St. Thomas

St. Thomas Didymus
poem by Denise Levertov

In the hot street at noon I saw him
a small man
gray but vivid, standing forth
beyond the crowd's buzzing
holding in desperate grip his shaking teeth gnashing son,

and thought him my brother.

I heard him cry out, weeping and speak
those words,
Lord, I believe, help thou
mine unbelief,

and knew him
my twin:

a man whose entire being
had knotted itself
into the one tight drawn question,
Why,
why has this child lost his childhood in suffering,
why is this child who will soon be a man
tormented, torn, twisted?
Why is he cruelly punished
who has done nothing except be born?

The twin of my birth
was not so close
as that man I heard
say what my heart
sighed with each beat, my breath silently
cried in and out,
in and out.

After the healing,
he, with his wondering
newly peaceful boy, receded;
no one
dwells on the gratitude, the astonished joy,
the swift
acceptance and forgetting.
I did not follow
to see their changed lives.
What I retained
was the flash of kinship. Despite
all that I witnessed,
his question remained
my question, throbbed like a stealthy cancer,
known
only to doctor and patient. To others
I seemed well enough.

So it was
that after Golgotha
my spirit in secret
lurched in the same convulsed writhings
that tore that child
before he was healed.

And after the empty tomb
when they told me that He lived, had spoken to Magdalene,
told me
that though He had passed through the door like a ghost
He had breathed on them
the breath of a living man --
even then
when hope tried with a flutter of wings to lift me --
still, alone with myself,
my heavy cry was the same: Lord
I believe,
help thou mine unbelief.

I needed
blood to tell me the truth,
the touch
of blood. Even
my sight of the dark crust of it
round the nail holes
didn't thrust its meaning all the way through
to that manifold knot in me
that willed to possess all knowledge,
refusing to loosen
unless that insistence won
the battle I fought with life.

But when my hand
led by His hand's firm clasp
entered the unhealed wound,
my fingers encountering
rib-bone and pulsing heat,
what I felt was not
scalding pain, shame for my obstinate need,
but light, light streaming
into me, over me, filling the room
as I had lived till then
in a cold cave, and now
coming forth for the first time,
the knot that bound me unravelling,
I witnessed all things quicken to color, to form,
my question
not answered but given
its part
in a vast unfolding design lit
by a risen sun.

____________

and a "haiku" from me:

Our God
loves
doubts,
questions...
puzzles make
her smile.

Contemplation

Continuing my contemplation on the Emmaus story, I am helped to enter more deeply into its mystery through the poem The Servant Girl at Emmaus by Denise Levertov. It's actually a literary description and at the same time a commentary on Diego Velazquez’s Supper at Emmaus which I bring to a close-up here.

Levertov enters Emmaus through the servant girl’s eyes:

She listens, listens, holding
her breath. Surely that voice
is his – the one
who had looked at her, once, across the crowd,
as no one ever had looked?
Had seen her? Had spoken as if to her?

Surely those hands were his,
taking the platter of bread from hers just now?
Hands he’d laid on the dying and made them well?

Surely that face– ?

The man they’d crucified for sedition and blasphemy.
The man whose body disappeared from its tomb.
The man it was rumored now some women had seen this morning, alive?

Those who had brought this stranger home to their table
don’t recognize yet with whom they sit.
But she in the kitchen, absently touching
the winejug she’s to take in,
a young Black servant intently listening,

swings round and sees
the light around him
and is sure.

