Issue 64 - The Pilgrim - September 2017 - The newspaper of the Archdiocese of Southwark

The Pilgrim September 2017
Europe is not
the centre of
Christianity
In recent years the widespread
availability of news has enabled
Christians in the west, where our
life is really rather comfortable
and complacent, to be much more
aware of the sufferings of our
brothers and sisters of the faith in
different parts of the world.
Much of this has been
horrifying, and we have also been
able to give real support through
the tremendous work of charities
such as Aid to the Church in Need,
which is based in our diocese.
At the same time for most of
us, this coverage has exposed
ignorance about the suffering
Christian communities. Sometimes
English or even European
Christianity appears to think that
we are at the centre of the
Christian world.
I remember when I went to the
Holy Land for the first time over
30 years ago (not on a Catholic
pilgrimage) - many of the
pilgrims, who were very devout
Christians, had never really known
anything about the experience of
Arab Christians in Israel and
Palestine.
Fortunately the Arab guides to
the Holy Places in Jerusalem and
the West Bank filled this gap in
people’s knowledge very quickly.
So many people in England, even
among Christians, simply think
that Arab = Muslim.
Consequently a lot of education
or re-education among our people
has been necessary in recent
years, not simply with regard to
the Holy Land but in relation to
Christian communities all over the
Middle East and elsewhere in Asia.
How many people in this
country, for example, know that
there are far more practicing
Christians in India than there in
Britain? Ironically many of these
Christian communities are among
the most ancient churches in the
world, far older than Christianity
in the British Isles.
We have seen much of the
suffering of Christians in Syria as a
result of the ongoing civil war.
The New Testament tells us that
the city of Antioch was where the
disciples of Jesus were first called
‘Christians’; the different
Christian communities are very
ancient and have maintained an
influence in society larger than
their numbers would lead one to
expect.
Until the fall of the Ba’athist
regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq
after the American invasion, the
same was true there. For all their
faults, the secular Arab
governments in Iraq and Syria
respected the place of Christians
in society. And the rise of
extremist Islamist groups in both
countries has meant that
Christians and other minority
groups have been a target of
persecution and systematic killing.
Since in Iraq this happened as a
direct result of a war back in 2003
waged by Britain and the United
States which was condemned by
the Catholic Church, we need as
Catholics to be particularly aware
of how far British politicians have
to be seen as responsible for the
sufferings of our fellow Christians.
Vast numbers of Christians in
Iraq have been forced to flee the
country; villages and areas which
had been predominantly Christian
Father Ashley
Beck, assistant
priest at St Edmund
of Canterbury in
Beckenham and
senior lecturer in
pastoral ministry at
St Mary’s University,
Twickenham
for hundreds of years have been
destroyed. The good thing is that
we have been able to give refuge
to some Christians who have fled
persecution and the threat of
death and managed to come to
this country.
And this has enriched Christian
life in Britain and done a great
deal to dispel ignorance and poor
education among our own people -
but this has also set the Christian
minority in this country at odds
with government policies about
immigration which are anti-
Christian and uncharitable.
If we are to be faithful to the
teachings of Jesus, anger and
outrage in the face of persecution
and martyrdom are not the right
response; even worse are the
reactions of some Christians who
seem to think that military
retaliation is the right thing to do.
The right reaction is what in
moral theology we call solidarity -
a real act of will to identify with
those who suffer and really put
ourselves out to support them in
practical and other ways.
Getting “hot under the collar”
about Christians having their
churches burned or losing their
lives is pretty worthless if it is not
accompanied by campaigning
work to persuade governments
here, elsewhere in Europe and all
over the world, to take into our
countries refugees fleeing from
war and persecution.
This process challenges us - in
the first place, our own
prejudices and ignorance, and
secondly, it requires us to think
about what it is that makes us
different as Christians.
Feature/Column
He who can open the
bud does it so simply
By Sister Janet Fearns
“I’m too old now, but if there was
an opportunity, I would give
anything to go back down into the
coal pits. I really miss it. It was a
community and a culture. Everybody
knew everybody. When a boy went
to work in the coal mines, he was
with his brothers, cousins, friends
and his father.
