Tenison Woods and MacKillop Centre News: Walking humbly

For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and the man who humbles himself will be exalted.

Luke 14:11

From an early age my sons wanted to play for Liverpool and Manchester United. That particular height they did not reach. But they did manage to play seniors (and occasionally Victory League) and reserves for Devonport for several years and achieved a measure of success. They’re both great characters, they put everything into the game and were valued by their teammates. While they have been rightfully proud of their achievements, they are, nevertheless, humble about what they have achieved.

Humility is not a condition, but a quality or virtue. While it is something to be aspired to, it has its roots in the Latin word humus or earth. It is an earthy quality. In the Wisdom of Jesus ben Sirach the writer tells us (Ecclesiasticus 3:18): The greater you are, the more you should behave humbly. Jesus (of Nazareth) picks up this very matter, advising the Pharisees (Luke 14:11) that everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and the man who humbles himself will be exalted.

We live in a culture of ‘only the best will do’. Competition for resources, market share, clients, skilled workers, product, is a part of the fabric of our democratic society. And because of it the greater part of the community benefits. It also means that banks, telecommunication and mining companies walk away with billions of dollars of profits. Corporate wealth of this magnitude is almost beyond comprehension. Most of us would admit that the most important part of our lives is our family - our relationship with our spouses, children and friends and yet we know the havoc that is played on those relationships when the needs of corporate business have priority – over where we live and work, over the kinds of jobs we can do, over what we earn, over the wrangling between our political representatives. It is about power, it is about pride. Pride in success.

Ben Sirach (v. 28) reminds us that: There is no cure for the proud man’s malady, since an evil growth has taken root in him.

Jesus explains (Luke 14:12 – 14): When you give a lunch or dinner, do not ask your friends, brothers, relations or rich neighbours, for fear they repay your courtesy by inviting you in return. No, when you have a party, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind - that they cannot pay you back means that you are fortunate, because repayment will be made to you when the virtuous rise again.

There is no doubt we should be proud of our work, of our home, of our children, of our sporting achievement – but we should not buy into the pride that sets us apart as being better than others, having more than others. The Gospel of Jesus has a real clarity about the dangers of power, wealth, pride, greed and knowledge. These ‘values’ are contrary to the kingdom values.

Our Catholic schools, our Catholic hospitals, our Catholic child care centres, our Catholic agencies, must always strive to be their best, but in living out kingdom values, they must be humble and must always remain available to poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind – lest they forget why they exist in the first place.

Peter Douglas

HEAD OF SCHOOL SERVICES, NORTH

DEATH AS AN INVITATION TO FREEDOM

From Anam cara: A book of Celtic wisdom

Death is a lonely visitor. After it visits your home, nothing is ever the same again. There is an empty place at the table; there is an absence in the house. Having someone close to you die is an incredibly strange and desolate experience. Something breaks within you then that will never come together again. Gone is the person whom you loved, whose face and hands and body you knew so well. This body, for the first time, is completely empty. This is very frightening and strange. After the death many questions come into your mind concerning where the person has gone, what they see and feel now. The death of a loved one is bitterly lonely. When you really love someone, you would be willing to die in their place. Yet no one can take another’s place when that time comes. Each one of us has to go alone. It is so strange that when someone dies, they literally disappear. Human experience includes all kinds of continuity and discontinuity, closeness and distance. In death, experience reaches the ultimate frontier. The deceased literally falls out of the visible world of form and presence. At birth you appear out of nowhere, at death you disappear to nowhere. . . . The terrible moment of loneliness in grief comes when you realize that you will never see the deceased again. The absence of their life, the absence of their voice, face, and presence become something that, as Sylvia Plath says, begins to grow beside you like a tree.

DEATH TRANSFIGURES OUR SEPARATION . . .

It is a strange and magical fact to be here, walking around in a body, to have a whole world within you and a world at your fingertips outside you. It is an immense privilege, and it is incredible that humans manage to forget the miracle of being here. Rilke said, “Being here is so much.” It is uncanny how social reality can deaden and numb us so that the mystical wonder of our lives goes totally unnoticed. We are here. We are wildly and dangerously free. The more lonely side of being here is our separation in the world. When you live in a body you are separate from every other object and person. Many of our attempts to pray, to love, and to create are secret attempts at transfiguring that separation in order to build bridges outward so that others can reach us and we can reach them. At death, this physical separation is broken. The soul is released from its particular and exclusive location in this body. The soul then comes in to a free and fluent universe of spiritual belonging.

DEATH AS AN INVITATION TO FREEDOM . . .

If you really live your life to the full, death will never have power over you. It will never seem like a destructive, negative event. It can become, for you, the moment of release into the deepest treasures of your own nature; it can be your full entry into the temple of your soul. If you are able let go of things, you learn to die spiritually in little ways during your life. When you learn to let go of things, a greater generosity, openness, and breath comes into your life. Imagine this letting go multiplied a thousand times at the moment of your death. That release can bring you a completely new divine belonging.