Fr. Henry O’Shea OSB.
Many years ago, when teaching a junior class about Frederick the Great of Prussia, I asked the group if anyone knew the meaning of the word ‘martinet’. One young man, a budding naturalist said, excitedly ‘Yes, yes, I know, it means a female pine-marten.’ The King of Prussia was indeed a martinet but not a pine-marten. Though, maybe he was a pine-marten in a figurative sense. Figurative does not automatically mean that a term is not truly applied.
Until a very few years ago, the words ‘Tick-tock’ meant only the sound of a clock – and even then, not of all clocks. Now TicToc, as part of social media, has become not only predominant in huge sections of the world’s population, but a necessity to the point of addiction.
Arguably, one of the effects of this dominance, as in most of the social media, has been a dumbing down of discourse, a flattening in our use of words, a narrowing down of meaning and possible meanings, a draining of our capacity to understand figures of speech, a limiting of our capacity to see, a contraction of our horizons. All that matter is now. History has been abolished along with joined-up writing.
In the opening sentence of his Rule, St Benedict asks us to ‘open the ears of our hearts’ to what he has to say. But many Tictocers might ask, ‘How can a heart have ears.’
In today’s gospel, we hear that Jesus is allergic to the scribes with their minute knowledge of the Law and its 613 rules and regulations, swanning around in long robes and basking in public adulation and prominent in the front seats of the synagogues. Martinets. This insidious attitude of the knowers-better is a universal phenomenon, which has always been present, in every culture, in every religious, artistic- business- and political culture. It is particularly corrosive when linked to our relationship with God and to the way we relate to other people, that flows from how we see and treat God.
Christ’s great insight and change of emphasis lie in his placing of what is in the heart above outward conformity to rules, above any ticking of the boxes of conformity, above all superficiality of observation. ‘Heart’ means, that instrument and facility that is and can be in us, in me, that active combination of seeing, knowing, getting-it and loving, that engagement of our minds and our capacities for love.
This is why Jesus uses the example of the widow and her tiny monetary contribution to the treasury, pointing out that as a gift of her heart, this tiny sum vastly outweighs the lavish donations of those who, in their abundance, hardly miss what they give. The widow, gives her heart, which ultimately is all that the Lord is interested in. And she give that heart freely. She is not forced. Because the Lord respects her freedom and does not want to force anyone.
The second reading tells us how Jesus can dare to upset the apple-carts of the know-alls, of the omnicompetent, the movers-and-shakers. But how can Jesus be such an influencer?
In the evening office of Vespers in the Churches of the East, there is a beautiful hymn in praise of the Light, sung while the evening candles are being lit. The opening words are:
Hail gladsome light,
Of his pure glory poured,
Who is the eternal Father, heavenly blessed.
Holy of Holies, Jesus Christ, Our Lord.
The author of the Letter to the Hebrews tells us that Christ is the definitive appearance of the Father’s revelation of himself. Christ is the only and final sacrifice that perfects and puts an end for all time to all human sacrifices. In abolishing these sacrifices, he has abolished all human altars and temples and is himself the sacrifice, the altar, the temple, the only true priest. He is the definitive Holy of Holies.
Not only does this Holy of Holies make possible and offers to us an end to sin, but by making us part of himself in Baptism and feeding us with himself in the Eucharist, gives us access to true worship with and in the only Holy of Holies. Our only real future.
The heart is the organ by which we recognise, through which we are inhabited and cling to this Holy of Holies, Christ Jesus himself. ‘Heart’ is a dynamic and energizing giving and receiving of our emotional and intellectual capacities in an eternal learning-curve. This is the part of us that the Holy of Holies wants for himself – and that forever.
This is why the widow of Sidon and the widow at the treasury are, literally, an eternity removed from the misguided know-alls who see only as those men and women see, for whom outward appearances and instant thrills are all that matter.
Hail gladsome light,
Of his pure glory poured,
Who is the eternal Father, heavenly blessed.
Holy of Holies, Jesus Christ, Our Lord.