sacrifice that so many men and women were prepared to
make at that time, to pass on their faith. Priests were prepared to
risk their lives so that the people could have the mass, because they
had the faith to believe that the mass was everything, because in it
we have the gift of Jesus himself. The people were prepared to risk
their lives by going to mass. The mass had to be celebrated in
secret, often on what were known as ‘mass rocks’ out in the
countryside. Many priests died for the mass because they were
caught. Sadly that kind of persecution continues today.
A
few years ago in 2007 a priest friend of mine who was my next door
neighbour in the Irish College in Rome for a year and a half, was
shot dead after celebrating mass in Mosul, northern Iraq. He was just
35 years old. He had been threatened several times but he remained on
in his parish in order to be there to celebrate mass for the people,
even though he knew the danger. But on the Sunday after Pentecost in
2007 after celebrating mass in the parish church Ragheed and three
deacons were ambushed by several gunmen. They forced them out of the
cars they were driving and shot all four of them. Persecution for our
faith is never far away.
At
the moment we don’t live with that kind of persecution in this
country, thank God, though we are living with a different kind of
persecution, where our faith and our Church is often put down, mocked
and lied about. Maybe it seems strange that something like the
Christian faith, which preaches peace and justice, love of neighbour
and respect for all people, should face such ongoing persecution? And
it still does in many parts of the world. Then we have this line in
today’s Gospel:
I have come to bring fire to the earth... Do you suppose
I am here to bring peace on earth? No I tell you, but rather
division.
This
line seems to be a bit of a contradiction to what we usually
associate with what Jesus spoke about. ‘I have come to bring fire
to the earth.’ What about peace and tolerance and all that?
Preaching the message of Jesus Christ, which is about peace and
justice, etc., brings persecution with it, for the simple reason that
not everyone wants to hear it? The teaching of Christ is a very
challenging teaching at the best of times. It shows us up when we are
not living according to the Lord’s teaching and that often makes
people angry. We don’t like to be shown up. It says in John’s
Gospel: ‘People have preferred darkness to the light, because their
deeds were evil’ (Jn 3:19). There is a tendency in us which draws
us to what is wrong. We often know what is ‘the right thing to do’,
but we find it hard to choose it. And if we have done what is wrong,
or are living in a way that is against what God teaches us, then we
are not going to be happy with the teaching of Christ because it will
show us up. That is why the message of Jesus always brings
persecution with it, because it challenges us to our face to follow
one path or another. There is no middle ground. But perhaps what is
most important to remember is that the Lord’s teaching, difficult
though it often is, is there to help us, because the Lord knows what
will make us blossom.
I
always find it consoling when I read about the calling of any of the
prophets in the Bible. Nearly all of them resisted. And even if they
didn’t resist initially, they usually asked God after a while if
they could quit, as it was so difficult. They suffered for speaking
the truth about God. The prophet Jeremiah said: ‘You have seduced
me Lord and I have let myself be seduced... For me the Lord’s word
has meant insult and derision all day long’ (Jer 20:7, 8b). The
prophet Elijah, after working one of the most extraordinary miracles
then finds himself on the run because the Queen is trying to kill him
and he says: ‘Lord, I have had enough. Take my life, I am no better
than my ancestors’ (1 Kg 19:4-5). Who would blame them?
If
you want to be faithful to the teachings of Jesus Christ it will cost
you. Not everyone in your family is going to like it. Many of the
people you work with won’t like it. But that is no reason for us to
be afraid, because the Lord assures us that He is with us and that He
will help us. For our part we just try to be faithful and live what
we believe in as best we can. We follow this path because we believe
it is the most worthwhile path, because it is the path that leads to
God.
So each day we rededicate ourselves to God and we try to be faithful to the path that He points out to us. It is not an easy path, but it is the most worthwhile path. And if not everyone understands us that’s ok too. That’s how the Lord said it would be. What the Lord has shown us is what makes sense of our life and it is worth everything and anything, which is why we try to be faithful to it no matter what happens.
‘I
have come to bring fire to the earth and how I wish it were blazing
already.’
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