 WE WILL NOT GIVE INTO
THE ARSONIST Since the last edition of Edges, I've had to endure an arson attack on my church. It happened ten weeks ago, just four days before Christmas. This unforgettable night will remain with me forever. In the early hours of Thursday 21 December, I was woken from a deep sleep to find the church ablaze with smoke oozing out of every window. I can still vividly see the moment when the firemen had to break into the roof to be greeted by the violent flames erupting into the darkened night. For a short while, before a close friend arrived, I stood alone and watched the horror unfold. As I had no control of the situation my human inadequacy had numbed every emotion within me. Yet I could not help but focus on the steeple cross, which refused to be defeated by the flames. The excessive combustion of smoke vigorously obscuring the night sky could not prevent the cross from reappearing with the flow of wind. Since the beginning of this year we have had to celebrate Mass in our nearby school, evicted from our church by the cruel and vicious thought patterns of a person locked in a world of confusion and pain. However, the steeple cross of our church still stands firm above part of the gutted roof, proclaiming hope in the midst of despair and light in the midst of darkness. This depiction of the Cross is the principle symbol of our Christian faith. Although our church is damaged and broken, the cross reminds us of Christ's selfless act of filial and obedient love.. During Lent the Cross becomes an important focus for meditation. In these forty days we are travelling towards the summit of Calvary where we meet the grotesque and awful symbol of death. The Romans utilised this method of death extensively to discourage rebellion. Public shame was a key ingredient of the crucifixion, where the condemned were forced to carry the horizontal beam through the public roads and places. In a strange way our church has suffered a humiliation which is exposed to the whole town. The smoke damaged walls and partly gutted roof, are a visible sign of the inner conflicts that can seize a human life and conceive an abnormal behaviour which deviates from God's will. For generations this beautiful sacred space has provided a conscious awareness of God's presence. It's fine marble walls and gold leaf dome has housed the Blessed Sacrament and touched the lives of people over many years. Yet still in its surrounding streets young women still prostitute themselves to pay for the heroin that invades their bodies each day and destroys their existence. Young people still visit our Drop-in-Centre where their lives lack direction and purpose, facing the nightmare of unemployment and nowhere to go. Now the ruined building stands in solidarity with the very broken and wounded people who roam its neighbourhood. Lent provides us with the opportunity to not be beaten by the circumstances of our lives. We can meet the grotesque and not be afraid. Each year brings the bizarre and distorted moments, where answers are difficult to find.. Yet these can be the special moments when we meet the darkness and evil and still close the day in Christ's light. We learn about the God in our lives, through the situations we face each day. Our burnt out church speaks the language of a crushed body, disfigured by the brutality of the human family. Although terrible and awful, this building is brick and mortar and not human life. However, with each fallen piece of plaster, I cannot help but think of the scarred and fragmented bodies, those innocent victims who suffer at the hands of others. Like our abandoned church, they feel the pain of aloneness. Walking through our dilapidated church, I am left in no doubt that Christ's work still continues. No building can confine God's love. It lives in you and me. Yet there are those moments in our lives when the smoke, metaphorically, of living tries to obscure our direction and can debilitate our capacity to love and forgive. However, we have to go through passages and face the different experiences of life to come to a deeper knowledge and understanding of God at work in the core of our being. This Lent I embrace the mystery of God in the unpredictability of life. Three months ago, little did I think, how our parish would become so disrupted. Yet through the physical destruction of our church, there is a seed of growth. I find it somewhere in the steeple cross, standing defiantly, symbolising the Christ who enters our darkness with His light. The damaged building is a reflection of you and me, victims of the smoke but protected by the cross. Father Jim McCartney. |
