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" The Breath Of Life " “Then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being.” – Gen 2.7.
This is one of the most relevant scriptures to anyone trained in First Aid. Those in our ICUs battling the Covid virus know that if a patient can still breathe, thanks to modern, life-saving ventilator machines, they still have a chance to live. The breath of life. Indeed, we need air to live. Of the four elements – earth, water, fire and air – air, even more than water [discussed last week], is the ultimate bridge between life and death. Without air all human life, all creation would die. Those watching over the daughter of Jairus who had gone to beseech Jesus to heal her would have suddenly detected no breath from the young girl, and why some of them went to tell Jairus that, sadly, his daughter had passed away. There was no longer any need to disturb Jesus. But Jesus is God and God is capable of breathing life into anyone, as Jesus did to the family’s amazement. Many of us have also been by the bedsides of the dying. Silently, we wait; some anxious or fearful, others curious or in awe and reverence of the mystery unfolding, while most are sad, perhaps emotional. But everyone is waiting for the last breath. Several years ago on a drive in the country, a friend and I stopped to investigate a car crash ahead of us. It looked bad! Someone had hit the vehicle along the right side and left the scene. My friend left to get help while I managed to open the driver’s door. He was pinned against the steering wheel and bleeding badly from a gash in his forehead. Thankfully, he was still breathing, the “first sign of life”. As he stared blankly out the shattered windshield, clearly in shock, I told him help was soon on the way, assuring him all was OK, while being careful not to touch or move him as per recent life-saving training strategies. Talking ongoing to keep him alert, I monitored the rhythm of his breath. Help arrived, and soon he was whisked away to London General hospital. Thankfully, I would not see a last breath until that of a close friend dying from cancer many years later. In his book, ‘The Four Elements’, which we are referencing for our celebration with our Indigenous brothers and sisters, of God in all Creation, John O’Donohue says, “Air is an intimate element. It gets right into you through your breathing and your blood, into the heart of your life [and your spiritual being]. … [Indeed], the first moment of life is the [first] exercise of [breathing]. … It sets [in motion] the rythmn of your life … akin to the ebb and flow of the ocean as it comes into shore, holding and then leaving again. [Just as] in the womb everything comes in waves.” The cry which comes with our first breath is our introduction into the air around us, the space we will live our lives in. John tells us, “It is air which gives us space and makes it possible for us to move. Without movement [life is not possible].” Also, the air we encounter can be mountain air, sea air, the moist air of woodlands or dry air of desert, or air polluted by industry and disrespect for how vital air is for life. He further points out one of the aspects of space is the loneliness it creates for all humanity, because of the ‘distance’ it places between us. But this is critical for revealing and developing our complex, miraculous, individual identity where personality and perception take shape in the empty space we have taken over. Meanwhile, in the OT, Elijah, hiding in a cave from his enemies, waits for God. First, a storm came, but God was not there. Then a wind, but still God is not there. Finally, a gentle breeze came, and God was there, a testament to his tenderness. In the NT the Holy Spirit visits Mary and the disciples as a great wind on Pentecost. And so, just as Greek philosophy identified ‘spirit’ with breath, ‘pneuma’, so air, too, is spirit, and spirit residing in prayer, because air is breath and breath is prayer. With the Indigenous, also Buddhist, Hindu and Islamic peoples, we share this sacredness of breath in prayer. Focusing on the flow of our breath helps us hear the inner life of the Holy Spirit flowing through us, whispering to us during meditation and contemplation. Finally, “the Holy Spirit is like the wind which blows where it will.” In John’s words, this is a kind of “hymn to spontaneity”, necessary to the movement of life. No rigid adherence to ‘the Law’ is John’s point, but instead to the free-flowing nature of God’s ‘Law of Love’. In God’s wisdom, we have air which gives us life, and space to face our challenges, yet also to breathe in earth’s goodness and beauty. Let us think of each breath we take this week as a prayer of gratitude to God, until when we can hope to breathe-in the grace of heaven. – Rev Fr Christopher Tracey, Saint Joseph Parish, Saugeen Shores, Ontario
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“The Source Of Life”
Today we witness a direct interaction between God and Creation. “Who is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?” (Mk 4.41). Indeed, who can speak and converse with Creation other than God? God made that very clear to Job. We may not know or understand God’s vast mind and unlimited abilities, but clearly, the wind and water know and obey God in all things. This love, gratitude, and reverence for the presence and power of God in all creation is something we joyfully share with our Indigenous brothers and sisters. In our meditation last week upon the world’s Four Elements – air, earth, water, fire, we looked at God’s presence in the Landscape of our lives, earth and all creation, the stage upon which we move and have our being, performing our parts in the play of life. We could not exist without this backdrop in our life journey. We also recognize God’s presence in his creation of water. Genesis tells us, the Spirit of God hovered over