Fr. Henry O’Shea: In 1952, the poet Patrick Kavanagh ruffled many of our feathers by saying, referring to Irish society:
Parochialism and provincialism are [direct] opposites. The provincial has no mind of his own; he does not trust what his eyes see until he has heard what the metropolis – towards which his eyes are turned – has to say on any subject. … The parochial mentality on the other hand is never in any doubt about the social and artistic validity of his parish.
Both of these attitudes or mentalities can be self-satisfied or chronically dissatisfied. Neither is new. Today’s first reading from the book of Deuteronomy, written at some time between the 14th and 7th centuries before Christ, points out that our real selves are not discovered by trying to wander to heaven, or over the seas, not in fashionable gurus, diets, physical jerks, fairy dust, healing stones or psychological trick-acting. We are told quite clearly, ‘…the Word is very near to you, it is in your mouth and in your heart for your observance.’
Most of us, most of the time, like to imagine that we are intelligent, independent-minded, persons, who make up our own minds about everything. In fact, most of us, most of the time, live lives short-circuited by slogans. And these slogans are very often what is fashionable at any given time in any given society.
A fashionable contemporary slogan is claiming that one is spiritual but not religious. This can let one off many hooks, hooks of thought, behaviour, of commitment, of responsibility – with the bonus, sometimes, of giving nice warm feelings.
Another common slogan is ‘Everyone knows…’. This often prefaces our more inane, thought-deprived, utterances. We do indeed know all about following the herd or jumping on band-wagons.
Today’s gospel tells the immediately accessible story of the Good Samaritan. Only the terminally or intransigently hard of heart cannot understand and/or refuse to be touched by the story. Most people can identify with both the victim and with the stranger who helps him.
In addition, if we are so inclined, we can feel smugly superior to the members of the establishment, the priest and the Levite, who pass by on the other side. We would never behave so callously. Except of course, when the victim, be he or she a foreigner, an immigrant, a Palestinian, a Hindu, a Moslem or, in many circles in modern Ireland, a practising Catholic. The fact is that we pass by on the other side of any ‘othered’ person in our society. Deep down, even if we do not admit it, we think that such persons, or non-persons, actually deserve what they get – or don’t get.
The very dynamism of today’s gospel story can lead us to forget an important phrase early in the passage we have just heard. Replying to the lawyer who was trying to put him in his place, Jesus got him to quote Scripture, ‘You must love the Lord your God with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind, and your neighbour as yourself.’ In other words, we must love with all we have, with our whole selves. Faith does not require brain-death.
But how can we do this? How can we have a self to love and a self with which to love? How can I move beyond regarding myself as the centre of the universe? How can I move beyond self-centredly regarding others as transactional subjects and objects – ‘I am in this to get what I can out of you and presume that you are in it to get what you can out of me.’ Just read the newspapers.
In today’s second reading from St Paul’s Letter to the Colossians, the author tells us where the inviting Word with its great possibilities lies – where that Word it is present with its unique capacity to create the self of each one of us. No mere idea can and save, never did and never will.
We hear about who and what Christ Jesus was and is: the image of the unseen God; in whom everything, visible and invisible, were created; who existed before anything was created and who holds all things in unity.
And we are told where that Word is to be found: in his Body, the Church. Because the God-Man Christ was in the Beginning and also was the first to be born from the dead, every one of us is invited into the life-giving embrace of his Body. Through the gift of Baptism we are enfolded in this embrace and become, not just isolated self-catering spiritual projects, but real members of one another. This enfolding gives us the opportunity, the capacity to see in every human person, the flame of Christ’s Body.
And so, the Samaritan, though not baptised, was able to go beyond the established, the legally permitted, the selfishly transactional, to help the stranger. It often was and often is left to a person who is not ‘one of us’ to come to the aid of ‘one of us.’
What has all this to do with provincialism and parochialism? The heart, soul, strength and mind with which we must love, can come only from within us. This is where my parish begins. But this ‘within’ is not isolated in a self-created, self-fulfilling, self-satisfied, splendour.
As members of one another, we learn, journey and grow with and from each other, participating, however, falteringly, in the perfection that God wanted to be in Christ and to be available through and in Christ. This is our parish, the parish of my becoming self, of us becoming ourselves, the place of encounter, of engagement. And all this with the expanding hearts so beloved by St Benedict.
If we do have any metropolis, it exists in what we call heaven. But we do not look at this metropolis over our shoulders, but straight ahead and in the company of our fellow parishioners in the Body of Christ.
To be parochial one needs the right kind of sensitive courage and the right kind of sensitive humility. Parochialism is universal; it deals with the fundamentals.