Eucharist video reflection revised

A Eucharistic reflection and video

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The eucharist is bigger than the mass. Not attending mass does not exclude people from living eucharistically. The eucharist is a way of living in the presence of the risen Jesus as he helps us to carry our own crosses, face our own demons and live a life of balanced faith.

The text....

The bread that we have shared has now become

Part of each of our own bodies

Our bodies and the bread have merged into one

That is how close God is to each of us- all the time

The bread that is now part of my own body

Is also part of each person’s body here in this chapel

There is something in everyone else’s life

That is part of my life

We are mysteriously and deeply connected.

The bread that we have eaten was filled with the presence of Jesus

And there is a closeness right now that needs no words

Because Jesus is with us and in us

And loving each of us right now - inviting us to rest in His presence

Pause………..

The bread that we have eaten goes with us from this place

As a hidden part of our lives

As a presence that knows us from the inside

As a guide and strength for the rest of this day

The bread that we have eaten needs to be shared with others

Through loving kindness with family and friends

Shared in compassion with those in need

And lived out in justice and forgiveness with others

The bread that we have shared holds us together for the week ahead

It tells us that we are all loved even when things go wrong

It reminds us not to hurt others and helps us to respect other lives

And allows us to become bread fro one another.

The bread that you have eaten is not fast food,

To be gobbled down and then forgotten

The bread you have eaten is another touch

In a slowly building relationship with Jesus

That will last for ever.

Follow the path of the bread you have eaten

Into the mystery of who you are

As a son or daughter of God

And as bread for the world

KIndness

When Don Bosco put loving kindness at the heart of his way of working he was following a long tradition. Buddhism uses the word “metta” for loving kindness. The original Judaic scripture uses the word “chesed” (pronounced hessed) and even Homer, writing in about 800 BCE, used the word “agape” which was later adopted by Christians to describe loving kindness. This cardinal virtue of the Catholic Church, often described as charity, is a natural healer, a builder of relationships and a sign of God’s love alive in people. So isn't it surprising that such a vital virtue is under threat in our culture and even in our family lives?

Our culture favours the rugged, independent individual, the soloist hero who needs no other person. Our schools can favour such a strong focus on self-development that kindness is overshadowed by personal success. The business world takes a narrow view of work and measures the profit and loss of every action leaving kindness in the shadows as an optional by-product of the workplace. Those who help others are often seen as “soft”. Helping a friend in the school yard, for example, will often draw jeers before praise from other pupils. Empathy is being overwhelmed by competition and success and kindness could become a forgotten virtue.

But just because kindness is in the shadows does not mean that it is absent, far from it. Our experience is full of acts of random kindness that make life worth living. Motorist breaking down on the road, people short of bus fare and involved in accidents all witness to the existence of a web of loving kindness beneath the surface of our busy lives. Here is just one example:

At a football game between Millwall and Portsmouth, I was drunk as usual. A policewoman was ushering us fans back towards the station when she saw me staggering and went to arrest me for being drunk. Seeing that I was not disorderly, she asked if I was OK. I said: "Yes, fine, just having a good time." She said it didn't look like much fun and asked whether I drank often. I replied: "Every day" and I cried.

She held my arm gently and told me to stop drinking. Life was too good to drink every day, she told me. She said I looked too good to be a drunk and was too good a man to die young. The policewoman looked at me with pity and a kindness that made me cry again and think. Two months or so later I got sober. I haven't had a drink in 17 years.

Ian Geddes[i]

These acts of kindness seed our lives with hope and yet they rarely make their way into the newspapers that prefer to sell themselves on fear and disaster. Even in our conversations we tend to focus on what went wrong during the day and are less likely to name and celebrate the goodness we have received. We focus on fear and in so doing we depart from the preventive system of Don Bosco and lose ourselves in a network of fear that Don Bosco described as the repressive system. That repressive system, operating in schools, workplaces and in families airbrushes kindness from life and leaves us all poorer as a result.

Yet psychology tells us that loving kindness activates the same parts of our brain that sex and chocolate stimulate! Not only that, kindness reduces the effects of ageing, depression and immune system strength.[ii] It seems that even psychology has woken up to the benefits of loving kindness and wants us to focus more on that part of life because, as another psychologist has said:

“it will make you a better human being and create a better society overall”

Stephan Klein[iii]

So whilst being kind to others has seriously positive effects on an individual, it can also create a stronger sense of belonging and of community. The second part will only be true if we learn to focus on the positive, the kindness and understanding we experience each day.

