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Jesus in the City
The 2nd UK Urban Mission Congress
"Community Conflict and Celebration"
Belfast, 26-30 September 1998
Address by Fr Patrick McCafferty on 28/9/98
I'm delighted to be here this morning and to meet with you all on this important occasion. We are here to celebrate the Presence of our Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ: He Whose love gathers us together out of our being the scattered children of God; He Whose love is at work in the Church, overcoming all our diversity and healing oar wounded-ness; He Who seeks to pour out that same love on a broken world, on fragmented, alienated and traumatised communities, on men and women who have lost their way and who do not know which way to turn. We know that He came to seek out and save that which was lost and that He wants us to be His ambassadors, making this appeal in His Name: "be reconciled to God!" We all have a shameful history. We all have good reason to hang our heads dejectedly, afraid to lift our eyes to the One Who looks steadily at us, never ceasing to love us. In the very beginning, the first man and woman, after they had betrayed their Creator and believed the Liar, hid from God in shame. They heard Him call: "Where are you?"; but they skulked in the shadow of their misdeed; and, indeed, wandered further away into the darkness, away from the Voice of He Whose Love would set off in pursuit, refusing to give up on them. Yes, our efforts to flee and silence the Word that never ceases to invite and call us, are well documented throughout our history. This Word is not obscure or beyond our reach, it is not up in heaven or over the seas. No, the Word is very near to us, it is in our mouths and in our hearts for us to put into practice. (Deut 30:11-14). Indeed, as the Psalmist says: "Of You, 0 Lord, my heart has spoken, 'Seek His Face'. At the very core of who we truly are, the Word resonates, longing to burst forth in our lives, drawing a response of faith which makes its power felt through love. (Gal 5:6). The human heart cries out: "it is Your Face, 0 Lord, that I seek; do not hide Your Face from me!" In answer to this plea, God uncovers His Face to us, bringing us peace, when His eternal Word is made flesh and comes to live among us. We see the glory of God on the Face of Christ (LI Cor 4:6) and we recognise in Him our own glory; for Christ says: "in them 1 am glorified" (in 17:10) and "1 have given them the glory You gave to Me" (Jn 17:22). It is only in seeing this glory for which God created us and which He longs to share with us from all eternity, that our joy is made complete. We human beings thirst for joy and so many aimless pursuits promise happiness and fulfilment but leave us empty. There is One, however, Who tells us to remain in His Love so that 1-us own joy may be in us and our joy be complete. (Jn 15:10-11). His own joy is in us because the Holy Spirit, which has been given us, has poured the very Love of God into our hearts. (Rms 5:5-6). Human beings are created in the image and likeness of God. Sadly, so much has happened in the history of humanity and within the circumstances of oar individual stories, to obscure and distort our resemblance to the Father. Nevertheless, the heart continues to cry out and yearn for God, to thirst and long for Him. The enormous tragedy, today and in every age, is that we have given our hearts stone when they were longing to be satisfied with bread; we have drunk poison instead of the Living Water Christ offers freely and abundantly to our thirsty souls. And this is and always has been, the source of the world's ills and the reason for our afflicted ness. Human beings turn away from that Light in which we see light, that Light by which alone we see the true picture of who we are, in which we discover what we are called to be and do. We turn our faces into that bleak darkness which shrouds us in hopelessness and envelops us in what the apostle Peter described as t9the futile way of life" (I Peter 1:18). This useless and empty way of life is centred always on idols which, as Scripture says, "have mouths but cannot speak, they have eyes but they cannot see; they have ears but they cannot hear, they have nostrils but they cannot smell ... Their makers will come to be like them and so will all who trust in them". (Ps 115:5-8). We erect in the inner shrine of our hearts, that secret sanctuary that God has reserved for Himself alone, empty and dead things which block out the light the Lord wants to kindle in us, which quench the fire He longs to see blazing in us. The great challenge to the Christian Church today is this lethargic apathy about the things of God which is the result of our turning away from the Living God to adore and serve gods which our own hands have made; these gods are in the image and likeness of oar own disordered desires and false notions. We are competing with a culture today which fosters a one-dimensional approach to the human person - a purely materialistic attitude to men and women which either anaesthetises or mobilises their spiritual need. People today are portrayed as insatiable consumers for whom a never-ending torrent of material goods must be continuously available. Inevitably, along with such consumerism, we find