FOR THOSE WHO WOULD CAST STONES

I keep getting messages, through various digital media, about Amoris Laetitia and the dissenters are pretty raucous.  They quote the purists, the righteous and the traditionalists. This got me thinking.

The ‘regular’ Catholic (and even most of the irregular ones) should be familiar with the story of the adulterous woman whom Jesus saved from stoning.

Let’s go back to that moment for a bit. Jesus was, at that time, a young Jewish man familiar with Jewish law and all its nuances.  He would know very well that the penalty for adultery was stoning to death.  Here were elders and Jews, steeped in their faith, who brought this woman before him.  Did she deny the charge? No. Was it a questionable charge? Again, no.  Apparently, the woman’s transgressions were well known. Were the elders well within their rights to stone her? Technically, yes. Because it was the law and they observed the law very rigidly.

What did Jesus do?

He did not harangue the woman. He did not conduct a court of inquiry.  He made a simple statement,’Let he who is without sin cast the first stone’!

While the elders were ‘rooting out’ sin, here was one who sought mercy for a sinner and offered a second chance.

Jesus was radical for his time. So radical that they crucified him.

History repeats itself.

Because mercy is beyond the comprehension of those who cannot love.

A Collect Prayer and a loving message for the day….

 “O God, who through the folly of the Cross wondrously taught Saint Justin the Martyr the surpassing knowledge of Jesus Christ…”

Attending Mass, whether daily or for fulfilling the Sunday obligation, unwittingly becomes routine.  The common prayers – I Confess, Gloria, Creed, Holy Holy, Our Father – are so familiar that we can just rattle them off when they turn up at their appointed place in the Liturgy.  Even the readings, after time, become good friends and, on hearing the first few words, we know what comes next. 

On the other hand, how often do we actually ‘hear’ the other prayers recited during the Liturgy? They are unfamiliar (unless you have your own personal copy of the Mass missal), privy only to the priest at the altar and, if you are not particularly attentive, you could miss the words altogether.  Today, our celebrant intoned the Collect Prayer with unusual clarity and my ears picked up the words, ‘….folly of the Cross…’ and I was intrigued. Yes, I checked the Book after Mass and I had heard correctly. 

This set me thinking about how much we are loved.  If you have ever cared for another so intensely that you forget self for the other, when no sacrifice is too hard and no expense too great, you throw logic to the winds, there is irrationality in the face of danger and there is even less thought to the consequences. How foolish we are when we love deeply! 

Imagine, then, how deep and how immense was Christ’s love for us; all we need to do is to look to the ‘foolishness of the Cross’ to know this reality.

Hold fast to this thought – it will get you through the day.  It will also get you through life.

Star-blessed lovers

He has declared that he will take her as his wife. She has handed over her heart to him, with alacrity. But like every Romeo and Juliet before them, there are problems.

He is the youngest of four siblings and it is the custom for the daughter of the house to marry first and then the male line in sequence from eldest to youngest. He must not break the pattern. What would the extended family say? Once one breaks the ‘rules’ others will want to follow. One cannot dispense with tradition so lightly.

Then, there is the fact that he hails from the North and she from the West. The language of love requires no translation but the kith and kin can find no common ground in caste, community or tongue. And so, the respective families find spokes to put in the wheels already set in motion.

The young couple is exasperated. The lad says he will marry without consent – he is of age and financially independent. The lass says that she will ‘take poison’ if forced to consider any other suitor. I wonder if Shakespeare has been translated into Marathi and Haryanvi and whether any of our protagonists has read the script.

There is much protesting, pleading, threatening and finally conceding. The parents agree that they love their children and it is their happiness which should come first (Capulet and Montague take note). The wedding will take place on the weekend. There is no flurry of preparation. No invitations to be sent out. The dearly beloved present will comprise the parents from each side and the bride and groom. If there is to be a celebration, it will come later. Much later. Perhaps when the couple welcome their first child.

He is 24. She is 22. They will wed with the stardust still in their eyes.

Will they remain in love forever like those immortalized in fable?

Neither Friar nor Nurse but mere spectator, I am keeping my fingers crossed and wishing with all my might that they will. And may no one to the marriage of true hearts (and true minds) admit impediment!

A little man with a large heart

The world knows of Mother Teresa, but it is Fr. Fred Sopena who touched my life and I wouldn’t trade all the saints in heaven for that!

He is a dapper little man and has an artificial leg which no one knows about unless they know him. The first time I met him I was reminded of a schoolboy who has just played a prank on his teacher and is waiting to be found out – a delightful mix of mischievousness and lively anticipation. And he must have been all of 75 at the time. The artificial leg is mentioned because despite the trauma of losing a leg in an accident – a lorry knocked him off his bike on the highway – he just picked himself up and got on with doing what he does best – helping those in need. No obstacle too big.

We met because of a letter he wrote in our diocesan weekly, The Examiner. The letter asked for contribution of talent in terms of needlework, woodwork, electrical skills and so on. There was no appeal for any kind of financial donation. This was unusual. I was intrigued. I contacted the numbers given and offered my skills as a crocheter. I was visited, my work duly inspected and my offer accepted. Contributions were sold at Christmas and the resultant funds were used to lay the foundations of Fr. Fred Sopena’s latest project at that time.

A Spanish Jesuit, Fr. Fred’s heart is firmly and totally committed to India and the downtrodden, particularly children. Which is why he realised a dream when he set up a centre in Mahad for the children of Katkari tribals – landless, migrant labourers who have nothing except their skills and who depend on local farmers for their livelihood. The children of these tribals accompany their parents from place to place, which means that they can never attend school. An extra pair of hands to the plough, they would normally face as bleak a future as their parents. But then Fr. Fred crossed their path and life would never be the same. Like the star above the stable, enthusiasm shines from his visage and is so infectious that before you know it, you are caught up in his mission to do what you can – and more – for the least of the Lord’s brethren.