That means noticing that kindness has been shown, remembering that experience and perhaps talking about it later. That remembering of loving kindness brings it from below our personal radar and allows us to share it with family and community. In time we will learn to see loving kindness and share it more easily with others and perhaps resist the competitive fear that stalks many of our lives. Don Bosco created a space called the oratory which was safe from the harshness of the streets around a chaotic area of Turin. Within he created a home, a playground, a school and church for young people. It was a school of kindness where the young people themselves received kindness and learnt to give it in equal measure.

Today that oratory atmosphere is needed more than ever so that every family, school and workplace can become a seedbed of loving kindness. Kindness is not for wimps- it takes courage to be kind because it makes you vulnerable. You may be laughed at or exploited or even attacked. Yet kindness challenges our individualised culture and can transform it from within. This is especially true for those who carry authority in the family, the school or the workplace. Terse, top-down instructions tend to create repression and resistance whereas kindness creates community. With community comes energy, self-sacrifice and healing. With repression resistance and fragmentation are the long term results.

Don Bosco’s spirituality challenges every culture to build life around loving kindness. Partly that is because it works- it brings people to life. But more importantly Don Bosco realised from his early experience that in giving and receiving kindness he was in touch with the love that moves the world which Christians call The Father. Don Bosco saw this Fatherly love everywhere and in the most ordinary acts of kindness, smiles and gestures of understanding. Recognising that God was so close allowed Don Bosco to be cheerful and optimistic about even the most wayward young people.

Ten tips for putting kindness at the centre of your life

• 1.      At the end of the day remember the good things that have happened.
• 2.      Allow yourself to be cared for and praised by others and say thank you.
• 3.      Notice how good and patient people are around you even if they sometimes aren’t kind.
• 4.      When people get into a moaning session distract the focus to make it more hopeful
• 5.      Tell people you appreciate them and praise them.
• 6.      Don’t let your timetable become so rigid that you can’t help out a friend.
• 7.      Forgive other people for not being perfect and trust them with a fresh start.
• 8.      Risk being kind to someone who seems a bit scary.
• 9.      Pray for those who are having a hard time
• 10.   Be gentle and kind to yourself when things go wrong

A     A Buddhist Prayer for Kindness

Bahá'u'lláhBe generous in prosperity, and thankful in adversity. Be fair in judgment, and guarded in speech. Be a lamp to those who walk in darkness, and a home to the stranger. Be eyes to the blind, and a guiding light unto the feet of the lost. Be a breath of life to the body of humanity, a balm for the human heart, and a fruit upon the tree of humility. AMEN

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[i] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-12122809

[ii] Motivation, Altruism, Personality and Social Psychology. Michael Babula 2013

[iii] Survival of The Nicest Scribe 

A rich emptiness - a bit philosophical- 4th sunday of advent

"Who do you think you are?" God wanted to know when King David proposed to build God a house. David was put in his place. When we try to build  space to contain God in our lives we too should be put in our place because you can't fit God into a neat little box. If you think you can then you have managed to produce an idol and not a home for the living God.

It is becoming clear to me that emptiness is the sacred space within which we encounter the elusive mystery of God. Each human life is spun around an empty space which draws a person deeper into questions and into the adventure of meaning. We may try to fill this space with activity, piety and plans but the emptiness is always there challenging us to step into the unknown and let God be God. In the end faith is an acceptance of this rich mystery of emptiness that sits snugly at the centre of our lives. It was that kind of faith that allowed Mary to say "let it be done" and her emptiness was filled with a presence that gave meaning to her life.

Our own emptiness is a space where we can only wait for the rain to come or for the wind to change. Because it is empty space everything is possible again; new connections can be made, things can be discarded and everything shrinks into proportion within that empty horizon. And so emptiness becomes creative. At its own pace, in ways old and new, emptiness transforms, re-imagines and re-energises life.