Sight strengthened by Love

While searching for paintings of the Emmaus story (see Lk 24:13-35) in the internet, I chanced on a very different artistic rendering of this Easter narrative, by the Spanish painter Diego Velazquez.
In the painting, we almost fail to notice the figure of Christ and the disciples in the background. Instead it is the servant girl at the foreground, amid pots and pans, who catches our attention. Yet, our gaze does not stop there since her eyes carry us obliquely to the “event” taking place in the other room!
What a beautiful way of suggesting the hidden significance of the Easter story in the daily grind of life. Here’s one attempt of deepening this interpretation: “(In the painting) the fact that it is hard—even for those who are open to the divine— to see and understand things directly is underscored. No matter how important (even when framed) events are, it is only in a de-centered and marginal fashion that truth becomes suddenly—and, perhaps, only temporarily—manifest. Not by chance, both a servant and a kitchen are, respectively, socially marginal and, in general, logistically de-centered."
For more on this, you can read Cristina Giorcelli’s article.

My Easter journey this year is quite a special one since I’m trying to come to terms with some very significant events in my personal life (deaths of precious persons in the year past, etc). Like the servant girl in this story-painting, it is only “obliquely” that I am seeing the meaning of all these and perceiving the saving presence of our Lord in my life and in the lives of those I care for.
I know I need to pray for a more purified vision, a way of seeing that is strengthened by love. Daniel O’Leary, one of my favorite writers, inspires me: Love fills in the gaps and heals the flaws. It sees perfection from within, the beauty already there.

May the Lord grant us all this Easter grace of seeing his saving grace and experiencing “joy in the world as it is, in life as it is, in every hour of life in this world, as that hour is.” (Buber, Tales of Hasidism)

Easter Question

“Women desirous
desiring their Dead
Saviour to anoint…

But alas, he is
no more!
Desire transformed
liberating all desire!”

This is my Easter “haiku” as I contemplate Mary Magdalene and the other women friends of Jesus who, very early after the Sabbath, went out with the intention of touching their dead Master and anointing him, in order to complete the burial rites he merited. (Mt 28:1-6)
Love moved them – to brave the dark, even to risk being identified with him who was condemned as a “criminal.” Love left them, but only for awhile, to awaken, to increase desire and transformed them into who they are called to be – lovers, one and all.
Fearless, passionate lover. The more I live, the more I come to be convinced that there’s no other way to define a disciple of Jesus but this. And I got a confirmation from one of the quotes in the latest issue of The Tablet:

“So when you say to yourself each year, “How shall I observe Easter?”, don’t say, “Do I understand the atonement?” (…) Above all, don’t ask moral questions about whether you are good enough, whether you have obeyed enough.
No, don’t ask those questions at Easter. Ask yourself instead whether you are a lover.
Ask yourself whether you can love much. Ask yourself whether your passion will sustain you – kill you, yes, but sustain you – through your death and his so that you too can await him in the Garden on Easter morning. (Melvyn Matthews, Nearer than Breathing, SPCK 2002)

Paschal Mystery

Archbishop Rahho of Mosul is dead. Yesterday, AsiaNews reported: Archbishop Faraj Rahho was kidnapped last February 29 after the Stations of the Cross. His kidnappers gave word of his death, indicating to the mediators where they could recover the body of the 67-year-old prelate. (...) Leaders of the Chaldean Church, including Bishop Shlemon Warduni, brought the body to the hospital in Mosul to ascertain the causes, still unknown, of the archbishop's death. The funeral will be held tomorrow in the nearby city of Karamles. Archbishop Rahho will be buried near Fr Ragheed, his priest and secretary killed by a terrorist brigade on June 3, 2007, while leaving the church after celebrating Mass."

What meaning could one give to this senseless death? Personally it posed a very difficult question - does God still listen to the prayers of his people? Who is this man, anyway, for whom we prayed? Again from Asianews: "For his little flock, the prelate still represented "hope". The faithful recount to AsiaNews that the bishop had always said "that he wanted to remain in Iraq until the end, even if this meant death". His presence was an act of "resistance against terrorism and violence". Born in 1941, Faraj Rahho was a seminarian at the patriarchal seminary of Saint Simon. He then became the pastor of the church of Mar Elia. After a brief period of studies in Rome, he returned to Iraq. There, in the 1980's, he became the leader of the newly founded parish of St Paul in Mosul, until he was appointed as an archbishop in 2001. In 1989, he founded the Fraternity of Charity and Joy, with the aim of assisting sick people and guaranteeing them love and a dignified life. He also worked hard on behalf of young people. In the 1990's, when Iraq was under embargo, he instituted the "Youth Week", a successful initiative that later became a pastoral outreach for the entire diocese.

