July 10, 2012      Martin Mallon   (Ireland)       Martin's previous articles

                  COMMUNITY AND INCLUSION

Peter McVerry S.J. gave a talk at the Eucharistic Congress in Dublin June 15 on the real meaning of the Gospel and the Eucharist.  

We have heard a lot of talk recently about “radical feminism”; Fr McVerry points out that Jesus was “radical”, but he was not just a “radical male” he was a “radical human” and he is our model.  

Fr McVerry emphasised that in Jesus’ time and culture, the actions and words of Jesus were truly radical, shocking the foundations of the Jewish religious system. Fr McVerry then demonstrated how Jesus would still be seen to be radical today if his message had not been sanitised by our church over the years by adopting the systems of power and privilege that Jesus condemned.  

That Jesus mainly preached to the poor during his public mission and avoided the rich and powerful who lived in the cities is informative. Jesus came to give his message to the poor in the Galilean towns and villages; we see this in Mark’s Gospel, the first, when Jesus states that this is why he came: “He answered, 'Let us go elsewhere, to the neighbouring country towns, so that I can proclaim the message there too, because that is why I came.'” (Mark 1:38 ) He also said, to quote Fr McVerry, “that he had come “to bring the Good News to the poor” (Luke 4:18 ) and by this Jesus meant the material poor, not just the spiritually poor.  

Jesus came to make the Kingdom of God present on earth now,
in humans loving one another.  

Fr McVerry believes that when we receive the Eucharist that Jesus wants us to be energised and inspired to live his message by actively showing compassion and love to one another rather than simply adoring and worshiping Jesus in the Eucharist. It is Fr McVerry’s contention that the early church changed the message of Jesus so that Christians believed that the Good News was telling us what we had to do as individuals in order to get to heaven. The role of the church was to interpret the rules and teachings, revelation, given by Jesus so we could obey them and go to heaven.  

Fr McVerry insists this is false, although still believed by many and promoted by many within the church, and that the message of Jesus was that we should love one another and be compassionate to each other. This gives the church a much different role to play, that of love and compassion rather than upholder and promulgater of laws and gives a much stronger place to the use of individual consciences as taught by the Second Vatican Council. As Fr McVerry puts it “God’s passion is not the observance of the law, God’s passion is compassion” and “if the law stands in the way of compassion, then the law must be broken. (Mark 3 v 1 - 6)”  

Fr McVerry makes the important point that “You don’t get crucified for telling people to love one another; you get awards for that – unless you mean by love something so radical, so threatening to the way people live together that the authorities feel they have to get rid of you.”  

An interesting insight of Fr McVerry’s is that “When Jesus says to Pilate that “my Kingdom is not of this world,” (John 18 v36) he was talking about a Kingdom in this world, but not of this world, a Kingdom unlike any other Kingdom in this world. It would be ruled, not by a tyrant like Herod, but by God, by a God who is compassion and who calls God’s people to compassion… Instead of ignoring the poor, those living in the Kingdom of God will reach out in compassion to the poor and the suffering; instead of storing their wealth in bigger barns, those in the Kingdom of God will share their wealth with the poor. This Kingdom over which God will reign, will welcome and value the poor and the suffering, who, in the Kingdom of Herod , were unwanted and despised. The poor and the suffering will be welcomed into the Kingdom of God , not because they were living better or more moral lives than anyone else, not because they deserved it, but because God, their King, is compassion.”

 This means “The God, then, that Jesus revealed was a God not of the law, as the religious authorities preached, who rejects sinners and excludes those who fail to keep the law, but a God of unconditional love and unconditional forgiveness, who welcomes sinners and eats with them…” and “Jesus identified God with the happiness and life of his people. He invoked God to criticise and condemn a religious system that trapped people in a multiplicity of laws, that placed a burden of guilt on people’s shoulders. He called those religious leaders ‘hypocrites’, who laid such heavy burdens on peoples’ shoulders and would not lift a finger to help them carry them” (Matt 23v4).

 This applies as much today as it did in the first century. We must be radical to follow Jesus and our institutional church clearly is not. The institutional church is a church of laws and not compassion and this is not the church Jesus started; as Fr McVerry says “Jesus revealed, in his own person, a God for whom compassion is more important than observance of any laws. Jesus had no time for legalisms: if the law stands in the way of compassion, then the law must be broken. (Mark 3 v 1 - 6)

 Challenging all of us Fr McVerry states “Jesus did not come that we might have church and have it more frequently: he came that we may have life, all of us, God’s people, the homeless, the hungry, the unwanted, and have it to its fullness… Jesus revealed to the poor and the outcast a God who loved them, not by talking about God, but by being the God of love and compassion God’s forgiveness, but by his own unconditional acceptance of them.”  

This is not the church most of us experience today. Too often we have church, but not life.  

The challenges continue “Jesus did not tell people to go to the Temple to find God, Jesus did not tell people to worship God by offering sacrifices to God in the Temple …  

No, Jesus told people that to worship the God of compassion, they had themselves to be compassion. Jesus told them that God is to be found, not in the Temple , but in the hungry, the thirsty, the naked, in hospitals and in prisons.

