CONNECTIONS AND CONFLICT:
On April 16th Pope Leo, during his visit to Cameroon, denounced a “handful of tyrants” ravaging the world and he also spoke out about leaders who use religion to justify war, saying they drag “that which is sacred into darkness”. Interestingly, he was able to point out that the speech had been written two weeks prior to the public attacks on him from the White House. I think we all feel that the horrendous circumstances facing many people across the world help to put our own problems into some sort of perspective, but, for all that, each of us has to cope with conflict from time to time. This got me thinking about a period of serious stress in my life after I left Redemptorist Publications in 2006 and which led to me writing Take Heart, Expand your Vision of God (published by Redemptorist Publications, 2009). On my day off yesterday I opened the book again and reminded myself of how the wonderful insights and advice of so many people over the years helped me shape my understanding of what the Lord wants of you and me. You know that I often refer to the Scripture Course with Fr Marty Palmer SJ in Omaha, USA, in 1989 and how he shaped my understanding of salvation: he insisted that our definition of what Christ is saving us from and for must be able to fit every conceivable situation: in other words one that would cope with imagining ourselves in Gaza as well. Accordingly, we were asked to note Paul’s insistence that we must root out divisions for Christ had come to heal the hurt and piece together a fractured world and would not give up, literally loving us to death.
This was the driving force behind all my work among those whose marriages had failed. Even when a relationship has irretrievably broken down, I believe the Church must search for ways of reaching out and embracing those who feel abandoned. Doing that work I met a wonderful priest, Fr John Daley, who served the parish of St Joseph in Leicester until three months before his death at the age of 88 two years ago! I thought of him because I was with him during this week in the Church’s liturgical year. He pointed out that all week we are listening to the wonderful missionary work of Paul and
that the liturgists seem to think it is too much of a scandal to share with us what happened before the chapter finishes. So on Saturday we go straight to Chapter 16, missing out the fact that John Mark, Barnabas’s cousin, had abandoned them and wanted to return and Paul would have none of it. We are told: “After a violent quarrel they parted company, and Barnabas sailed off with Mark to Cyprus. Before Paul left he chose Silas to accompany him and was commended by the brothers to the grace of God.” There is no suggestion that Paul and Barnabas worked together again. So there we have it: sometimes with the best will in the world conflicts cannot be resolved and we have to learn to live peacefully with that fact too. And, as an addendum, there was another connection with Fr Daley. He was a Rosminian and my father was taught by the Rosminians at Ratcliffe College!
