ADDRESS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT THE HOLY & CREATIVE TRINITY CONFERENCE WESTPORT, CO. MAYO WEDNESDAY
ADDRESS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT THE HOLY & CREATIVE TRINITY CONFERENCE WESTPORT, CO. MAYO WEDNESDAY, 12 APRIL, 2000
It is good to be here in Westport this evening to open this conference, a welcome and intriguing joint initiative of members of the Church of Ireland and Roman Catholic Church in this beautiful, mystical part of Ireland. The conference calls us to reflect on our vision of Christianity in Ireland in this new millennium.
The background papers I received explained the purpose of this Conference as follows: ”Fís admits we do not have the visions we need at the moment and its aim is to pray and to learn in order to construct them”. I was puzzled to read that, maybe more than puzzled.
Two thousand years after the birth of Christ, the man we believe to be the Son of God, seems rather late in the day to be rooting around looking for one or more visions. As an admission it is remarkable, even colossal, and not unlikely to provoke a response from non-believers, sceptics, or those of other faiths: How come you find yourselves visionless after such a long time practising the Christian faith? Just what has been the well-spring, the source of your faith these past generations, if not a transcendent, timeless vision, its integrity unshakeable from age to age? Yet who can doubt that this search, this casting about, for “Fís”, is a hallmark of these troubled and troubling times for Christians.
Years ago when my eldest daughter was about three or four I took her shopping. As I was looking at a clothes rail she let go of my hand and drifted a few yards away from me. She never once left my line of sight - I had my eyes fixed on her all the time. But when she chanced to look up to find me she was looking in the wrong direction and from where she was, there was no Mammy. In a fraction of a second she had gone into a tailspin of hysteria, flailing around in panic in all directions, tears pouring like a waterfall. If she had just stopped for one minute and calmly looked about her she would have seen me exactly where she left me, watching, close by. I lifted and comforted her, cut the trip short and headed home with me driving and Emma in the back seat. All the way to our front door I could hear her deep sobs and then the words which were so hard to bear – ‘Mammy why did you leave me?’ Pointless to tell her that I did not leave her, that she left me but was never out of my sight. Pointless to tell her that I loved her more than any single thing on earth and that her hurt and lack of trust were piercing my heart like arrowheads of flint.
I tell the story here because I wonder to myself if that is not how we Christians find ourselves in relation to God and His vision for His people, for His family, for all of humankind. In a world grown cold to faith and ‘in your face’ cynical about religious practice, it is easy to convince ourselves that the problem is the absence of vision rather than our absence from the vision. Christ’s vision is still there. We have, I suspect, just lost sight of it.
Take the words: “That they may be one”?Correct me if I am wrong, but that is a fairly hefty vision. How could anyone lose something so gigantic? “Love each other as I have loved you”.Isn’t that also a fairly significant vision? What pile of conference papers did we hide that one under? It has been said that without vision the people perish but it is also true that without use, a vision can disappear into the shadows.
I don’t think we are really gathered here in search of visions. Christ left us more than enough to be going on with, but we do need visionaries, people to make His vision shine, to put it centre stage, people to live it and deliver it.
That is where the word “Fís” comes into its own for its meaning goes beyond the word “vision”. It indicates a dawning, a realisation, a bringing into focus of something that was and is there but was blurred or obscured.
We need trust to take that vision deeply into our lives and we badly need imagination and courage to help us to truly discover it and authentically, meaningfully live it.
So many of our tribulations, including the agony of Northern Ireland, have stemmed from a poverty not of vision but of imagination. We second-guessed God, replaced his majestic, incorruptible vision with tedious and spurious interpretations. Our problem became not an absence of vision but a surfeit of them, too many of them false, too many of them leading to vanity and from vanity to disaster.
Just over a month ago on the first Sunday in Lent the world witnessed what some commentators are already describing as potentially the most significant act of any Papacy in modern times. On that day in Saint Peter’s Basilica in Rome, Pope John Paul the Second asked the Lord’s forgiveness for the sins, past and present, of the Catholic Church’s sons and daughters over the past two thousand years of Christendom, and especially during the Millennium just ended. There was an unprecedented confession of sins in general, of sins committed in the service of so-called truth, of sins that have harmed Christian unity, of sins against the people of Israel, of sins against love, peace and respect for cultures and religions, of sins against the dignity of women and the unity of the human race, and of sins related to the fundamental rights of the person.
The Pope’s initiative in Rome and the Holy Land, including his prophetic call for the “purification of memory” does indeed appear to be a rallying cry for fresh commitment to Christ’s vision: “that they may be one”; “love one another”, “forgive those who sin against you”, “ask forgiveness for your own sins”.
