The Pastoral theme for this year is “With Bernadette – Praying the Our Father”. We have been invited over the last few years to contemplate Bernadette, and that seems a good idea, a model ready to hand, and not from the distant past, now combined with the ancient prayer that Jesus may well have learnt at his mother’s feet.
The version of the Our Father that you would recite if asked to do so is in Matthew’s gospel, right in the centre of the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 6:9-13) , and it is indeed that which holds those three chapters (Matthew 5-7) together (read right through them if you don’t believe me). There is another, shorter, version of the same prayer, which you might like to look at (Luke 11:2-4, just to see the differences).
If you look carefully at the beginning of chapter 6, you will see that Matthew treats here the three great pillars of Jewish faith: almsgiving, prayer, and fasting; for each of them he presents Jesus teaching that they are to be done, not for show like the people whom he calls ‘hypocrites’ (the name really means ‘actors’), but in private, for ‘your Father in heaven’. But into that nice, neat structure, Matthew has inserted, rather awkwardly, the prayer that we say every time we go to mass, and at many other times as well. We should allow that message to wash over us as we prepare for Lourdes, and while we are there, and when we return.
Why is it important? For one thing, it is at the heart of Jesus’ experience, and the centre of his teaching. It is only if God is really Father to all humanity and to all Christians that we can really take the risk of going out in love to others, or the risk of not worrying about what we are to eat or to wear. Have a read through the whole of the Sermon on the Mount, and you will see what I mean.
It is also what Bernadette lived out, the absolute trust that
she shows in God as her parent, at every stage of her life that we know about.
And, finally, it is only if God is really our Parent (not only Father, but also
Mother) that we are able to go to Lourdes as ‘helpers’. So the Our
Father is the Helper’s Prayer; what I should like to do with you now is
to go through each of its petitions (they are normally counted as seven, but
I am going to suggest eight to you), and say something about each of them,
a) in the life and teaching of Jesus,
b) in the life of Bernadette, and
c) in the life of those who come to Lourdes as helpers.
To help you pray your way through these petitions, I am offering a slightly
different translation of each of them.
a) In English and French, but not in some other languages, the first word of this great prayer is ‘Our’; which seems quite important, for Christianity is not something that we do on our own. ‘My Father’ would not have quite the same effect, as we are in it together.
And what about ‘Father’? In Mark’s gospel,
we are allowed to eavesdrop on Jesus’ desperate prayer in Gethsemane,
and to hear him begging God in his native language of Aramaic, ‘Abba,
Father’, asking if the ‘cup’ might be taken away from him.
That phrase, ‘Abba, Father’, so impressed the early Christians that
St Paul quotes it twice, in Romans 8:15 and Galatians 4:6; and in those two
passages the ability to address God in that rather daring way is the gift of
the Spirit: have you ever thought how audacious it is for us to call God ‘Father’?
‘Abba’ conveys an intimacy that is almost impossible to render in
English, but ‘Papa’, or even ‘Daddy’ comes close.
And what about ‘in Heaven’? Some people think that in talking about
‘Heaven’ we are offering empty consolation, what Marxists call the
‘opium of the people’, and what scoffing intellectuals dismiss as
‘pie in the sky, by and by, when you die’. You who have worked in
Lourdes, however, know better; in Lourdes we can glimpse that the one whom Jesus
taught us to address as ‘Father’ is the deepest reality there is.
b) For Bernadette, Lourdes was a place ‘suspended between heaven and earth’; and that hard-headed peasant girl had no time for empty piety or unreal promises. She was fearful of the imposing parish priest, the Abbé Peyremale, but was quite prepared to tell him that he was to build a chapel at Massabielle (and no, she didn’t have any money to do that) and to run the kilometre up from the Grotto after the 16th apparition repeating to herself those incomprehensible words “Que soy era Immaculada Concepciou” which made Peyremale realise that she was telling the truth.
