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I was brought up, a ‘cradle Catholic’, in what I now know was a very traditional Irish Catholic religious environment. When I was young the spiritual message was clearly: “If you are good, God will love you and reward you – in the next life” – pretty much the opposite of what Jesus taught. Sin was everywhere and each sin was clearly measured in degree of severity, with some sins leaving you teetering on the verge of eternal damnation. God was judge and executioner – after all, look what He had required of His own Son Jesus. And while daily life for a working class kid in London of the 1960s was okay, there was certainly a constant backdrop of fear. Weekly churchgoing, and all the various practices of Catholic school, were a kind of eternal insurance policy, what some have facetiously called a ‘fire insurance policy’. Sad to say, there was little encouragement to develop any depth relationship with God, but how could you when He was so scary?

No wonder then that the vast majority of my fellow Catholic kids effectively gave up on any pretence at religious practice, and maybe even any belief in God. Some commentators actually attribute the rise of atheism and agnosticism in Western countries as largely the result of this fear-based religion.

How was it then that I became a priest in the 1970s and 80s? Certainly the much needed and long overdue reforms of the Second Vatican Council (1962 – 65) were hugely influential in my becoming a member of a religious order and then a priest. Sad to say that the ‘fresh air’ of Vatican II has been largely stifled by a traditionalist reaction which has been in many ways encouraged by a number of popes. Even so, the post conciliar Church is light years away from the old sin-soaked and punitive religion of my childhood. In this sense I was a ‘Vat II priest’, trying to emphasise a God of love, stressing original blessing rather than original sin, and I hope and pray that in my years as an active priest I brought consolation and hope to many good and decent Catholic folk.

Yet I think the wonderful renewal brought about by Vat II is only part of my story. In my poem The Family Rosary I try to express how it was that I seemed to have a ‘sense of God’ as a child. Somehow, in my old fashioned and traditional upbringing there was a kernel of spiritual awareness that was no result of my own doing. It was a pure gift. It might be too simplistic to simply attribute it to experiencing nightly rosaries with the larger family, but I do think this had a deep effect on me. I’ve tried to express this in an earlier blog A Sense of God. As I say, this has been a gift – a gift from God, that was mediated by the faith of my parents and grandparents and wider family. It has little to do with my own efforts, and I can only be thankful for having received this ‘treasure’. What I have done with this treasure is entirely another matter.

My Catholicism is alive and well. It is a long way from the faith of my childhood, and I acknowledge that much in the Catholic world is still entrenched in negativity, but God is with His Church and will never forsake it. Neither will I.

At this stage in my life now I feel that I am only just beginning to understand some key truths, and part of this new awareness is leading me to find wisdom within my Catholic tradition and also in other spiritual traditions. Spirit-filled teachers such as Fr Daniel O’Leary and Richard Rohr are foremost in my searchings, and if I say anything of value in these blogs, much credit has to be given to these men and other like-minded teachers. Isn’t it so true that all pilgrim searchers stand on the shoulders of giants?

I pray you also find wise and loving spiritual guides – they do exist – but we need to constantly discern and recognise the Spirit by the fruits thereof. And we need to not just search, listen and discern, but also to practice a daily contemplation to internalise this wisdom and adopt a radical attitude of gratitude.

Let me conclude by stating: God is love, life is good, and all is gift.

Blessings,

Martin

Fr Richard Rohr OFM, whom I regard as a modern prophet, founded the Centre for Action and Contemplation (CAC) thirty five years ago in the US. Richard’s vision was to encourage people of all faiths and traditions who sincerely desired to take part in action in support of the poor and marginalised to base their work – and their life – on developing a deep spirituality, without which even the best intended actions can become compromised. In other words, to work for God and for the good of humanity, you first have to know God and be rooted in His love through a deep relationship with Him.

Richard rightly stresses the crucial need for a daily practice of contemplation if we are to open ourselves to the divine and allow God’s Spirit to enthuse and direct our actions. But contemplation is challenging to many and sadly has fallen away in the western Christian world to the extent that it became the preserve of small numbers of monks and hermits. Certainly in the Catholic tradition and in my upbringing there was little or no formation in any depth of prayer relationship with God, as Richard gently explains in the following meditation.

This blog is somewhat unusual in that it really is a pointer to another man’s work and wisdom, but I offer it in the hope that it might reach an even wider audience. As such, this link to what Richard calls a ‘sit’ is actually a priceless treasure. If you are open to the ‘real’, that is, the reality that faith in God underpins all creation, then you should appreciate just how special and matchless this meditation is. It may well encourage you to start a practice of meditation that can – truly – change your life.

For myself, since it was first shown on Friday 21^st October, I have used it every day to focus my poor attempts at meditation and it has been a real encouragement and support to me. See for yourself just how impressive is this man who clearly practises what he preaches, and therefore speaks from a sacred place.

Be aware of course that YouTube videos usually come with noisy advertisements, but make your way past these to the real treasure!

