St Matthews Church, Big Lamp, Summerhill Street, Newcastle upon Tyne

Around Christmastime 1948, a Washington radio station decided to glean a snapshot of world affairs by ringing various ambassadors to find out what they thought was the most pressing world issue. They did this by asking what the emissary in question would like for Christmas. First up was the French Ambassador, who said that he would like world peace; next was the Soviet representative, who requested the lifting of the imperialist yoke. The British envoy, Sir Oliver Franks, clearly had not been properly briefed, since when the interviewer asked him what he would like for Christmas, he replied, “Well, that’s very kind of you. I think I’d like a box of crystallised fruits.”

A cynic might observe that for all its misunderstanding Sir Oliver’s choice had the merit of realism; though, as things turned out an imperialist yoke was subsequently cast aside – but, methinks, not the one the Soviet Ambassador had in mind. The poor old French Ambassador’s bid would be considered disingenuous or hopelessly naïf – even more, perhaps, today, than when he articulated his wish: the utterance of aspiring beauty queens rather than practitioners of realpolitik.

Yet, this evening, our Liturgy is littered with references to the prophecies and angelic proclamations of peace on earth: so are we disingenuous or hopelessly naifs?

In answering this question, we need to recognise that Isaiah and the angels were articulating a dimension of hope. The Birth of Christ ushered into history a vision – God’s vision – of how the world should be – how the world could be. Christian discipleship requires us to espouse that vision and make it our own – make it part of our hope for the earth on which we live.

Hope is a greatly devalued concept in the present day. It is almost a declaration of powerlessness in the unfolding events that control our lives: we hope to win the lottery, we hope it won’t rain, we hope the Vicar will not preach for too long tonight. Our hopes are articulated even as we yield to what we consider to be the inevitable.

However, for Christians hope is something different: it is one the three virtues listed by Saint Paul in his famous exposition of love: and so, we might ask, how can it be virtuous inertly to wish for something? The answer, of course, is that it cannot.

True hope, from the Christian perspective, is a vision that informs our actions: that for which we hope shapes the decisions we take, guides the way in which we allocate our time and resources, determines our very character and identity. To espouse the hope of peace on earth is to embrace a principle that touches on every aspect of our lives.

Some might think that this is just another way of describing ambition and the two can become intertwined; but there is a distinction between ambition and Christian hope. Ambition is primarily about oneself: what I want, either for myself or for others: the imperatives that drive ambition come from within. Christian hope, on the other hand, calls to us from without; there is a point beyond us drawing us towards itself.

That journey towards peace on earth asks, demands of us creativity of thought. The reason that many consider it a hopeless dream is because we have never yet reached our goal. In our evidence-based, bottom line dominated world, the belief goes that there cannot be a path to peace on earth, because if there were we would have found it.

However, what we know now is an infinitesimally small fraction of what there is to know about the world in which we live; since we have not found that path to peace on earth, we must look elsewhere; and it is here that we shall begin to encounter challenges.

For all secularism’s supposed prizing of freedom of thought, it like every other philosophy rests on concepts and ideas, which constrict and channel reflexion and creativity. Some things are unthinkable outside the internal forum, because they conflict with the premises – the popular wisdom - on which secularism is founded.

For all its claims to be the route to a better world, secularism’s denial of a place in the national debate of anything other than the observable and demonstrable more-or-less locks itself into the status quo of conflict and uneasy truce. Peace between peoples and nations is beyond our present experience of the world. Even where war has been absent, rivalries persist and it is only national interest that impedes the military option. Some commentators are convinced that climate change will remove such restraints as the top priority for governments and individuals becomes the securing of basic necessities of life. If we are not to fall prey to the tyranny of events, we must retain a perspective that transcends them. I am loathed to trot out the cliché that “without a vision, the people perish,” but usually, phrases become clichés, because they express what people want to say and that particular piece of wisdom from the Book of the Proverbs has endured as a cliché for nearly two-and-a half thousand years.

The vision is our lifeline out of the vicious circle of hopelessness. It lifts our eyes above the melee of the moment and enables us to realise that the remedy of our predicament does not lie in re-arranging the deckchairs, but in finding another ship.

Maybe, the problem for us is that we see peace on earth as a means to an end and not an end in itself. We think that if there is peace, trade can flourish, prosperity can increase and we can sleep safe in our beds. So, we try to squeeze peace into that framework of individual and corporate gratification. However, if we imagine, in stead, that peace on earth is the guiding purpose, then all those other things, which we so often prize as fundamental aspects of a good world order, will have to be conformed to its claims and limitations.

The angelic song is, therefore, as much command as promise and, as we would say today, mission statement of the Incarnation. The hope rests not in some almost surreal expectation that conflict will finally run out of steam, but rather in a re-ordered vision of the world, where peace on earth is the guiding principle to which all other considerations yield. Until we grasp that fact, we shall probably have to make do with crystallised fruits.