We should not be surprised that emptiness is so fertile because that is the way our universe has been created- out of nothing and emptiness. It is the trademark of a creative God that creation comes from nothing and our attempts at creation are simply moving the pieces around. Emptiness is the material God uses to create. Most of our universe is empty, even solid seeming objects like wood and rocks are formed of lattices that hold empty spaces together. Our bodies too are full of space between the spinning particles that make up our bones and flesh. This emptiness is the sacred space in which we live and move and have our being.

So why do we seem to run from emptiness and why does our human nature seem to abhor this vacuum in our lives? As religious people we often want to fill the emptiness with words and fill our emptiness with our own vocational projects.Others try to keep busy and not think about it at all. Yet emptiness is the place where we are face to face with God. It is the space where nothingness itself becomes the richest space in which to be. It is that desire for nothingness that lay at the heart of St Therese's spirituality of littleness. Jesus constantly recognised as valuable what others saw as nothing- rejected stones, children and marginalised people.

So our challenge this advent might be to stop filling our minds with whatever is useful and entertaining and simply sit in emptiness and let God re-spin the meaning of our lives around the emptiness of a stable and a cradle. Then, if we can say our own fiat from within that emptiness we may find ourselves able to look at all of life's mysterious emptiness and call it Father.

Fear based headlines

Thinking beyond headlines.

“What is the world coming to!” My Dad said as he flung the paper back on the bar.“ Half the kids in the country are below median score at maths, immigrants were taking over the country and we’ll all be under water by 2030!” I pointed out that this was the same paper that had branded all youth as scum and all MPs as cheats, both of which he knew were untrue because he knows me and he also knows the local MP as a personal friend.

It was an unusual pleasure to catch my Dad out in a moment when he wasn’t thinking for himself. Even for him, a sharply intelligent man, the culture of disappointment is hard to resist as it is pedalled in the media: Nothing is as good as it used to be, no one can be trusted, awful things are happening everywhere and more often than before. In fact human nature is much the same: we are less violent than twenty years ago, we are healthier in general than my Dad’s age group and likely to live longer than previous generations. Volunteering is on the increase, giving to charity is at the same level and the promised collapse of the family unit made a decade ago by the same newspaper has just not happened.

The media however have discovered that they can provoke a fear response in people through misleading headlines. The emotional response to supposed disasters creates an angry and pessimistic attitude that can suffocate the joy and spirit in people like my Dad. Clear thinking and common sense are the only antidote that is needed to such addiction to despair. The headline that tells us that 20% of primary school children are illiterate really means that there is an 80% pass rate in an English test across the country. Not bad. The picture of violence at a street demonstration may cover 60% of a page in a newspaper but it probably represents less than 1% of all those involved. Clear thinking and common sense like this can break the spell of pessimism and sadness cast upon us all by newspapers.

Optimism on the other hand usually brings out the best in people and sets free the energy to face and to change the real problems life presents every day. Clear thinking helps us to see the positive and to build upon it. Logic  allows us to reach deep into the reservoirs of faith in people to find the life that can withstand the arid sadness of our culture of disappointment.

So I was delighted to catch my Dad being hoodwinked by a headline. I was smiling as I pointed out that a median score was the middle score in a set of exam results so 50% would usually be above it and 50% below. It was my Dad who needed to brush up on his maths!

Reflection

Lord, give me a mind that thinks

And an eye for the logic that spots manipulation.

Help me to protect my joy and enthusiasm

From the culture of disappointment in which we all live.

Help me instead to recognise real problems

And with the energy of hope and faith in people

To make a difference to those around me

And to build a better world.

Teach me to trust people

To count my blessings and encourage goodness

And to allow hope to triumph over despair

In my own heart.

Give me the wisdom to see the mirages

Created by an overheating consumer society

And help me to challenge and change

This daily culture of disappointment.

adolescents- salt in adult wounds

Adults and adolescence

Dean was having a talk with his Dad about his difficulties with work experience. It began to get out of hand. His Dad had worked in the same place for twenty years and pointed out that boring routine was just part of life. Eventually Dean exploded “you don’t have twenty years of work experience anyway- you've had one year of work experience twenty times- I want to do better than that!” After that sentence Dean and his Dad said more hurtful things to each other and then went in different directions to lick their wounds. At times in their conversation it would have been difficult to tell the difference between the adolescent and the adult.

