There was an article in the Tablet last week entitled “Yours, absurdly”, a review of the recently published third volume of the letters of the Irish writer, Samuel Beckett. They cover the years 1957-65, written during the time of the Council. Given Beckett’s personal stance with regard to the Church. the Council is not a significant event in their detail.

 For a man careful with words, he has left us a considerable correspondence, quite apart from his published plays. I included a few of his words in the curriculum documentation of my last school.

               “Ever tried.  Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail better.”

Those words from Worstward Ho, published in 1983, have often been quoted since. I found them an invaluable summary of the necessity of continual effort by both teacher and taught in the classroom. One of Bob Dylan’s lyrics from the 60s tells of success and failure. “My love she speaks softly she knows there’s no success like failure and that failure’s no success at all” with a slightly different conclusion.  

Beckett, one of the great Irish writers of the 20^th Century, alongside Yeats, Joyce and Heaney, left us work that marked literature in a special and peculiar way, spoke of our human condition and forced us to question ourselves with stark and honest realism.

 We learn from our mistakes, that is, if we are perceptive enough to recognise that we have in fact made them. We often see the consequence of our mistakes in the hurt we have caused others, the disruption to their peace by our careless words and actions.

 That is the challenge that Francis presented to the Curia just before Christmas, look at yourselves, ask the awkward questions, if there is a problem, don’t rush to blame others.

 Too often in our society, the choice is between success and failure with little shading between the two. Yet failure is an opportunity for learning, the chance to examine what went wrong and so find a way back, of putting things right.  The exercise of compassion is a fundamental principle of Christian faith. Walter Kasper’s recent book “Mercy” and its subtitle “the essence of the Gospel and the key to Christian life” summaries in one word what we should be about.

 In the same copy of the Tablet, Henri Nouwen is quoted.

“Jesus doesn’t allow us to solve our own problems through blame. The challenge he poses is to discern in the midst of our darkness the light of God…… How radically new my life would be if I were willing to move beyond blaming to proclaiming the works of God in our midst”

A succinct and purposeful comment from his journal “Sabbatical Journey”

So, with Lent a week old, it is a good question to ask. What is and what should be the Christian’s response to the Gospel? How far is our Christian living reflective of the Gospel narrative and the letters of the apostles to the Early Church ? What notice do we take of words written for the guidance of the first  followers of Christ?

 Ever tried? We must keep trying.

 END