“Our fathers, grandfathers and
great-grandfathers were all miners.
It was a family... and now it has all
gone. The mines have closed and I
have retired. Many of my former
workmates have left the town,
following a job, and so it seems as
though there is nobody left.
“When the mine was open and
working, it was hard. At the end of a
shift I was absolutely exhausted, but
I loved the work. I would give
anything to go back down into the
pits.
“Of course, in my day, it was
easier than in my father’s and
grandfather’s time. We had electric
lights and proper toilets. It was
brighter than daylight, so I did not
think of myself as working in
darkness, because it was not dark.
“A lad did not misbehave when he
was working in the mines. When he
finished work, he was too tired to
get up to mischief, but also,
everybody knew him and so he
would be caught out if he dared do
something wrong. He would get a
clip over the ear from his father
because someone was bound to let
him know that his son was doing
something he shouldn’t...
“I was so happy working in the
coalmines. I would give anything to
go back. I can’t of course, not at my
age, but that does not stop me
wishing...”
It was an unexpected conversation
with a complete stranger. What led
to the discovery that he had a
special story to tell? Probably he
also has no recollection.
I watched as two men unloaded a
truck filled with roofing slate,
accurately cut and too heavy to
carry more than a very few slabs at
a time. Were the slates cut by
machine? Are there still some
places, perhaps in Wales, where
craftsmen take a thick, irregular,
piece of rock and, with a couple of
well-placed blows with a hammer
and chisel, cause the rock to split
into virtually identical layers, ideal
for their role as roofing tiles?
One or two days later, a man
crouched over an ornate stone wall,
restoring its battered appearance,
weathered by the passage of more
than a century. With a pot of
something and a trowel, dents and
cracks began to disappear.
The work was slow, painstaking
and, probably, cold on a grey, damp,
morning. Yet he seemed oblivious to
everything as, bit by bit, he
transformed the stone, making it a
thing of beauty once more. It was
not a job to be finished as quickly as
possible: it was a labour of love.
Watching the workmen carrying
tiles and repairing a damaged wall
reminded me of an opportunity I had
to watch a farrier fitting shoes to a
horse and, on another occasion, a
thatcher laying straw on a country
cottage. Yet again, there was a
peaceful, painstaking concentration.
The farrier stroked the leg of the
horse as he ran his hand down
towards the next hoof to be shod,
quietly speaking to the animal in
words that, presumably, the horse
understood for it to stand so
placidly. There was no haste.
Similarly the thatcher, carrying
heavy bundles of straw, banged
them in place and cut stems to the
same length in a centuries-old
rhythm, balancing precariously on
the steep roof and yet perfectly
comfortable and at ease at an angle
that might strike fear into the
hearts of others with less
experience.
Why is it that, in today’s busy
world, there is a tendency to miss
the dedication of the craftsman and
woman, whose skills have been
passed on through generations,
often with an exquisite sensitivity
for the materials used?
It is strange that apprenticeships
almost vanished in favour of
university degrees which are, as my
tutor informed me within my first
week as a student, “only
certificates which say that you know
how to learn – and everybody can
learn something, so a degree is
nothing special”.
We rush through the day,
forgetting to ‘go quietly amidst the
noise and haste, and remember
what peace there may be in
silence’.
Yet that is not the way in which
God works with us. He takes his
time to create something beautiful
from the humdrum and sometimes
faults and failings of our lives. We
sometimes forget that each of us is
like a flower, waiting to blossom –
and a flower does not need strings
of qualifications to look radiantly
beautiful.
No: it is not yours to open buds
into blossoms.
Shake the bud, strike it; it is
beyond your power to make it
blossom.
Your touch soils it, you tear its
petals to pieces and strew them in
the dust.
But no colours appear, and no
perfume.
Ah! it is not for you to open the
bud into a blossom.
He who can open the bud does it
so simply.
He gives it a glance, and the
life-sap stirs through its veins.
At his breath the flower spreads
its wings and flutters in the wind.
Colours flush out like
heart-longings, the perfume
betrays a sweet secret.
He who can open the bud does it
so simply.
Tagore
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