Wednesday, October 11, 2017

And about that guy from Assisi....

If you're familiar with the words (few) and actions (many) of the saint whom we just honoured a few days ago – Francis of Assisi – you are well aware of the polarities between which he dwelled.  A lover of beauty, yet committed to a life of chastity; born of nobility, yet abandoned it for poverty; extolling the radiance of sun and moon, yet content to live in the cell of a monk.

And you're probably aware of that crazy moment – one of many – when his world, upside-down as it was already, was turned around again, when he heard the Voice from without and within say to him: "Rebuild my church."

Francis would've done well to run from that voice, just like others had done their best to do – Jonah, for instance (jumped into the sea – look where that got him).  Or Moses (couldn't handle public speaking, so a PR agent was provided).  But thankfully, Francis did not run from that Voice.  He threw himself into it.  So much so that, in the end, he earned the burnĂ©d marks of his Redeemer.

We, over here in Ireland, we are no Francis.  But I can honestly say that the admonition to "rebuild the church" is at the heart of everything we're doing.

No doubt, you've all seen movies where, over the span of about three or four minutes (because that's about as much as our attention spans can take), a Whole Lot Is Accomplished.  Cinema teachers no doubt have a phrase for such a segment of screenplay: you know, when the Bridge over the River Kwai gets constructed in about the time it takes cross a sidewalk – or when half a season of baseball gets constrained into the time it takes to eat a hot dog.

But reality teaches us that rebuilding takes time.  Years.

At University Church, there are two parallel tracks taking place as we embrace this task of rebuilding.  The first is straightforward: working with contractors, planning replacement ceilings, keeping the church as clean as possible while we attempt to have weddings and masses and funerals and baptisms in the midst of never-ending plaster implosions.

But the second track is far harder, more nuanced, and definitely more trying: the long, slow slog to bring people back into the pews.  It is this reconstruction that is the most important, if one believes the encouragements found in the First Letter of Peter: the Church is built of living stones.  The brick and mortar are nice, but the voices and vitality of the faithful are the foundation upon which all must be built.  This is the most precious kind of reconstruction there is to find, and it is the reconstruction that moves the slowest. 


I always love those movies when the screenplay moves into fast forward – and the ensuing montage shows a great enterprise reduced to the blink of an eye.  There's something childishly satisfying in it, like ordering fast food and knowing it'll be sitting in front of you in sixty seconds.  But truthfully, it's the arduous efforts that yield the real satisfaction ... and rarely do you see that portrayed in that cultural storyteller called movie making. 

I look down every week from the choir gallery from which this last shot was taken.  And while I'm not into spiritual bean counting, it is rewarding when you can see a tangible change in the singing decibels, the number of heads, the warm and lingering remarks at the end of a morning of prayer.  It is all wrapped up in the mystery of rebuilding, that most patient and delicate of enterprises, the craft at which Francis was a master.