But if God was God, and if what the Lady, who was God’s
emissary, was saying is the truth, then there is another reality beyond the
present one. And Lourdes, for Bernadette, and for us who go there, is a place
where God and Heaven are suddenly not so impossibly remote, but seem very near
(think of the Grotto, very late at night).
c) For helpers: if you have been to Lourdes before as a helper, you will know
the effect of the discovery that at Lourdes we are able to really be ourselves,
and that it is Lourdes, rather than our home or place of work, that is, or reveals
to us, the real world.
d) Something to do: imagine yourself at home, at work, in Lourdes, say this
first petition out loud, ‘Our Father in Heaven’, and try to feel
what it means. Is Heaven ‘up in the sky’ or all around you?
a) What this petition does is to point to the reality of God, for Jesus (and
for us, if we only realise it): the deepest reality of all. Look at Exodus chapter
3, where Moses, attracted by the burning bush is told to take off his shoes,
before he is given the sacred name of God. In that culture, to know someone’s
name was to know who they really were. And holy? That is a quality that is under-rated
and under-estimated in our world; but it is real, and, when we encounter it,
rather disconcerting. In the gospels, the demons try to gain power over Jesus
by saying who he is – but they are not holy enough to win that battle.
b) Bernadette asked for the name of the Lady who appeared to her in that cave
at Massabielle. In patois she called the Lady “L’Aquero”,
meaning “the Thing” – she was unsure how to name the Lady,
though she sensed she was from God. Now Bernadette was not trying to gain mastery
over her, but even so, she was made to wait for two weeks of pilgrimage before
the request was finally granted and the Lady said ‘I am the Immaculate
Conception’ (not that Bernadette could really understand that, of course).
c) Helpers: where do you have your encounter with God? (And don’t run
away from that question with a flippant response: this is a serious question).
The idea of the ‘holy’ includes that which arouses us to awe, reverence,
even a touch of appropriate fear. Can you seriously work in Lourdes without
something of that encounter with the Holy?
d) Something to do: at home, at work, in Lourdes, try to see where you encounter
the holy. Make sure that once during your pilgrimage you make it to the Grotto
in the small hours, when there is almost nobody there. What happens to you then?
a) In the gospels, the first thing that Jesus says is ‘the Kingdom of
Heaven has drawn near’ (Mark 1:15). The signs of this are that demons
are exorcised and leprosy is cured. Alarmingly, Jesus’ disciples are supposed
to ‘have authority to expel demons’ (Mark 3:15). That is how you
know that Jesus’ kingdom has come.
b) For Bernadette, the Kingdom of Heaven meant that God is in charge, and the
Lady told her to ‘go and tell the priests’ that a chapel was to
be built and that people were to come there in processions. And she did –
can you imagine a 14 year old girl telling even a kindly, charismatic priest
or religious that? and imagine the reaction?
c) Helpers: we need to recognise that in putting those people whom the world
arrogantly dismisses as ‘sick’ or ‘crippled’ or ‘handicapped’
at the centre of our attention, at least while we are in Lourdes, , we are building
the Kingdom, and also at the same time showing what the Kingdom is like.
d) Something to do: if you want to know what the Kingdom looks like in real
life, why not read Acts 4:32-35? Does that say anything about what you do in
Lourdes? And at home and at work?
a) For Jesus, it seems that the only thing that mattered was what his Father
wanted; the obvious example of that is his prayer in Gethsemane. If you go today
to the site of that prayer, in Jerusalem, you will see notices written in several
languages, which say ‘I do not understand, but I trust’. That is
at the heart of Jesus’ response to God; our task is simply to dive in,
not quite knowing what the water will be like.
b) For Bernadette, it was simply obvious that she had to do what the Lady told
her to do, even when it seemed crazy, like scrabbling in the mud, and smearing
her face with it – but it produced the stream that has not ceased to flow
since that day. Imagine what it must have felt like to do that in front of (by
the time of that 9th apparition) several hundred people, some of whom would
be laughing at her antics, others simply wishing to get her away.
c) Helpers: is it possible that sometimes your task is simply to do the next
thing, without necessarily knowing why you are being asked to do it. Is that
a loss of your dignity as a human being? Or a supreme act of faith that anything
God asks of us must be for the best?
d) Something to do: read the story of the feeding of the 5000 (Mark 6:30-44),
and ask, ‘Did the disciples know what they were being asked to do? Did
they do it?’
a) ‘Today’: the word has an urgency to it, but it may also have
reminded Jesus and his followers of the story of the manna in the wilderness
(which that same God had given, of course). In Exodus 16:13-30 the story is
told: there is enough for the day, but no more, except on the Sabbath, when
they were given twice the amount, so that they did not have to profane the Lord’s
day of rest. And ‘daily’ is only a guess: we cannot really be sure
what the word means. Some people translate it as ‘supersubstantial’,
and refer it to the Eucharistic bread.