The band of followers has grown with missionary zeal from that one little seed planted in unlikely ground, so many years ago. There are those who know him better and not just from one chance encounter. They will no doubt be able to do a better job of eulogizing the person and his work which encompasses much more than the one project mentioned here.

I write about him because he is the living example of the Gospel message of the power of love and what better time to do so than the season of Christmas – the time when we are reminded of what it is to love and to give.

Love, the leitmotif

Two months, give or take a couple of days, to Christmas! How I love the season for all that it means.

Birthdays commemorate the day and celebrate the person as the infant grows into the child and the child grows into the teen and then the adult. We do not return, on the birthday, to the celebration of the newborn infant except at Christmas. Christmas is unique.

Across the globe, people of all ages, all nationalities, all cultures and all creeds are aware of this one day as no other. And it is not just because of the trappings - the tinsel, the tree, the gifts, the music, Santa Claus or even the spirit of giving - which permeate our lives; it is the gift of love embodied in the infant that was born in Bethlehem over 2000 years ago.

And this love is recalled to us so well in that evocative poem by Christina Rossetti:

Love came down at Christmas,
Love all lovely, love divine;
Love was born at Christmas,
Star and angels gave the sign.

Worship we the Godhead,
Love incarnate, love divine;
Worship we our Jesus:
But wherewith for sacred sign?

Love shall be our token,
Love be yours and love be mine,
Love to God and all men,
Love for plea and gift and sign.

And the love of Christmas shall be the leitmotif in the days to come.

The Bonus Season

Come Deepawali (I do prefer the North Indian pronunciation) and it’s not just deepas (oil lamps) and mithai (Indian sweets) that come to mind. In the working world, the season is synonymous with the much looked forward to bonus. This was the time that we indulged in counting chickens even before the eggs were laid and all of us went on wild and wonderful mental shopping sprees well before bonus was declared.

The nine to five routine is long since behind me, but there are bonuses that still come my way, albeit of other kinds.

On a visit to our Catholic bookshop to pick up Mass Cards, I browsed among the greetings and religious objects – statues, medals, rosaries, holy pictures laid out in colourful profusion on the display counter. And then I espied this little brooch which proclaimed ‘I love Jesus’. Simple but attractive, it instantly transported me back to my Sunday School days.

Way before I encountered the Salesians and their largesse, I was fortunate to come into contact with the Canossians. Sunday school with these nuns meant that we were the very pleased recipients of attractively wrought brooches and pendants, all with a religious theme and bearing the stamp ‘made in Italy’. Little girls love jewellery and we sported our adornments on every possible occasion. The nuns were canny mortals – they knew that even if we were tempted into doing something naughty we would be brought up short and receive a timely reminder by that shiny little ‘jewel’. One could hardly commit a ‘sin’ while prominently sporting a picture of Jesus, the Blessed Virgin, a Saint or even a tiny cross!! We had to be kept virtuous for which a little bit of ‘bribery’ did not come amiss, and how we coveted those little trinkets.

Yes, I did pick up the ‘I love Jesus’ brooch in remembrance of happy times and the pleasure engendered by even the tiniest of bonuses. It is also a helpful nudge, reminding me of who I am and who I am committed to. Not all love is reciprocal, but Jesus is different – he loves me too and there is nothing quite like being accessorised with love!

Bonuses sometimes multiply: Andrea Bocelli’s gorgeous tenor is keeping me company while I write this piece. The recording is in the original Italian. Coincidence?

Our most precious asset

On Christmas Eve, after a month of cleaning and polishing and changing the furnishings, we eagerly unwrap the figures that make up the Nativity scene. It is most precious in our eyes and it is with the greatest reluctance that we confine it once more to its storage space after Epiphany.

Our first crib set, as a married couple, was a housewarming gift from a sister-in-law. Plaster of Paris is not the most durable of materials and though we were very careful, the crib soon wore battle scars – chips, nicks and peeling paint. And then baby Jesus lost his nose in a minor accident.

That was when we decided that we needed a new crib and it was the first item on our shopping list when we had the good fortune to visit Vienna.

We scoured every shop and paused at every window that carried a display and there were plenty of them even in the month of August. But the Nativity scenes on offer were either too expensive, too fragile or did not meet our idea of feature and colour. Just when disappointment seemed to be at its most crushing, a kindly nun directed us to a shop off an alley behind St. Stephen’s in the city. We decided to make one last foray and were rewarded beyond our wildest dreams.

The shop in question had on display the most exquisite hand carved wooden Nativity Scenes. The work of monks tucked away high in the Alps, each piece was finished right down to the tiniest detail. It was love at first sight. But when we heard the cost, our hearts sank: each individual piece carried a steep price tag and we needed several pieces to complete the picture that we had in mind.

The salesgirl must have been an extraordinary individual. She allowed us to handle each figure and take our time over it. Then, she suggested that we should pick out piece by piece the ones that we wanted and she would keep totting up the amount. And that is what we did. When our wallets had reached fraying point, we asked for the final total, counted out the Schillings (the Euro had not yet made its appearance) and hurried home with our precious package.

Back at the convent, where we were staying, we unpacked the figures, set them out on the dining table in the refectory and arranged them according to their appointed places. It was nearing dusk. A visitor picked up a lit candle in a little wooden stand and placed it near the crib. The parish priest brought out his guitar and we gathered around and sang Silent Night in its original German version – Stille Nacht, Heilige Nacht. The memory still gives me goose bumps: the joy and sharing of Christmas came to us early that year.

Most people invest in stocks and bonds and gold. We invested in love.