 In the Last Judgement Scene, Jesus tells those on his right: “I was hungry and you gave me to eat; I was thirsty and you gave me to drink; I was naked and you clothed me; I was in hospital and you visited me; I was in prison and you came to see me.” And they will say to him “Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you water, or naked and clothe you, or in hospital or in prison and come to see you?” And he will say to them: “Whenever you did it for one of the least of my brothers and sisters, you did it to me.” (Matt 25 v 31–46).”  

The problem here is to get the correct balance. Jesus did come to bring the Good News to the poor, to heal the sick, etc as Fr McVerry says, but Jesus also went regularly on his own to pray. In the first chapter of the first Gospel we read in verse 35 that  “And rising very early, going out, he went into a desert place: and there he prayed.”  

Note that Jesus prayed, but often alone and often not in the church, or synagogue. Fr McVerry is not attempting to stop anyone from praying or going to the church, he is highlighting that “ we will never encounter God in our churches, or worship God with our sacrifices, unless we first encounter God in the poor and the suffering around us and in our world. Because God is compassion.”  

To the question “If, then, the poor, the sick, the sinners and the excluded experienced the God of compassion, the God of unconditional love, forgiveness and acceptance in their encounter with Jesus, where were they to experience this God of compassion, after the death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus?”  

Fr McVerry answers that “…their community was the Kingdom of God that Jesus had announced was close at hand, that they were to be in this world but not of it. They had to live together in a totally different way to the way that people lived in the society around them; they had to live together by totally different values to the values that existed in the society around them.  

To reveal the God of compassion, they were to live in radical solidarity with each other, sharing everything they had, their resources, their time, their talents, their skills, so that the needs of all would be met. The poor, the sick, the sinners and the excluded, were to experience the God of compassion, in the caring and sharing of the Christian Community.”

 Fr McVerry believes that most Catholics see the Eucharist at the consecration as something to be worshipped, adored, contemplated and “other-worldly”; he regards this belief as coming from our perception that “our purpose in this world as getting to Heaven, saving our souls” and arising from the words of consecration.  

However, he then explains that “at the Last Supper, Jesus did not say: “This is my body, this is my blood” and invite the disciples to worship him. Jesus actually said: “This is my Body, which will be given up for you” and “This is my Blood which shall be poured out for you”, and he invited the disciples to follow him.”

 So Fr McVerry’s understanding of the Eucharist is that “the Eucharist is not so much a moment for adoration, but a commitment to action. Jesus is not so much to be adored, as to be followed in his self-sacrifice. In this understanding of Eucharist, it is a total contradiction that the millionaire and the pauper would sit side by side at Mass, week after week after week.  

In this understanding of Eucharist as commitment to self-sacrifice for the sake of our brothers and sisters, our spirituality is firmly focused on this world, and on others, not on ourselves and getting to Heaven.”

 These words are truly radical, inviting us to focus on this world and on the others in it rather than on ourselves and getting to heaven.  

We each must look at our own spirituality and examine what our purpose is in life, while remembering that the two spiritualities mentioned above are not mutually exclusive. We can see this in St Paul ’s musings on whether he would rather go to heaven or stay on earth to help others. It is clear he would prefer to go to heaven but if it is God’s will he will stay and help others. (Phil 1:20-23)

 Fr McVerry then makes two points, firstly that “The Eucharist … is at the heart of the Church’s mission to reveal God’s love to the world” and, secondly, that “Evangelisation is not a task that can be accomplished in pulpits or classrooms or church buildings on a Sunday: evangelisation happens when a community lives the life of radical love of its Founder.”

 One of Fr McVerry’s final comments is striking “God’s dream, God’s hope, for our world is that we might love one another as God has loved us, by reaching out to those who suffer, the poor, the homeless, the lonely, the sick, the rejected and the unwanted. In a community that loves one another, there should be no-one poor, (unless all are poor); there should be no-one homeless, no-one lonely, no-one sick or alone without visitors, no one in prison who has been abandoned and written off, there should be no-one rejected or marginalised, if we truly loved one another, as God has loved us. Such a community would indeed be the Kingdom of God on earth.”  

He is telling us that if we loved one another as Jesus loved us that our Christian Community would “be the Kingdom of God on earth.”

 Perhaps his most insightful statement is that “there should be no-one poor, (unless all are poor)”. This will challenge many, it will also threaten some.  

Listening to this talk has forced me to reassess my faith and to ask myself the question “What am I doing or not doing that is preventing my community from being the Kingdom of God on earth?” and I admit I do feel threatened. Some communities, such as the Franciscans of the Renewal and Mother Theresa’s Sisters of Charity, and individuals, such as Fr McVerry, are living this radical call, which makes visible the Kingdom of God on earth.  

Fr McVerry concludes by saying “To build a community of love, in which the rich share and the powerful serve, invites persecution, now as then, from those who feel threatened by God’s message of caring and sharing, of solidarity with the poor and the needy, of using power, not for self-serving purposes, but for serving others…  

The Good News of the Gospel is you and I.

If the Church is to offer hope to those who are struggling, who live on the edge, who feel unwanted, that hope is you and I. If we do not care and share, then they have no hope, and we will have destroyed, again in our time, God’s dream for our world.”  

Written version of Fr Peter's talk         Lecture by Fr Peter