a disposable outlook on reality. The debris of our consumerist and materialistic civilisations is choking the very planet, which God entrusted to our care. The resources of the earth are eaten up as if by a voracious monster. Things get thrown away, squandered. Our thoughtless and ruthless exploitation of the earth has generated a global pall of lethal pollution. Within such an environment, physical human life becomes more and more difficult and threatened. What then are we saying about the dangers to the spiritual life and health of human beings today? The outward predicament of the world and the condition of our societies, are a statement about our interior attitudes and the utter moral poverty that lays waste so many today. Inevitably, in a consumerist outlook where everything is expendable and disposable, people too eventually get thrown away. Pope John Paul II frequently refers, in his writings and public addresses, to what he has termed "the culture of death". This culture of death is the handiwork of those nihilistic ideologies and godless systems of thought and reasoning which have shaped so much of the attitudes and outlook of today. This culture of death, however, is not new itself. Every time men and women look away from the face of God, they become gripped by spiritual amnesia: we forget that we are His children; we forget the God Who fathered us; we forget the Source of our lives and we stumble off blindly this way and that, following our own whims and fancies. Self-will, self-love, the primacy of ego: these are integral to the culture of death. The hedonism and materialism so evident everywhere today are lords that will tolerate no opposition. When these forces grip people, they are capable of great inhumanity and compassion dies in the human heart. We know, from our history and, more immediately, the sufferings of our communities during the last 30 years of violence, that human beings are capable of profoundly evil and malicious behaviour. This happens when love is extinguished in the heart, when we turn away from the grace of God. Such is the atmosphere in which Christians must often bear witness and in which the Church of Jesus Christ must strive to continue His saving mission. Paul wrote to the Church at Philippi: "You will shine in the world like bright stars because you are offering to it the Word of Life" (Phil 2:16). And he said to the Corinthian Church: "God gives us in Christ a part in His triumphal procession and, through us, is spreading everywhere the fragrance of the knowledge of Himself. To God we are the fragrance of Christ, both among those who are being saved and among those who are on the way to destruction; for these last, the smell of death leading to death, but for the first, the scent of life leading to Life". Paul asks the Corinthian believers: "Who is equal to such a task?" Only those who do not adulterate the Word of God but act, in all purity, as envoys of God, speaking in Christ in God's presence. (II Cor 2:14-17). We, then, are bearers of Christ in our towns and cities. In the cities of the world, all that dehumanises and exploits human beings, robbing them of their God-given dignity, seems to be most acutely focused. In cities, it can be extremely difficult to create any sense of communal belonging. Even in the midst of the large populations that throng our cities, people feel isolated, not cared for, vulnerable and robbed of their identity. This is true even in this small city of Belfast. There is a sense of being only a face in the crowd, a number or statistic in a database. Christ, however, is the One to Whom every face is known. He looks steadily and lovingly at each one. All are known fully by Him. This is the tremendous joy of our Gospel which must be proclaimed in the towns and cities, all along the highways and byways of the world until the Lord comes: God has taken notice of us. God did not abandon us, but has followed us. Some of the most intense suffering in our part of the world today is experienced by human beings who feel that they are abandoned, that everything is meaningless, that there is no point in anything. There is a dejection that gnaws at the hearts and a weariness that drags down the spirits of men and women. People feel forsaken in the depths of their being because they have been disappointed and left bereft by all those things that promised humanity happiness and liberation. Certain schools of thought told us during this century, that humankind would be greatly ennobled and enhanced when, at last, we had the courage and maturity to shake off the notion of God. We must become our own god, answerable to no one but ourselves. This is the bottom line in so much of what has wrought terrible havoc and devastation in the lives of human beings during the twentieth century. God continues to observe sorrowfully: "My people have exchanged their glory for the useless one! ... They have abandoned me, the Fountain of living water, for leaky cisterns that hold no water" (Jer 2: 11-13). Where is our prophetic voice that cries out of a compassionate heart? "The wound of my people wounds me too, all looks dark to me, terror grips me. Is there no balm in Gilead anymore? Is there no doctor there? (Jer 8:21-22). Without the presence of God in human life, we see the