A Statue of Jesus and A Merciful Father

March 6, 2020

A Statue of Jesus

There is a statue of The Sacred Heart in our home, a classic Catholic image of the person of Jesus Christ. This was given to me as the Religion prize when I finished primary school in 1959 at St Brigid’s Sisters of Mercy Catholic School in Howlong, a small rural hamlet then, on the banks of the Murray River some 20 kms down the road from Albury in NSW.

When our family – Mum and Dad and us 6 kids – migrated from southern New South Wales in 1960 to Central Queensland it came with us. For 30 years it was then in the custody of my parents while I was boarding at High School, studying for priestly ministry and then years assigned as a catholic missionary in the Philippines.
The statue returned to me in 1990 when I returned to Australia.

Another 30 years later it remains, if not in a prominent place, then in a secure place in our front veranda room. I have often wondered what meaning this statue carries for me.

Through my childhood we were a strong catholic family and together with other local farming families comprised the backbone of the parish centred in Howlong. Along with my brother and cousins I was a regular altar server, comfortable wearing a soutane and surplice with white gloves and red slippers (shades of catholic clericalism!) and spinning off the “I Confess” in Latin. Those were the days of an incomprehensible language as the medium of the catholic service, with the Priest conducting the service with his back to the congregation.

In some ways it was all benign, but there were sharp edges to our belief and practices. Missing Sunday Mass was anathema. When Dad and a number of other men had a dispute with the local parish priest and we went to Mass in Albury for a couple of Sundays, I was publicly interrogated by the nuns as to why we were not at Mass. In a small country church any absence was impossible to hide. Further, women had to wear hats in church and meat was forbidden on Fridays.

Yearly we celebrated the Easter Vigil with midnight Mass service complete with a 12-hour fast in order to receive the consecrated bread (Host) in communion. What happens to a 10-year-old boy who eats an apple at 10pm then realizes he has broken the fasting rule? Answer: he gets tied up in a terrible knot of fear and shame. That’s the very sharp edge. If I didn’t take communion the whole church – beginning with the priest – would be wondering what terrible sin I had committed. If I admitted to Dad to breaking the fast I would feel his silent, grim disapproval and still be unable to take communion. So I kept quiet, took communion and waited for the dark retribution, believing I had sinned against God.

Every night we prayed the Rosary, an iconic catholic prayer, but it was always an endurance for me. There were times I know that Mum would have liked to relent at least for one night but Dad would not waver. We knew the Ten Commandments off by heart, knew also they were our rule for life.

But there was no Bible. How does that happen? A religion based on the Word of God, but no Bible in the house? Dad believed it was dangerous to read the Bible for fear of personal interpretation. That’s what got the Protestants into trouble (he said) they interpreted the Bible in their own way instead of taking the message from the Pope, or Bishop or Priest or Nun. Or Bob Santamaria, a sort of gnostic that Dad believed was the closest man to God.

Dad was a good man, a very good man. Kind, generous, hard working with a read sense of humour. But so steeped in a sterile catholic consciousness it gave him no room to deviate, no room to take his own position away from the host of minor and major tenets of belief and ritual. Missing Mass on Sunday was a mortal sin and taking communion after breaking fast was not far behind in terms of dark deeds.

The statue of the Sacred Heart was a reprieve from such a regulated religious landscape. Here was the human face of God, a Jesus who knew suffering, cared for the sick and had his heart pierced through with a lance. He became my Hero.

The practices of earlier times created a division between the Holy and the Profane. The rituals of fasting and dress, the mystique of an ancient language, restrictions of who could enter the church sanctuary – women were definitely excluded with the exception of nuns who polished and cleaned around the altar – these were the supporting infrastructure of veneration and adoration of a more Hidden God. Thus, perhaps, the saints came into their own, especially Mary, the Mother of Jesus. If God was somewhat remote it was possible to access His favour through intermediaries.

Over centuries the practice of interceding through Mary in particular grew, deepened and spread, nourished by the phenomena of Fatima and Lourdes and a wealth of other venerated places. “To Jesus through Mary” was a consciousness instilled in all “good” Catholics. There was a push by some, and still active in our own time, to declare Mary the “Mediatrix of all Graces”, a confounding thought that would have Mary replace Jesus in the Plan of Salvation.

Other saints were hardly sidelined, and the list is impressive. The Catholic Church is rich – or diminished according to some – in its concentrated focus on saints and at times has moved too quickly to declare individuals as having totally unblemished lives.