Fr. Richard

Christmas Octave – I

The accounts in both the Old Testament and Gospel readings this morning describe events, which, if they occurred today, would trigger the involvement of Social Services. Dumping a three year old boy into the care of an elderly priest in a busy pilgrimage centre or not being aware that your twelve year old son had been left behind in a similar sort of place would both constitute serious grounds for concern.

Of course, times were different then – and we have seen great changes over the last couple of decades. In living memory, boys were delivered to Ushaw College and similar such establishments at the age of seven to be trained for the priesthood and parents, relying on the extended family for the care of their children, were often not quite sure where they were.

Many of these and similar arrangements proved to be a good if not the best option for the well-being of the children concerned. Some priests speak fondly of their time at the minor seminary and many successful people remember with happiness their childhood shared around various homes; but for a significant minority things were very different.

If anyone needed to be appraised of the risks to children, the recent report into the catastrophic and often wicked failures of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Dublin and many secular bodies associated with it leaves no room for doubt.

Concern for the protection of children is rooted in concrete and terrible revelations of abuse – something that in all likelihood has been a feature of human society for as long as there has been human society. The modern spotlight on the problem might be explained by changing attitudes; but unlike other developments and fashions, which depend to a greater or lesser extent on circumstances, disgust at and condemnation of the abuse of children must surely be something, which should have been characteristic of any civilised society.

The response to generations – centuries – of failure has been what most find to be an almost overwhelming framework of protection. My guess is that we are at the beginning of a process of adaptation to a heightened awareness and concern: over the decades, probably, we will adapt and modify our procedures as experience shows us where they have been unnecessary, futile or even counter-productive. However, even if I am correct, it is a process, which should not be rushed.

At the same time, there is a wide-ranging perception that we risk losing a great deal if we are not careful. A growing culture of mistrust and apprehension is emerging, which, in turn, must be part of what many have identified as the fragmentation of society between the generations. Furthermore, this reinforces the atomisation of society as parents, properly protective of their children, increasingly see almost anybody outside the nuclear family as a potential threat and danger.

The impact that this reconfiguration of human relationships will make has yet to become fully apparent; but the fact that schools now must include in their curricula many things concerned with socialisation that once we just learnt as we grew up suggests that change is already well underway.

There is, furthermore, much talk about the changing nature of communities as the Information Technological Revolution wraps its tentacles ever more tightly around our daily routines. Two features, perhaps, touch on the practise of Christian discipleship.

The former is a retreat from face-to-face contact. More and more, we find that we relate to the world through the medium of machines. It is now possible even to shop at the supermarket without having to engage with anyone, unless you are buying alcohol or those high-value, easy to steal items.

Apart from the rather sad psychological impact that potentially lurks in such developments, it also means that people can present to the world any image of themselves they like – couch potatoes become virtual-world Lotharios and, of course, pederasts can portray themselves as just the sort of teenager another teenager would want to meet.

The latter and connected implication is that we can be increasingly selective about the people with whom we associate enabling us to avoid less pleasant encounters, which reveal our shortcomings and weaknesses. Children and young people who are nurtured in such an environment will surely struggle to grow into rounded adults without the challenges of the unfamiliar and at times uncongenial, which stimulate the capacity to reach beyond what we know and place ourselves in a wider and more healthy perspective.

A Christian community is, potentially, a counter-cultural context. Here, all sorts of people rub shoulders and are confronted with their common human identity as they kneel together to receive Holy Communion. There should be more than a little of the extended family about our identity – we should be an environment where people can learn who they really are – for good and bad – so that we can moderate the bad and exploit the good.

The network of Christian congregations has the opportunity to provide a haven of human interaction amidst the advancing tide of isolated individualism – a place where people can come to expand their horizons and perceive their place in and reliance on the fullness of human society. However, if we are to be effective in this, we must be meticulous in ensuring that we are also a safe place – demonstrating that, insofar as it is possible, we guard against our community becoming a hunting ground for those who would exploit the vulnerable, for if we cannot, society at large will put the mark of Cain above our door.

Sometimes people are affronted by the lack of trust that they infer from the prescribed procedures; but the Church has to contend with the fact that our record is far from squeaky clean. The establishment of trust is not so much between members of a church, who may know one another well, but between the Church and the wider community, which will, ultimately impose its will, if we are perceived to be failing in what it considers to be our responsibilities.

If we wish to preserve and perpetuate communities, which afford individuals the opportunity to find their God and discover within themselves the people He made them to be, we cannot be insouciant to the legitimate concerns of others for the safety of those who enter our doors.

Fr. Richard

The Archive

Available as pdf files. Acrobat Reader is required. Acrobat Reader is available as a free download from adobe.com

St Matthew's Patronal Day 2009 (Bp Paul's address. File size 80 KB)

Caritas in Veritate (File size 83 KB)

Maundy Thursday 2009 (File size 26 KB)
(includes Good Friday 2009 and Easter Day 2009)

Selfish parents? (File size 71 KB)

Remembrance Sunday 2008 (File size 68 KB)

The Credit Crunch (File size 82 KB)

Guarding the Faith (File size – 68 KB)

Faith and the State (File size 75 KB)

The Archbishop and Shari'ah Law (File size 88 KB)

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