institutionalisation of injustice and the structuring of oppression. People, most especially the poor and the vulnerable, are swallowed up and human beings lose their true identity. This so-called freedom actually inspires terror and foreboding in the heart. For, in spite of our bravado, we cannot fool ourselves: we are unable to stop trembling because people know, deep down, their vulnerability; that we are fragile and helpless creatures, afraid and insecure before the powerful forces in life. Our hold on life is tenuous and, before the infinite horizon of our own deaths, we are gripped by fear and anxiety. We also know the darkness and evil that can lie hidden in our own hearts. Many people to whom we minister feel helpless. It is this fear that I am worthless that can lead to such savagery in people as they rebel against it and fight tooth and nail for the right to belong in the world. Or, it can induce lethargy and despair, driving people into the dark netherworld of drugs and the other forms of addiction. We seek pleasures to distract us from the pain and boredom of our existence. We drink, inject or pop pills, to deaden the sensation of that real anguish which gnaws at our hearts. The lure of addiction beckons human beings into a shadowy world of silent oblivion; but the Voice of Christ can break that silence! All of this pain is caused by our alienation from God and from one another. The human heart thirsts for a love that never ends. The human spirit hungers for "that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world". Therefore, at Capernaum, the crowd pleaded with Him: "Lord, give us that Bread always!". (Jn 6:33-34). This inner longing will only be satisfied when the cry of Christ penetrates our inmost being: "The Water that I shall give you will turn into a spring inside you, welling up to eternal life". (Jn 4:14). "If anyone is thirsty let them come to Me and drink! From their heart shall flow fountains of living water!" (Jn 7:37-39). The Voice of Christ reasons with humanity; "Why spend money on what is not bread, your wages on what fails to satisfy? Listen, listen to Me and you will have good things to eat and rich food to enjoy. Pay attention, come to Me; listen, and your soul will live". (Is 55:2- 3). Can we connect with those who are drifting away from us in apathy, disillusionment, boredom or outright hostility? Only if we become the Voice of Christ speaking to them the invitation to hope and saying to all faint hearts: "Courage! Do not be afraid! Look your God is coming to save you. (Is 35:4). Only if we become the humility, gentleness and patience of Christ and allow ourselves to feel His compassion for all people. We must be the hands of Christ in our communities reaching out to draw all people to Himself in reconciliation and healing, giving them back their dignity so that they have the courage once more to lift their eyes and look at Christ: to meet His gaze and know the truth that sets us free - the liberating awareness that we are loved by God - which heals what has become disjointed, fractured or altogether sundered. Power went out from Him on earth and touched the sick and cured them. We must not forget that we are the Body of Christ, filled with the Power of the Holy Spirit, for the remedying of those wounds caused by sin and division in human nature. He places in our hands the balm of His own loving compassion which will strengthen the weak and bind up the broken. For the balm in Gilead is nothing less than the Doctor Himself Who loved us and sacrificed Himself for us, washing us in His own Blood. We know that the price of our ransom from the futile way of life was not paid in anything corruptible, not in silver or gold, but in the Precious Blood of a spotless Lamb, namely Christ! (I Peter 1:18-19). He Himself is the great Shepherd of the sheep, by the Blood that sealed an eternal covenant. The flock that was altogether infected and corrupted has been redeemed by Christ, the true Lamb without blemish, Who takes away the sins of the world. We must be the feet of Christ the Good Shepherd, Who set out in search of the sheep that was lost and, when He had found it, carried it back rejoicing. We must be shepherds after the Lord's own heart (Jer 3:15), who will go out to rescue the Lord's flock from all the places in which they have been scattered in the mist and darkness, looking for the lost ones, bringing back the stray, bandaging the wounded and making the weak strong, as well as watching over the fat and healthy. (Ezek 34:12- 16). In earthenware vessels, that is, in our flawed witnessing, in our mistakes and in our own fragility, the local Churches hold this treasure: the tight of the knowledge of God's Glory on the face of Christ! Such an overwhelming power comes from God and not from ourselves. (II Cor 4:6-7). We are all wounded healers but His grace is enough for us! His power is at its best in our weakness. (II Cor 12:9). This light must shine through our very brokenness and wounded-ness: God Himself has come among us in His Son: only He could reassure us of our infinite worth in the sight of God and given us such a hope. Mother Teresa of Calcutta often spoke about serving Christ in the most distressing disguise of the poorest of the poor. Very often, we too, in our Parishes, congregations