Maria's April Musings

AND THEN SHALL THE WEAK SAY I AM STRONG … SHALL THE POOR SAY I AM RICH…

It’s Lent, and apart from the usual giving up and taking on Larry, Gosia and I accepted an invitation to go to Poland to lead a Lenten Retreat on the theme “When We Are Weak We Are Strong”. Thinking about this gives me eyes to see more clearly the acts of transformational suffering and unimaginable forgiveness that surround me. Seeing this way draws me more deeply into the invitation of Jesus to ‘take up my cross and follow him…”

This morning at our early morning prayer in “The Loom”, I heard Thomas pray for his mum, dad, sister, brothers and nieces and nephews whom he has never met. For over 10 years Thomas has had no contact with his family. In the newspaper obituary of his father’s death a number of years ago his name was not mentioned. Today, like most other days, he prayed to God “to look after them, to let them know in their hearts that he misses them and to help them to see him again some day”. His prayer made the ground we were sitting on feel holy.

In the kitchen of Moorefield House in Kilkenny for over 20 years, Packie’s grace before every meal had the same impact: “God Bless me own father”. He could as easily have shown the scars, physical and psychological, inflicted on him during childhood by his father. Packie never did… we only knew about that from the files that came with him to L’Arche from the psychiatric hospital where he spent his young adulthood.

In the midst of the annual weekend celebration of motherhood last Saturday afternoon a car bomb took the life of 25-year-old PSNI constable Ronan Kerr from Omagh, Co Tyrone. Shortly after hearing about her son’s murder Mrs. Nuala Kerr spoke out her own plea, also a kind of prayer: “Ronan was a great son and brother. He always had a smile and a helping hand for everyone. This is at a time when we’re aiming for a neutral police force for the good of our country. I urge all Catholic Members not to be deterred by this. We need to stand up and be counted as we strive for equality for all. We don’t want to go back to the dark days of fear and terror. We were so proud of Ronan and all he stood for and don’t let his death be in vain”. On Wednesday Nuala Kerr attended her son’s funeral in the company of senior figures from the world of sport, politics and religion on the Island of Ireland. In the midst of profound grief and sadness the Police force and the GAA carried Ronan’s coffin together. It was a powerful sign of the new and shared future in Nuala Kerr’s heart and a symbolic display of cross community solidarity that would have been unthinkable in the past. On Sunday evening many thousands of people turned up for a walk through the streets of Omagh to

add their voice to Nuala Kerr’s – “NOT IN OUR NAME THIS VIOLENCE AND HATRED. WE WALK IN THE NAME OF PEACE”.

On the tragic untimely death of his brother, Packie also walked, in the name of peace, up the centre aisle of a small country church to embrace with joy both sides of his estranged and bewildered family. I have no doubt too that our Thomas’ constant prayer of longing is doing its own work of transformation in his family. Meantime, just being a witness to such extra-ordinary acts of forgiveness transforms me.

As we approach this Easter Season I thank God for the ‘Unlikely Leaders’ and ‘Prophets of Peace’ in our midst. It is both privilege and pain to follow Nuala, Packie and Thomas on the way of the cross – the way of Faith, Hope and Love, the only way to Transformation and Transfiguration.

In these times of great suffering in our world, NOW is the perfect time for “the weak to be strong and the poor to be rich” and to lead us on our way…

HAPPY EASTER EVERYONE.