The road through adolescence is often potholed with such destructive exchanges. It is made more difficult because an adult may well be feeling much of the same anger and confusion as the adolescent. In fact, adolescents and their parents may be struggling on the same road but heading in the opposite direction: Whereas adolescents are heading excitedly into the freedom of early adulthood, their parents are leaving it behind with varying levels of reluctance and success. The emotional turbulence of adolescence is closely mirrored in the adult middle years. Whilst the adolescent looks forward to life with increasing zest the parents are often looking backwards and wondering how to use their dwindling energies better. Parents and adolescents are in the same confusing place on the road, but travelling in different directions. One is heading towards young adult life, the other is slipping inevitably, and perhaps angrily, away from it. When psychologists look at adolescence they suggest at least three areas of change that signal the move from childhood to adolescence. Older adults are not immune from any of them

The first area is change in the body itself, an adolescent becomes overwhelmed and absorbed by the way their body is developing and how it looks to others. Fashion, make up, hairstyles and appropriate muscle development can seem vital to an adolescent in claiming their own identity and sexuality. But just as the adolescent gazes into the bathroom mirror for hours, their mother or father may well be surveying a less welcome set of bodily changes in their own wardrobe mirror. The fight to stay fit may still be won- but at a greater cost. The lines around the eyes and mouth need a more cunning camouflage and it is increasingly difficult to hide the image of their own ageing parents emerging from the wardrobe mirror. The body of an adolescent and the body of a parent are saying different things but the effect is the similar- confusion and change. For the adult, the adolescent focus on the body can only tend to emphasise their own loss of youth, providing much emotional fuel for a holy war.

A second area of change is in relationships. Adolescent development depends to some extent upon identifying with a group and distancing themselves from dependence on their parents. Letting go of dependence may be gentle or turbulent but engaging in new relationships will be both frightening and exciting. Friendships, gossip, betrayals, first love and group loyalty energise and exhaust the adolescent at the same time. But the adult’s relationships are not stable either. Perhaps a parent has broken up with their partner or their best friend has divorced in a way that questions their own key relationships. If all else is well an adult in their forties will be increasingly aware of changing relationship with their own parents: their health, dependency, talk of wills and the need for care. Just when they are being challenged to let go of responsibility for their children, the adult is also asked to sensitively absorb more responsibility for their own parents as they move to the end of their lives. Such reflection may leave even the mature parent in an emotional storm not too different from that of their adolescent child. The difference between the emotional storms is that the adolescent’s is focussed on the optimistic buoyancy of new beginnings whilst the adult storm will focus on re-negotiating established relationships and letting go as they move into older adulthood themselves.

The third area of focus for adolescence is the future. So much teenage time is spent dreaming and planning that they might seem to have left the present moment, and the planet, entirely. For the parent of an adolescent the future looks a little more down to earth. The time they thought they had seems to have evaporated. It is half time in their working life. For the adult it becomes important to re-value the time they have and they may resent the abandon with which their children treat time. Adult choices may well need to change in order to achieve some of the dreams they abandoned before the family arrived. Parents may feel the need to change their life style just at the time when their adolescent children need them to be most consistent. In fact, as the adolescent breaks away from parents, the parents too may quietly need to detach themselves from the adolescents in order to move forward on their own journey.

Don Bosco[i] was aware that working with adolescents would often be very confusing.  The challenge of walking with adolescents was for him a path to maturity and holiness for adults on their own spiritual journey. Parents, teachers, youth-workers and catechists all face the challenge on a regular basis. The Salesian charism offers each of them a style of working based on the good shepherd who guides and protects and seeks out what is lost. But Don Bosco also offers in the preventive system a way for the adult to grow spiritually. Through the experience of working with the adolescents their relationship with the good shepherd is tested and deepened. Working with adolescents invites confusion and Challenge. It opens up the valley of shadow of death hidden in each person where the Lord alone is the shepherd, guiding the concerned parent, teacher or youth worker to deeper awareness and greener pastures.