There are many wounds in our world, past and present, inflicted by individual Christians acting out of smug self-righteousness and Christian institutions acting out of unself-critical conceit. The Pope’s apology has the capacity to herald a new era of humility and even more crucially, an era of making amends.
The manifest sins of the past, disfigured, shamed and undermined the name of Christ and the power of His vision. The acknowledgement of past wrongs, the expression of shame for them, the heartfelt plea for forgiveness and the determination to do things differently in the future: these are the conduits through which we will release the grace which will fuel Christian courage and imagination in this and the coming generations.
Those who listen and are moved by such apologies and pleas for forgiveness will - like the person who has taken back an adulterous spouse - want a commitment to fidelity, a change in behaviour. Words alone simply will not be enough to sustain for long the goodwill generated by openly expressed remorse. If things stay the same, if we revert to all the old ways, sink back into the old self-indulgences and behind the exclusive barricades, then this moment, this precious Kairos moment that we have been given, will vanish into the ether. With it will disappear this extraordinary opportunity to find our pathway to proving that the Christian vision is no illusion, no delusion, but a lived reality in which we can take a righteous and altogether different kind of pride.
People died on these islands because there were those who badly wanted, and in the name of Christ, a Protestant Ireland. People died on this island because there were those who badly wanted, and in the name of Christ, a Catholic Ireland. We need to imagine and to commit ourselves to an Ireland where each human being commands respect by virtue of his or her birthright, regardless of religion, gender, race. Given the overwhelming preponderance of Christians on this island, a large part of the burden of creating that Ireland rests on their shoulders.
While it is true and regrettable that Christians did not enter this Jubilee year united, nonetheless it would be wrong to ignore the fact that historically they are closer than ever before. There is a perceptible process of friendship building and a convergence of respect which extends beyond the Christian family to the other denominations which make up the global faith family. We need champions to nudge the process further, to push it towards its full potential - towards that vision: “that they may be one”.
There is a lot to be built and a lot to be built upon. We must never underestimate the progress that has been made or underestimate what we can do and where we are capable of going together with God’s grace and the help of the Holy Spirit.
One of the Christian Church’s greatest errors was and is its treatment of women. Indeed all the churches have been found wanting in this regard and while some have forced the debate more than others, all face a singular challenge to take stock and make amends in this new century. The wasteful marginalisation of women in both the clerical and secular worlds is so out of step with the love and humanity of Jesus Christ that the Pope’s admission of sins against the dignity of women – and his plea for forgiveness - are particularly salutary, building as they do on his Letter to Women in 1995.
I would be playing the coward if I did not frankly admit that I received correspondence from women of deep faith and goodness who were disappointed at the under-representation of women speakers even at this very conference. I remark on it not in order to criticise but to contextualise my earlier remarks about the need for making amends, the need for clear evidence of a new insight at work, the kind of insight that the Pope’s welcome apology creates a clear path to, if we let it.
We all have a long way to travel on that path and a joyful journey it could be if we let it. The truth is that the huge human resource God gave us, the many hands He gave us to make His vision real, to do His work, have been too often left unused or underused. Some hands have been more valued than others, some voices more listened to. We have all been impoverished as a result but now we can embrace a future that is recharged and profoundly enriched by the release of energies previously untapped or ignored.
How to release them is the work of visionaries.
There is no shortage of work to be done and this is a very appropriate venue to let our minds race a little bit ahead to where we could be, and what we could be doing, if we were living the vision instead of using up valuable energy on policing the lines of division, or finessing them just enough to create a veneer of ecumenical endeavour, an acceptable level of mutual engagement which is neither fully comfortable nor fully uncomfortable but which has about it the feel of stasis or stagnation rather than vitality.
What is there for us to do in our time and our place that would please and honour a Saviour who went out of His way to minister to those who were despised and on the edge: the tax collectors, the prostitutes and the lepers? In this society characterised by the transformative effects of growing affluence and self-confidence, both welcome gifts to this generation, there are many people who stand on the side-lines looking on, spectators at the feast, not invited guests. Our newfound wealth opens up many opportunities, opportunities we are under an imperative to share. Time and again we find that impulse to generosity and inclusion deeply rooted in a critical mass of the Irish people. But there are also discordant voices, racist, sectarian, fearmongering, un-christian. Left un-challenged they have the capacity to poison, to hurt and to put fear into the hearts of God’s precious children. The churches and those who claim to be people of God in this world, must be in the vanguard of debate and action on these fronts, if they are to be relevant at all.
