Teaching Year 12

Is a privilege

It can also be stressful

Making sure you’re giving

the right advice

knowing when to encourage

and when to push.

It takes a different perspective

When you’re teaching

About religion

Am I doing it right?

Is this true to the tradition?

Does it make sense?

How can I help them get it

Without seeming

Like I’m pushing it down their throat?

Especially

Since this is not just

An academic exercise for me.

I believe to the core

Of my being

That faith gives life.

Self-sacrificing love

Means we don’t focus on ourselves

And when we each do this

Wondrous things occur.

We are made by love

For love

Wishing them peace and all good

Always

But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven (Matt 5:44-45)

Does it get any harder or more real than this? This passage goes against what is called ‘human nature’ – we want to strike back against those who have hurt us or ‘our own’. What this passage does is remind us about our real nature. We are made from and for love – since we are all children of God who is love. However, saying it and doing it are separate matters!

The only real way that we will guide the young people in our care on this matter is by our example. When they see us act in a way that includes everyone, that ignores human-made divisions and treats everyone as one, then any words we utter on the subject might have some effect. When we pray for those who only see division, it comes from a place of love: what we say and what we do and what we pray are as one.

Have a great week!
Patrick

We are each caught

In a tapestry

Of love.

God, who is the love

Of our parents,

Worked through them

And in them

To love us into life

Adding our thread

To the whole.

But the tapestry

Isn’t static.

Threads respond

To each other

In harmony

Or not.

Inasmuch as we are

Loving and authentic

We bring colour and beauty

To the tapestry.

In God’s time

Our threads

May coalesce

Thereby bringing

Other threads

Into being.

We nurture those threads

And others,

The warp and the weft

Aiding the master weaver.

Sharing love

Sharing God

Bartimaeus, son of Timaeus, a blind beggar, was sitting by the roadside. When he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to shout out and say, ‘Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!’ (Mark 10:46-47)

This healing story leans on ideas of Jesus as a Davidic messiah who will bring mercy and justice – healing the blind. But what of the name – ‘son of fear’? What are the ways in which our fears blind us? Fear blinds us from seeing the everyday good around us. Fear blinds us from seeing the needs of others – we are caught up in our own perceived problems. Fear stops us from being our true, full selves – our fears have us looking over our shoulder in case we made a mistake, rather than celebrating this moment.

I think we do our young people a service by sharing the ways in which fears can work. Fears hold us back and we need to be liberated…from ourselves. Fears blind us from seeing our fears. Faith can be a way where we become freed to be our true selves. God’s love, reflected through our family and friends, can free us from our fears so that we can see the fears for what they are – the shadows of love.

Have a great week!
Patrick

“Who are you, God and who am I?” St Francis

This prayer was frequently on the lips of St Francis. As much as anyone, Francis understood the unity, the connection of all creation. We are so so used to thinking in binary or dualistic terms: off/on, good/bad, us/them. Such thinking can blind us to our connection with others – in God. This connection commences at our beginning – when we are each loved into life. For most of us, the love of family and friends guides us on our journey towards our wholeness. Since we believe that God is love (1 John 4:8), God is constantly present with us, in us and our family & friends.

One answer to ‘who are you, God?’ is the author of life, constantly present – in love. One answer to ‘who am I?’ is a creature lovingly created who finds their wholeness in love, like the trinitarian God in whose image we were made.

Have a great week…and term!
Patrick

Talking to couples

Preparing for marriage

What do I know

Of their reality?

I speak of what

I know

And have learnt.

Love,

The real deal,

Conquers all.

We believe that

God is love

This is demonstrated in

A unique and wondrous way

In those who choose

Partnership for life

The giving and receiving

In myriad forms

From you to me

And back again

Is God

In me and you

From me and you

Guiding me

Making you whole

Drawing us closer

So that we can

Go out in love,

In God,

To others.

Love continuing

To create

And nurture

But we have this treasure in clay jars, so that it may be made clear that this extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us. (2 Cor 4:7)

It’s so easy for us to be carried away by our egos! We ‘believe our own press’ and scheme for own advancement. Whether our schemes are successful or not, we can be left feeling empty. Or faults and failings will bring us down to earth. Yes, we each have our gifts and should treasure and develop them – but praise must go to the giver – God.

We do a delicate dance with the young people in our care. We must bolster them so that they see the good in their ‘clay jars’ – without becoming carried away nor without obsessing about their faults. Rather, in community, my faults are compensated by another’s strengths and vice versa. The beauty of the body of Christ!

Have a great week…and break!
Patrick

‘Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap; for the measure you give will be the measure you get back.’ (Luke 6:38)

As human beings made in the image of our triune God we are made for love. We find our happiness, our true selves, when we give ourselves away in love, just as we were each loved into life. It is easy, even sensible, to hold back – especially to hold back on forgiveness, the context of this passage. My truth is that the more aware I become of my failings the more likely I am to forgive others for their failings.

Our world encourages judgment of others. Much of our media is full of it. By encouraging our young people to be compassionate and forgive others, we’re guiding them to help others but also themselves. We guide them towards wholeness and holiness and we bring God’s reign just a little closer.

Have a great week!
Patrick

Jesus said to them, ‘Give to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.’ (Mark 12:17)

It’s so easy to miss the big picture. Our lives can be made up of so many small tasks and activities, and we can be so caught up in ‘getting them right’. Since God loved each of us into life, giving ‘God the things that are God’s’ means giving God our whole heart and mind and soul – not externals. Or as Andre Cirino OFM puts it, God placed the gifts, talents and goodness in each one of us and it is our task to discover and develop that goodness using it to build community and offer it back to God.

If our young people focus on finding and developing their God-given talents, sharing them with others, they will discover their happiness, their vocation. They will also uncover more of the Franciscan wisdom of ‘it is in giving that we receive’.

Have a great week!
Patrick

he has filled the hungry with good things,
and sent the rich away empty. (Luke 1:53)

Such ideas continue to be counter-cultural. The rich and powerful make the rules. There are many rationalisations for greed. Fairness and justice is about building right relationships i.e. bringing God’s reign closer. Thus this passage is about overturning human logic and reminding us of what will make us whole and holy.

Young people, consciously or unconsciously, will know the mantra ‘we must maintain the economic system’. There is nothing wrong with making money. The person of faith, with the Scriptures (Old and New Testament) as template, has the whole community as their focus since we need everyone (each making their unique contribution) to be saved. It is our task to show the young people in our care that our faith brings people together and so builds the justice for which they yearn.

Have a great week!
Patrick