On the other hand, his death, tragic as it is, could also be read as a "successful resistance" considering the conditions posed by the kidnappers. Sources told Asianews: (...) in addition to an outrageous ransom on the order of millions of dollars, they had also included the provision of weapons and the liberation of Arab prisoners held in Kurdish prisons.

I don't want to minimize the suffering of the Bishop and the Christians (all of us, in fact) who have participated and are still intimately participating in this "drama" of the faith community of Iraq, but I also read in the Bishop's death, his full participation in our Lord's Paschal Mystery, a sure proclamation that God is in-charge of history -- not the terrorists!

St. Perpetua and St. Felicity

Today is the liturgical memorial of two Christian martyrs, Sts. Perpetua and Felicity. Vibia Perpetua, a well-to-do young woman and mother, and Felicity, a slave who gave birth to a child three days before suffering a martyr's death, were catechumens. Despite threats of persecution and death, the two, together with three companions, Revocatus, Secundulus and Saturninus, refused to renounce their Christian faith. For their unwillingness, all were sent to the public games in the amphitheater. Perpetua and Felicity were tossed about by an exceptionally wild cow, gored, and thrown to the ground. Finally they were beheaded, and the others killed by beasts. All this took place on the seventh of March, year 203.
The Book of Martyrology relates that while Felicity was suffering from the pains of childbirth, one of the guards called out to her, "If you are suffering so much now, what will you do when you are thrown to the wild beasts?" "Now I suffer," she answered, "but there Another will be in me, who will suffer for me, because I will suffer for Him." When she was in travail she had sorrow, but when she was set before the wild beasts she rejoiced.
Their suffering reminds us of the One who first suffered for us and conquered all violence and its consequence, death, that goes with our destiny. In two-week’s time, we shall be celebrating Good Friday, commemorating the unjust persecution and death of our Lord Jesus Christ and his willing acceptance of his Passion.
As I reflect and pray over the lives of the Christian martyrs in their full participation in the passion and death of our Lord, I am reminded too of the many Christian disciples who are still suffering the same persecution. In this regard, I’d like to invite everyone to pray especially for the liberation of the Archbishop of Mosul in Iraq, Msgr. Faraj Rahho. The 67-year-old bishop was kidnapped last Friday, February 29, after celebrating the Way of the Cross at the parish of the Holy Spirit. The three persons with him were brutally murdered. The faithful of his diocese express great concern over their pastor: "The bishop must take medicines every day; we trust in the humanity of these people".
Yesterday, in the church of St Ephrem here in Rome, the Chaldean community celebrated a Mass of intercession on behalf of the three men killed, and for the safety of Archbishop Rahho. In Syria as well, which has the greatest concentration of Christians from Iraq, "they are praying that the Bishop may be restored to his flock". Last Sunday in Damascus, in the Chaldean parish of St Teresa, the Mass was dedicated to the "three martyrs" and to the liberation of the prelate.

To follow the news about the Archbishop, you can also consult Asianews.

"Last Lecture"

PDDM Hong Kong has “adopted me” as a member of their community since year 2000. Thanks to the modern means of communication, we are able to practice “communion of goods” time and again.
Today, laetare Sunday – the Third Sunday of Lent – my sisters graced me with this very special news which helps me make my life review. It’s about Prof. Randy Pausch’s “last lecture,” watched by over a million people. Here he never mentioned anything about his faith in God. But if you agree with me that the supreme image of God is LOVE, then I’d say that Prof. Randy gives a very fine testimony to the Origin and Source of LIFE. Watch please…

An Italian article on the same news is also available here.