But Christians are not permitted the comfort of being only champions of those on the margins. There is forgiveness to be offered to those who persecute, love to be extended to those who hate and cause hurt. Traditionally on this island we have found both roles difficult to carry on a twin-track. Yet the beleaguered Peace Process has taught us emphatically that a little bit of generosity goes a very, very long way - it softens hearts, opens up space in which movement is possible. When we insist on giving nothing, standing on our principles, only moving when the other goes first, only seeing the mote in the eye of the other, we consign ourselves to paralysis. The whole point of Christ’s vision was its promise, its covenant, that if we could trust enough to offer love to our enemies, we would pass through that cloud of unknowing, of cynicism, of scepticism, of fear of rejection, to that transcendent place in which, to our amazement, miracles do happen, hearts do change, that “farther shore” comes nearer.
A few years ago I heard a research scientist tell how he and his team discovered a gene associated with a cruel childhood illness. He said his team had been searching for over two decades as had other teams throughout the world, each determined to be the first to find the gene. He knew his team had information which they kept to themselves for fear it would give an advantage to a competitor. He reckoned each team had some such information. He reflected on this and came to the conclusion that it was more important to find the gene than to be the first to find the gene. He suggested to the other teams that they pool their knowledge so that they could maximise its usefulness. Each tumbled their bit of knowledge onto the table and suddenly the bits of the jigsaw started to fall into place and there was the solution to the mystery. Somewhere along the line that noble vision of finding the gene and helping humanity had become corrupted and eventually transmuted into a vision for team greatness - a search for recognition and honour. Sounds familiar? It should. So much of our debate about Christianity in this country has been a shouting match about which variety, which denominational vision of Christianity is best. Now it is time to pool the resources, the accumulated wisdom, the negative and positive education and to put it all, and to put us all, at the service of the vision itself. I encourage you to do that here, to make this unique event a point of embarkation on an adventure in shared vision.
There is no knowing where a new exciting Christian dynamic could lead. Could it challenge, for example this culture of the soundbite, where we are rushed into judgment under an avalanche of instant comment and superficial analysis? Could it champion prayerful reflection or indeed any kind of thoughtful reflection at all? And remarkably I am not just talking about the soundbite culture of the secular world but the soundbite culture of the spiritual world we have created and inhabit, a world with little space for silence or contemplation. Could it challenge the culture of “them” and “us”? Could it make us one? Is there the remotest chance that in our lifetime, we Christians will love each other, forgive each other, be reconciled with each other? Here at this conference you face these agonising, frightening and exhilarating questions. To be here at all is an act of courage and of imagination and it is these we urgently need.
In her book “A Farther Shore” published a few weeks ago, the Reverend Ruth Patterson, the first woman to be ordained a Presbyterian minister in Ireland and the first ordained woman on this island – has some timely and uncomfortable words. She writes: “The call to the ministry of reconciliation is top of Jesus’ agenda for the Churches in Ireland. Sadly, it is not yet top of theirs. There have been messengers, not enough, but some sent ahead to prepare the way. In many instances they have not been accepted or heard. But now is the crucial time for us to respond to this call, to choose to go this way, before it is too late.”
These are words from the heart, from a courageous woman, a forthright champion of peace and reconciliation. They challenge all of us and command reflection. The chains of history that have bound us all have also shackled the institutional churches. Yet Christ’s vision is about liberation, about being freed from fear of the ‘otherness’ of the other and emboldened to embrace. Mother Teresa once said Christians have to give “until it hurts”. If it is not hurting maybe we have not yet gone far enough. Have we told each other how sorry we are for past wrongs? Have we attempted to clear the deck as Pope John Paul has done, to put the past behind us and to write a new script for the future?
The ‘purification of memory’ so necessary in Ireland and within these islands will take a very long time but we have the opportunity now to make a beginning.
One senses that at the start of this brand new Millennium and in this Great Jubilee the churches have an opportunity – in harmony with the opportunity waiting to be seized by the politicians – to collectively forge not a new vision for Christianity but a new plan for the realisation of Christ’s vision on this island. Once a man called Patrick had such a plan and through him the name of Ireland resonated across the world as a place of profound spirituality, a place of learning where the transcendent was known as well as it can be known. That knowledge was shared the length and breadth of Europe. Generations were inspired by the thought of an all-loving all-forgiving God. Then came the days of disillusion, of the skewing of the vision, skewing it so badly that love became hate, pardon became injury, understanding became misunderstanding.
Now come days of renewed hope as we stop spinning wildly and realise anew - the vision did not leave us, we left it. God is with us, watching, caring, loving, that incorruptible and only version of the vision, held in his open palm. Could that be what we have come to Westport to find? Could it after all be that simple? Like hitting a golf ball, keeping your eye on the ball all the time - if we keep our eye firmly on the vision, we will find the paths to take us there. Good luck to all of you as you struggle together to discern those paths and as you walk them.