As the adult parent or teacher or youth worker begins to see the traces of age mark their own body they can become vulnerable and uncertain about themselves. In order to deal with the ingratitude and inconsistency of adolescents they need the deeper reassurance of a good shepherd from within themselves. The affirmation the teacher and parent need must come from a more intimate sense that they are known by name and accepted as they are by an inner wisdom. By giving time to this gentle acceptance the parent and educator can move deeper into relationship with an inner good shepherd and find the calm sense of an inner presence that lies at the heart of the preventive system. The adolescent of course, can easily shatter this new intimacy and calmness but that too, is part of the journey. Those moments of conflict may even lead the adult toward jealousy of their own children, resentment of the teenager’s open future or just sadness about the adult’s own lost youth. Or maybe, recognising the presence of the good shepherd in those darker feelings about work with adolescents, the parent or educator may find a gentler acceptance that their own journey has moved on. The good shepherd can then transform the tensions of the adolescent-adult relationship into a rich source of growth and a tailor made challenge to maturity and faith.

One of the greatest spiritual gifts adolescents offer to older people is their ability to rub salt into adult compromises with life. Their young and sometimes innocent questions remind us older people of how much is wrong with the world we are handing on to them. They ruthlessly remind us that it is already later in life than we think and how we play out the second half of life will be different from the first. Adolescents remind us that there is no standing still on the journey, no resting on adult laurels but rather a change in pace and depth of life. The adolescent awakens an urgent call in the adult to a deeper spiritual journey. Disturbing, confusing and idealistic the adolescents stands, like John the Baptist, inviting us to prepare a new way in what may appear to be the wilderness of our middle years. With the presence of the good shepherd and the wisdom of Don Bosco both adolescent and adult find richness in sharing that journey, even if they are travelling in different directions.

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[i] A saint and educator who established a way of working and a spirituality for parents and teachers in the second half of the 19^th centur

A salesian way of living

A new publication

This rule of life attempts to capture the Salesian spirituality of the ordinary. It is not meant to be clever and it requires little prior knowledge to appreciate. The energy of Salesian spirituality comes from mindfulness of a loving father within each person. This awareness gives hope, deepens meaning and lends resilience to relationships. This rule of life is intended to strengthen the awareness of a loving father so that, as Don Bosco reminded us “…people should not only be loved but they should know that they are loved.”

An extract.....

The only proper responses to this presence

liv£1.81ing within you and in those around you

are gratitude and loving kindness.

Gratitude opens you up to receive a family spirit

moving in all people and in creation.

Loving kindness becomes the outward sign

of the respect for this sacred presence

living at the heart of all people;

it breaks through the isolation of all individuals

and builds community.

Download  here £1.81
Buy it here         £6.00

One Review……

A Salesian Way of Life is a real treasure. The best 43 pages for the least handful of pence you are likely to spend for a while. We know that a 'Rule of Life' is common to religious communities, with roots going back to Benedict and other 'Greats'. But a 'Rule' might still be off-putting for some today, so it was an inspired little touch to come out with A Salesian Way of Life, and as the author, Fr David O'Malley, suggests the book is an invitation to 'be Salesian' whoever you are, whatever gender, faith background

The hidden work of parents and teachers

I remember taking care of some disadvantaged children on a summer holiday when I saw one of them on a fragile some fifteen feet above the ground. He was unaware of his danger. I remember speaking to him very calmly and patiently asking him to move to safety but inside I was full of a kind of terror that he would be hurt. My stomach was churning, heartbeat raised- all the signs of high stress. Yet none of that came through in my voice. Somehow I was acting a professional role and masking my inner stress.

We expect professional control in teachers and we find it in parents who may be seething inside at the arrogance or selfishness of their children but refuse to be provoked. This is wonderful self discipline. It saves situations and keeps all those involved calm and focussed through challenges. It enshrines the power of reason and talk to solve problems and teaches how to manage poor behaviour. Because it is not a gut reaction it allows respect to be maintained and the relationship preserved- it keeps things safe. But it costs.
The cost is psychological because the parent or the teacher has to split off strong emotion from the context. This inner work needs to be done consciously and reflected on later and perhaps talked about with others. The tension, anger, or disappointment needs to be earthed and the effort to control ones inner world recognised.Then the bridge between the professional/parental role and the inner world of the teacher or parent can be strengthened.
There is a hidden heroism about this work and it needs to be celebrated by parental support and strong school relationships. This is our work as educators and parents: not to share information but to build character and resilience in young people so that they can help to build a civilisation of love in the years to come.

Watch this video for a quick 1 minute description of this topic