Within such a kaleidoscope the Statue of the Sacred Heart doesn’t exactly get lost but somehow becomes one of many, competing for attention among a multitude of holy manifestations. While fervent intercessions were made to Mary and other saints for healing, while pilgrimages were undertaken to sacred sites the official church Sacrament of the Sick became the Sacrament of Extreme Unction, and upon receiving such the sick person was expected to die in peace.

Yet Jesus alone is the human face of God, the Way and the Truth and the Life. There is none other and through His Spirit, He is not hidden; He has integrated the Sacred and the Profane. Such is the meaning of the Incarnation.

A Merciful Father

In the first months of entering a program and process of preparing for priesthood our group was visited by a respected theologian who spoke to us for about an hour. What he shared with us was seemingly so simple yet so profound. It has stayed with me throughout my life.

The talk was about the Prodigal Son of St Luke’s Gospel. However it was pointed out that the story was not actually about the son as prodigal, rather it was about the father as merciful. The Merciful Father.

The father in the story acted against the expectations of all others in the story, especially the expectations of the stay-at-home son, but also the expectations of the prodigal. The story exists down through history, every generation experiences the waywardness of one son/daughter and the fidelity of the other son/daughter. Reasonable people would believe the faithful son has a real cause for complaint and that the wayward son gets off far too lightly.

We are given more to payment for sins and the need for penance. The ledger has been skewed; it must be put right. This father had no further need for payment, the only payment he required was the return of the son whose loss had burnt a hole in his heart. The ledger was righted, all that was left was to celebrate what had be regained. The father, in his abundant mercy, was true to himself.

If there was a single moment when I was conscious of understanding myself as being Christian it was through this episode. While I knew Jesus of the Sacred Heart as the human face of God, I had now met the Father who is the Beginning and the End of all.

The Father took responsibility for his own stance, against all expectations of him. Likewise, ultimately, we who understand ourselves as Christian are summoned to take responsibility for our lives, our decisions and our relationships: with people, with the church, with the world, with the earth. To no law, ritual, mores or canon can we hide behind, escape to or make excuse from.

Catholic church theology as it is promulgated through official teaching has historically centred on moral acts as the measure of faith rather than upon relationship: relationship with God himself, relationship with the believing community, relationship with the world in which we live. Obedience was the ground upon which the believing person stood, while primacy of conscience was never promulgated. Unity was spoken of but uniformity was the daily creed. One church, one pope, one form of ritual, one norm for behaviour.

The life of Jesus, his very mission, had at its core the establishing of a new relationship with and between His People. A relationship which fulfills and surpasses the Law of Moses and the teaching of the prophets. He came to bind up broken hearts, set captives free and announce a new time of favour for all. This amazing, demanding and liberating reality has set hearts of fire down through the ages – the saints being prime models of that fire – and it cannot be held captive to layers of canons, formulated rituals and calls for obedience.

Only this morning I happened to pass by a Catholic High School. On the high front gate was a large painting/photo of a student with the words “I am Christ Centred”. This was accompanied by a second painted inscription “I attend Mass regularly and receive Communion”. It would be inspiring had the inscription continued: “I care for my neighbour and visit the sick”. Or some such. The rituals of Mass and Communion celebrate our relationship with people and the world, and what we do to contribute. Without a change in relationships the rituals may well be empty.

There were great expectations of invigorating renewal with the Vatican Council fifty years ago. Indeed, so much has changed within the church. Yet so much has remained the same. Few of the major expectations arising from the call of the prophet Angelo Roncelli – Pope John XXIII – have been met. Paul VI was timid, dragging his feet on reforms while the pontificates of John Paul II and Benedict XVI have seen considerable backtracking and escape into old forms. This has been followed by the explosive uncovering of decades of clerical sexual abuse, consequent denial by church leaders and the ugly spectacle of a church being dragged into secular courts and public derision.

The Sacred Heart of Jesus has been wounded again in its members who are the victims of abuse. The Merciful Father is struggling to let his face be seen in a church that has lived by its canons rather than the law of Mercy.

Unexpectedly a new prophet – in the person of Pope Francis – has arisen with vision, courage and a summons to fidelity not to old forms but to the radical Gospel. His appearance was certainly not planned by the retired Benedict XVI who had prepared the way for another likeminded reactionary to replace him.

The vine has been pruned by the Gardener, let new life come forth.