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| St Asicus - Armagh Cathedral |
Just in case you missed it, I want to read carefully for you again the Collect (the Opening Prayer) provided for the Feast of St. Asicus. It goes:
“O God of heaven,The beginnings of the Church in this part of the world are dominated by art and beauty. Asicus, it is said, was Patrick's artificer. He made altars, chalices, patens, and metal book-holders for the newly forming Churches. Under the influence of Asicus, the Church at Elphin became a school of sacred art. The Cross of Cong, the Ardagh Chalice and many other works of sacred art were inspired by Asicus' artisanship.
by whose grace Saint Asicus became a disciple of Patrick
and worked for the beauty of your worship,
be pleased, by his prayers,
to make of our lives a work of art
fashioned for the glory of your name. ...”
For the past fifty years, and more, a tradition has grown up in the Church of looking to the past, that is to say the very early Church, rather than to the recent past, to rediscover a more authentic way of being Church.
When we look to the very early Church here, the primary memories are of art and of beauty. St Paul's letter to the Ephesians reads:
“We are God’s work of art created in Christ Jesus to live the good life as from the beginning God had meant us to live it." (Eph. 2:10)It is good to focus on these words for a moment. 'We are God's work of art …' That is to say that we, that is human beings, are God's Masterpiece. Nicky Gumbel (famous as the founder of the Alpha Course) quoted Isaac Newton this morning on Twitter:
"In the absence of any other proof, the thumb alone would convince me of God's existence."When we reflect for a moment on the wonder of the human person, at the intricate detail of the various bodily systems that keep us alive at any given moment, surely this raises our minds to the creator God. We cannot help it.
But there is more to that quote from Ephesians: “ We are God’s work of art created in Christ Jesus ...”. Our being alive is our experience of being created, of being a creature. But here St Paul tells us that we are 'created in Christ Jesus'. In other words, we are not a finished project just yet. There are echoes here of our need to be recreated, again and again, by God in Christ. This is redemption, and like creation it is God's gift to us. We cannot manage redemption on our own, in much the same way as I could not have created myself. Redemption is clearly linked to relationship with Christ, or what we call 'Life in Christ'.
This 'Life in Christ' is what St Paul calls 'the good life': “We are God’s work of art created in Christ Jesus to live the good life as from the beginning God had meant us to live it."
Twenty years ago in 1992 the Church published a new Catechism of the Catholic Church. In it something happened that maybe we have yet to get to grips with as a Church. In the new Catechism the moral life was restored to it's earliest understanding as the good life, or 'Life in Christ'. For many centuries before this, spirituality, or saying our prayers, or what we might call our relationship with Jesus Christ, was placed on a moral footing. In other words, we prayed and went to 'hear Mass' because it was a moral precept of the Church. The new Catechism puts it the other way around however; it is because of our relationship with Christ Jesus that we live a good moral life.
It is because of our exalted dignity as Christians that we live the good moral life. Our basic human dignity accords with living a moral life, but the conscious choice to be profoundly connected to Christ through Baptism, Confirmation and Eucharist lifts up our human dignity to that of the Christian's dignity.
The Christian is conscious of his or her place in the world, which is to say that the Christian is conscious of the sacrifice that Christ made on the cross for them. And this sacrifice of Christ in turn arouses both contrition and thankfulness in the disciple of Christ, who in turn makes a conscious, personal decision to live the good moral life as a personal sacrifice of thanksgiving to Christ, for the gift of new life that he has made possible for us.
In short, these are the eyes of faith: that we are mysteriously, that is sacramentally, rooted in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus.
They are the eyes that a person of faith must strive to have. And these eyes of faith replace all the false lenses that are offered by our time and place – all of the various analyses that would have us believe that the Church has been wrong all along – or that the moral prescriptions of life in Christ are somehow outdated or out of touch. Perhaps what is out of touch especially here in Ireland is an outdated and outmoded language of religion that seeks to involve people in the practise of the Faith, all the while subtly ignoring the spiritual foundations, the relationship with Christ, that are essential to that practise. Some of the older language of the Church, with its inherent authoritarian tones and overbearing paternalism, will definitely turn off contemporary ears.
Undoubtedly we need a fresh language and new approaches to present what is a very idealistic and demanding way of life. However, while the language of yesteryear may not suit today's world – and the style of presentation may offend contemporary sensibilities – still the Church cannot present anything but life in Christ.
There are two images of priesthood here that we could contrast. One is of a paternalistic priesthood – one that seeks to have an answer to every possible moral dilemma that a person may face. This is a legalistic image of priesthood, rooted in a kind of casuistry that may have been well intentioned, but which certainly did not seek to teach the average Christian how to make mature moral decisions.
The second image of priesthood is rooted in the gospel story of the Prodigal Son. The image of priesthood here is of the Father who does not withhold the rightful inheritance of the Son, even though he may have a premonition of what the younger Son would do with it. No, the Father does not withhold, but gives freely what is requested of him and then waits. This is where we find ourselves today in priesthood.
Waiting in Scripture is the iconic form of loving. It can be a painful experience. Mothers and Fathers wait on their child. Waiting is worrying. It is not knowing. Any parent knows what waiting is like when their teenage son or daughter is out at the disco. Will they be okay? What will they meet when they leave the nest, the safety of home, the big-bad-world that is waiting to take advantage of them? And yet, still, their comes a day where the son takes off, a time when a daughter must make her way in the world – with all its pitfalls.
The moral process is complex. We must learn right from wrong. But this is not enough. We also must come to internalise a moral process whereby we are able to choose right instead of wrong, good instead of evil. Simply knowing right from wrong will not do. (For example, we all know that smoking is bad for our health, and yet that knowledge in itself will not stop a smoker from smoking, even though it may help)
We have also to form our hearts in learning to choose freely, the good, the right, the loving, the committed, the sacrificial. It is good to be taught by Bishop, Priest and Pope the moral heritage and riches that the Church has to offer. But we must find the true moral compass inside ourselves that desires to live a morally good life.
Maybe a third image of priesthood that we could reflect on today is that of the artist or artisan or craftsman, which is a far cry from the paternalistic priesthood of our first image, but which is inherently related to our second image of priesthood as spiritual father. Maybe we could image priesthood as a sculptor imagines the sculpture hidden in the lump of marble. Think of Michelangelo envisioning the Pieta as he stood in the quarry surveying the marble. This kind of priesthood, this kind of Church, is one that is rooted in a vision that is as yet hidden in the ordinary lump of rock, hidden in the ordinary parish, hidden in the ordinary community of faith, hidden in the ordinary diocese. Priests are men committed to crafting and encouraging ordinary Christians to live life to the full, to live the ultimate life: “Life in Christ.”
“We are God’s work of art created in Christ Jesus to live the good life as from the beginning God had meant us to live it."As we remember and follow in the footsteps of Asicus, may our lives become a work of art fashioned for the glory of God's name.
This homily was prepared for the Diocesan Commemoration of St Asicus, the Patron Saint of the Diocese of Elphin, which is celebrated in the Parish of Elphin on the Sunday nearest to the feast of St Asicus, which is celebrated on the 27th April.
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