b) Having known relative comfort at the Boly Mill for the first 10 years of
her life, Bernadette knew in her life what it was like to be without food –
her brother Jean was found one morning eating the candle wax that had dropped
onto the floor of the Church -, and to trust in God that food would come; but
she also longed to make her first communion, which eventually was granted to
her, despite her apparent lack of understanding, during the time of the apparitions.
c) What is the meaning of ‘bread’ for you? Is there a hint of simple
food, the basic necessities of life, rather than luxury? Or does it have some
other meaning in your life?
d) Something to do: look at your own life, and see whether you need to re-examine
what you understand by ‘daily bread’.
a) Forgiveness is right at the heart of the matter, for we are dealing with
a God who can only forgive, who does not wait for us to become ‘good’.
Watch how Jesus behaves towards those who reject him, insult him, jeer at him.
Read John 8:1-11, and ask, ‘What is Jesus’ attitude to those who
have done bad things?’ Read Matthew 18:21-35; try and see where you fit
into the story.
b) Bernadette was appallingly treated in (of all places!) the convent that she
joined in Nevers, by a novice mistress who regarded her (quite rightly, in a
sense) as her social inferior, and not the sort of person on whom heavenly visions
ought to be wasted. She worked in the Infirmary but was not allowed to be named
Infirmarian. How did she respond to that?
c) Helpers: here in Lourdes, at home, and at work we often have cause either
to forgive people, or to make them pay, for what they have done to us. If you
ask God to be only as generous in forgiving you as you are in forgiving others,
is that going to be rather embarrassing for you? And what about those to whom
you have done something that requires forgiveness?
d) Something to do: is there anyone whom you should really have forgiven by
now, for what they did to you? Is there anyone who needs to forgive you? What
could you do about that today?
a) In Jesus’ life-time, New Testament authors agree, he was seriously
put to the test: in the Garden of Gethsemane, for example, when he longed to
see the cup pass from him; or when various religious authorities tried to trap
him into saying something dangerous. How did he respond?
b) Bernadette was threatened with prosecution by the Chief of Police and the
District Attorney. Some people thought she was a fraud, others that she was
insane. She remained calm and unshaken – she told Jacomet, when offered
a chair, “No I might make it dirty”; why do you think that she was
able to do that?
c) Helpers: occasionally in Lourdes, you will find yourself thinking, ‘I
just can’t do this’, when you are asked to perform a distasteful
task, or to be nice to that person who really irritates you. What will you do
when that next happens to you?
d) Something to do: read the story of Jesus being tempted, at Matthew 4:1-11.
Does that touch you in any way? How?
a) The only possible way to be delivered from evil is by the power of God.
Read the account of Jesus’ suffering and death, in Mark chapters 14-15.Do
you think that God delivered Jesus from evil? If not, why does Jesus ask us
to pray this petition?
b) Bernadette: she was afflicted by various evils, by her family’s loss
of status after her father’s business collapsed, by the political authorities,
the religious authorities, the sceptical bystanders, the miracle-collectors.
Did God deliver her from these evils? How, in your opinion?
c) Helpers: have you ever encountered evil in Lourdes? How did you deal with
it?
d) Something to do: read through the electrifying opening verses (Matthew 5:1-12)
of the Sermon on the Mount, the astonishing set of instructions that we call
the Beatitudes (because they begin ‘blessed’ or ‘happy’
or, even, ‘congratulations’). Does the vision in them suggest how
God might ‘deliver us from evil’?
Now here is a prayer of St Bernadette that may help you to pray the Our Father
with her:
O Jesus, give me, I beg you, the bread of humility,
the bread of obedience,
the bread of charity,
the bread of strength to break my will and to mould it in yours,
the bread of interior mortification,
the bread of detachment from creatures,
the bread of patience to bear the sufferings my heart endures.
O Jesus, you want me to be crucified, fiat.
the bread of strength to suffer as I ought,
the bread of seeing you alone in all things and at all times,
Jesus, Mary, the Cross, I want no other friends but these.
And some thoughts: ‘those who pray are never alone’. Think perhaps of the International Mass, and the sense of being there with others who are on the same business.
Then these words from Bishop Perrier about the theme: ‘The Our Father
is the prayer par excellence. It is in some ways the only Christian prayer.
St Augustine writes: “Whatever be the other words we may prefer to say,
we say nothing that is not contained in the Lord’s Prayer, provided of
course we are praying properly”.’
by Nicholas King, SJ. Fr King teaches New Testament at the University of Oxford.