Virtual Sit Meditation | LIVE Friday, October 21 | Center for Action and Contemplation – YouTube

You can also find out more about CAC here:

Center for Action and Contemplation (cac.org)

Wishing you a very special blessing from God – if you have eyes to see and ears to hear!

Martin

The Catholic Church has always stressed to its members that the Faith needs to be practised, that is, that individual Catholics need to do certain regular and specific spiritual acts such as attend Holy Mass on Sundays. Those Catholics who cease to actively practise their faith are termed ‘lapsed’. The connotation of this word ‘lapse’ tends to suggest a ceasing to do something without perhaps any definite decision to stop – almost a carelessness that over time results in a gradual fading away.

This notion perhaps resonates with Jesus’ parable of the sower (Matthew 13: 1 – 9 and 18 – 23). This parable is unusual in that Jesus actually explains the parable to his disciples. Of the four possibilities of how the seed – the faith – turns out, two may have relevance to this phenomenon of lapsation:

~ some seed falls among rocks, and such people do not persevere because they have no depth to their belief;

~ some seed falls among thorns, and such people may have some depth to their belief but they allow the cares and busyness of life to choke any growth or commitment to their faith.

In terms of the first of these outcomes, who is really to blame if individuals “have no depth to their belief”? From my experience as a priest and a long standing practitioner of the Catholic faith I think the fault lies mainly with the Church itself. In my lifetime and in my personal experience ordinary Catholics were rarely given any formation or encouragement to deepen their faith. They were given a diet of pious exercises and instructed to attend services without being encouraged to actively participate. As such, it really was hit and miss if they managed to develop any depth of prayerfulness and therefore any vital relationship with God. Especially in my youth, churchgoing was largely a numbers game and a ‘going through the motions’. Perhaps no surprise then that so many just faded away from the life of the church, especially once social mores made churchgoing a minority activity?

In terms of the second outcome, the tendency for the cares and busyness of one’s life to smother any spiritual practice is a constant and universal issue. But again, if so many were given precious little formation and encouragement, and were not exposed to the radicality of Jesus’ good news then what chance that they would value their faith and strive to maintain it within the pressures of daily life?

What I’m saying here is that the Church cannot presume that Catholics who have ceased to practice their faith are all backsliders and even that such folk have decided to renege on their spiritual heritage. Again, Jesus’ parable of the treasure hidden in the field (Matthew 13: 44) is surely relevant here: in what way has the Church really communicated the ‘treasure’ of the Gospel? It’s almost as if each individual Catholic has to stumble across the treasure for themselves…

I’m not denying that there are folk who, regardless of how they are nurtured and supported, will never value the gift of faith in the God of Jesus, but I think it’s clear that many of the so called lapsed have been badly let down by a Church that just didn’t feed or challenge them to have a depth relationship with the living God. That said, I think there is another category of folk who have left the Church: those who have been alienated by the Church and may have either gone to another religion, not necessarily a Christian one, or likely just given up on any pretence of belief in God. Some commentators would claim that the huge rise in agnosticism and atheism in the western world is precisely down to the gross failings of the Christian churches.

In my time ministering as a priest I met many decent folk who felt rejected by the Catholic Church, typically because a first marriage had failed for whatever reason and had now found a second relationship that was much more positive, mature and life-enhancing. For them, the Church, while trying to remain faithful to Jesus’ teaching, had nonetheless been experienced as harsh, unbending and unforgiving, leaving them in a moral and spiritual black hole. Others had actually been abused and/or humiliated by priests and nuns who supposedly stood in the place of Jesus. Yet others had thought deeply about the Church’s dogma and rituals and had come to the conclusion that it was illogical and contrary to their honest insights.

God’s ways are strange indeed, and God seems content to allow His public relations team to be comprised of fallible, sinful people! As such, the living and true God often gets a bad press. The Church is both human and divine, and where the human exists there will surely be mistakes, wrong signals and downright evils. And if I criticize the Church I have to remember that I am part of the Church and I have a responsibility to make it into what it should be – the living body of Christ in the world. And it is precisely because it is His body that it matters. It does contain that priceless treasure but often seems to do a good job of hiding it in a field of dogma, piety and reactionary nonsense!

I truly love the Catholic Church and will never leave it – but that does not stop me from seeing it as it is, warts and all,

Martin

I remember once during a parish mission I was leading, that a fine young man was very involved in the preparation week and then came to the first of the big evening services of the mission. But then he never came back for the rest of the week, and I missed him. It was only at the end of the mission fortnight that I met his father who explained that his son had heard God speaking to him through the mission and telling him to be His priest. The good young chap had set his sights on a particular career and marriage, and frankly – he ran away. He didn’t want to face what God was saying to him in his heart.