and communities, are dealing with the poorest of the morally, spiritually and emotionally poor. We meet people who are hungry for love, who are living lives of quiet desperation, who are languishing for the want of a comforting and encouraging word. We cannot solve all their problems. We do not have all the answers. Mother Teresa of Calcutta was unable to prevent the poor to whom she was ministering from dying of disease; but she gave to them, love, dignity and respect; they did not leave this world without the realisation that another human being cared enough to comfort and console them. In the same way, the local Church must be a place where all are able to see clearly the Truth that makes us free indeed - the fact that God loves each person with a love that is unconditional and never-ending; and where Jesus, Who is the Way, the Truth and the Life, is encountered as leading us to the Father Who gathers us to Himself as beloved children. One Day Jesus will meet us with these words: "I was hungry, did you give Me food? I was thirsty, did you give Me a drink? I was a stranger, did you make Me welcome? I was naked, did you clothe Me? I was sick and in prison, did you come to see Me?" (Cf. Mt 25 :35-46). There are, of course, the obvious material ways in which we serve Christ in the needy; but then there is the more deeply disguised Christ Whom we encounter in our communities. Those who are hungry for knowledge of those things that lift the heart and cheer the spirit. The person who is thirsting for meaning in his or her life. The man who feels alienated from the community and unwanted by his family. The woman who is naked because her dignity has been taken away in an abusive relationship. Those whose hearts are sickened by disappointment and dejection. Those imprisoned in addictions and compulsions. Christ, really present in these people, makes more demands on us, because it is the inner person to whom we are ministering. But love, which we give to the materially poor in the form of food, drink, shelter and clothing, will also be given us by Christ to be supplied under the appearance of kindness and advice, acceptance, reverent listening, gentle encouragement, persevering patience, constant availability and unconditional welcome. What people are really seeking is love. Silver and gold we do not have, but the compassionate love of Jesus Christ we can give to our fellow human beings. We can help them to their feet in His Name and let them lean on us, because we are really limping along together. Perhaps it is in this humble service of one another that we will make the connection that really matters, because there we will find the One Who came not to be served but to serve and to give His life as a ransom for many. For those who are alienated, disconnected or disinterested, we must be continually paying out the nets for a catch, so that Christ can take hold of them and reveal to them the truth about themselves: that you are not worthwhile on account of what you do, how much you earn, how you look, what you contribute, or anything that you have done; you are precious and beloved on account of who you are and because of the sheer and utter Grace of the One Who loved us first! (I Jn 4:19). It was for no reason except His own compassion that He saved us. (Titus 3:5). The mystery of salvation is that we who are wretched and lost have been found by Christ and embraced by God in Him. He has opened our eyes to the Truth of who we are. He has unsealed our ears, so that we hear what many prophets and holy people longed to hear: the Word of life which enlightens the eyes of our minds, so that we can see what hope His call holds for us. (Eph 1:19). The mission of the local Church in the local community is the same today as it was on the Day of Pentecost: to gather in the Lord's harvest which is reaped by the preaching of the Gospel, for the Word of God is something alive and active: it cuts like any double edged sword but more finely: it can slip through the place where the soul is divided from the spirit, or joints from the marrow; it can judge secret emotions and thoughts. (Heb 4:12). The sword of the Gospel, which is the power of the Lord's cross and resurrection, pierces those hearts which will yield to the Word in faith and repentance. The doubled-edged sword, wielded by Christ in His love for humanity, cuts away our bonds and makes us free indeed. It severs us from all that is false and unworthy by circumcising our hearts. He cuts around our hearts to detach them from the things that keep us from abandoning ourselves to Him in child-like confidence, so that we can soar towards Him in love. His Word cuts into our hearts, so that darkness can be excised, so that He can come into our lives and give Himself to us. Let us not be afraid of the Hand that wants to prune us so that we will bear even more fruit for Him. Let us work tirelessly at connecting with the pain, the fear, the isolation and loneliness in the lives of our sisters and brothers, so that we can be bearers of the loving compassion of He Who says: "Come to Me and I will refresh you. Learn from Me for I am gentle and humble in heart and you will find rest for your souls. My yoke is easy and My burden is light. (Mt 11:28-30).
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