Some years ago I wrote a poem called “God Doesn’t Stand at the Crossroads”:
God Doesn’t Stand at the Crossroads

What I tried to express in this poem, and it is pertinent to my life, is that, as we journey through our lives we often face decisions, sometimes small but sometimes major, and these decision moments can be like coming to a crossroads or a junction. We can rarely stand still – we usually have to go one way or the other. And having chosen a certain route, and travelled a distance, we may look back and wonder… did I take the right path?

So often, after we have committed to a particular direction, we receive new information and insights that we just didn’t have back then at the crossroads, and we all know about hindsight – how we can condemn ourselves unjustly for not knowing then what we know now.

Often times, our decisions will be right and appropriate for our stage in life, but what do we do when we begin to realise that we in fact took a wrong direction? This wrong direction may not necessarily bring in sin and guilt – after all, none of us has a crystal ball and we can sometimes only hope for the best and even sometimes change direction within our choices. And of course sometimes there is no going back…

Sometimes though, we come to realise that we did take a wrong turn. This wrong turn can be chosen through selfishness, immaturity or peer pressure, or through the complexities of life, etc. But equally we may conclude that we purposely (consciously?) blocked certain facts and chose what seemed to us to be the most appealing (most convenient?) option.

And what about God? I believe that God has a clear purpose for our lives – a purpose that will absolutely be the best for us and for others. A purpose which nonetheless may not be an easy path, and may actually involve the Cross. Whatever path God may want us to follow – our true vocation – He in no way can force us to follow this ‘best path’. He can only hope that we make the effort to discern His will and that other people are there to guide us.

What then can we say when it becomes clear that we effectively dodged His will and purposely took a ‘wrong’ path? Does God, so to speak, stand back at the decision point implacably waiting for us to crawl back? I think Jesus’ story of the Prodigal Son makes it very clear that while God cannot prevent or force our path He waits, waits patiently, even impatiently, but with ready forgiveness for when we come to our senses. And if, unlike the Prodigal Son, we cannot realistically retrace our steps, I think God is actually always at our side, ever ready to embrace us with His unconditional love. I think God actually adjusts His will and accepts our ‘now’ and graces us with a ‘new beginning’.

I wonder if that young man did indeed get married and reject what appeared to be God’s will for him? Maybe, maybe not. But one thing is clear – God loves him regardless and is with him always. After all, there is nothing we can do to stop God loving us,

Martin

There is an old story told – I doubt it is a true story – about a woman who lost the key to her cottage door. She was very concerned and upset because she had to wedge the door shut with a chair to make her feel safe at night. As a devout Catholic she had a statue of St Anthony and she decided to pray to St Anthony that he might find her key.

NB there is an old tradition of praying to St Anthony for finding things that have been lost. I think this arose because St Anthony, a Franciscan priest in the thirteenth century, had lost a precious book – it actually had been stolen – and through his prayers it was eventually returned to him.

So she prayed, and she prayed. A day went by, then another, and another, and still the key was not found. After a full week she got so annoyed with St Anthony that she grabbed his statue and threw it out into the field. But then she felt bad and had second thoughts. It wasn’t right to throw a holy statue away. After a while she decided to go and fetch the statue lying across in the field. She went over to retrieve the statue and – lo and behold – beside the statue in the grass was her missing key! She would never have found it otherwise. St Anthony had delivered after all.

A pious story of dubious origin, and therefore not a story worth bothering with? Best consigned to the waste bin of junk religious curiosities and anyway, we shouldn’t be praying to anyone but God Himself. Well yes, but…

I tell this story because I think there is a certain logic, a divine logic, to the story. Let me explain. When we pray and ask God (or pray to Him through His saints) for something, be it a missing key or even something much more important such as the health of a loved one or for peace in the world, we have to understand that God’s ways are not our ways. So often we ask but we really want the answer or the solution to be as we want and we expect it to be. And also to be granted in our own timescale. But often as not God has other ideas. And His ways are always best though we may often not appreciate that.

The woman in the story wanted to find her key. She wanted to find it and she wanted to find it straight away. Her logic. Her timescale. And perfectly understandable. The key mattered after all. St Anthony – but really God – led her to the key. But not in the way she expected.

A corny story, with a cheesy ending? I can’t disagree, and I’m afraid such stories are often given to the faithful as if they are Gospel truths. But, even in such corny tales there can be a morsel of truth. I think the story’s happy ending actually illustrates this profound truth that God’s ways are different to ours, and always have far better outcomes. For God sees with an eternal perspective. He knows what is best for us and everyone. We see only partially. God sees the totality.

I believe God always answers sincere prayer. As Scripture says:

“The prayer of the humble pierces the clouds.” Sirach 35: 21

The humble and sincere person may actually sense what really matters, and may therefore ask more appropriately.

In terms of asking God for something, the lessons may be: especially if we feel that God hasn’t answered our prayer:

~ is our prayer in keeping with His greater purpose?

~ what is God’s timescale for a resolution?

~ is He in fact wanting us to look further and elsewhere to see the answer?

If we only knew how much God loves us we would never doubt that He delights to hear and answer us.

Martin