the waters. Without water, the human being would perish, all creation would vanish. Water is the bridge between life and death. Throughout history water has been called the ‘Source’ of life, God visible, and yet still strangely invisible, unless it is contained. Water changes its form with the landscape around it, easily mutating without argument into whichever form is presented to it, always levelling and balancing itself off in the spaces it is contained in, a humble response we might use when faced with conditions we cannot change. Like the lakes around us, one of the greatest of these containments is the ocean. John O’Donohue in his book, The Four Elements, says, “The presence of an ocean is so huge that it resembles the divine; its constant movement and soundings signal a powerful inner life. Surprising in such a huge force is its perfect sense of rhythm. The ebb and flow of the tide resembles in a strange way the ebb and flow of human breath … not surprising, given each of us came here from the waters of the womb and that primally we have all come out of the ocean at the beginning of [time].” Yet, water is anonymous. It has no face, no identity. It does not offer the kind of intimacy we feel from the landscape or the warmth of the fire element. John O’Donohue, in ‘The Four Elements’, tells us, “People who work the ocean are aware of this element’s dark and unpredictable dimension.” An old fisherman once told him, “You can never get to know the sea. It is too full of surprises. Sometimes when it is calmest the most sinister storm is secretly building and about to explode within the waves around you.” Water is also symbolic of our subconscious, say psychologists like Carl Jung. “Out of this inner ocean all kinds of symbols surface. It is here the archetypes [of life] arise.” It seems there are ‘primal icons’ in the depths of our being which indicate we are all more alike than we are different on the surface. Clearly, God at work. Our beloved tradition of ‘holy water’ for blessing and protection of self and others perhaps connects us to these primal iconic similarities between us, most beautifully expressed in the most beautiful sacrament of baptism. John says, “It is where the loneliness of [the human] being in a separate body is transfigured. One becomes an intimate family member of the People of the God. … the water element brings cleansing from the heavy, leaden gravity of earth; it brings one into the lightness and fluency of the World of Spirit. The well of life is no longer … outside [of us]. The well of the Spirit is now within [us].” Truly, as water satisfies our bodily thirst, Christ satisfies our spiritual thirst with true refreshment. “Like as the deer yearns for the running streams, so does my soul yearn for you my God.” Perhaps it is here we come closest to sharing the same sacred ideal with our Indigenous brothers and sisters. Nothing can satisfy our inner spiritual thirst, can truly refresh us except God, God with us, in us, and around us in all creation. Let us think of God, the ‘Source of Life’, in every drink we take of his miraculous water, and every drink we take of his grace and spirit within. – Rev Fr Christopher Tracey, Saint Joseph Parish, Saugeen Shores, Ontario "The Landscape Of Life"
Christ uses two parables today – the sowing of seeds and the mustard seed – to explain the attributes or nature of the Kingdom of God and our involvement in its growth. Like the life spirit embedded by God in the seeds, the gospel rooted by Christ in us has the ability to expand and grow and multiply in the world, even as lofty, supportive, living canopies in the kingdom of heaven itself. Although we may think our contributions and commitments to God’s word are as insignificant as the tiny seed, each of us individually is actually part of a much bigger picture in the evangelization process. The faith will emerge and grow rich branches with the passage of time if we continue our work as committed Christians. We must water our faith with trust and love for God’s word to ignite the life of the seed of salvation in us for all to see. Sowing good deeds and saying the smallest prayers can grow and expand Christianity overnight in the landscape of our lives. But is there something deeper Jesus wanted us to acknowledge about the miracle of the seeds or the mystery of creation? What do we mean by the ‘landscape’ of life? Lately, there is a heightened awareness of the sincere need for reconciliation with our indigenous brothers and sisters, an urgent need for the active, committed repair of a respectful and loving relationship as our cultures meet and come together. An important part of healing that relationship is emphasizing how much we, too, share in the love of God and the spirit of his Creation. The spirit behind all creation, of God in earth’s ‘landscape’ is critically important to the Indigenous people, and a Christian writer I know shares these same beliefs in his book, The Four Elements. Theology and philosophy blend with poetry in Ireland’s beloved author and poet, John O’Donohue, a Catholic priest who soon became a prolific religious, spiritual writer and international speaker. John would unexpectedly die in his sleep at 52 yrs. If there is one thing John will be clearly remembered for is his love of ‘creation’, all the creatures great and small which shared his world on the North West coast: the ‘soil’, the ‘earth’, ‘the wild brush’, the ‘stone’, all the vast ‘landscape’ of his life. This is where Jesus inspires John’s work, because Jesus also reflects upon creation, the earth, the visible landscape around us where the spirit of his Father, our Father, dwells in the tiniest seed, to explain the vast Kingdom of God growing among us. Of the four elements – Air, Water, Earth, and Fire – today we will look at Earth, or in John’s words, Landscape and Stone, and where, before human kind arrived, there was only silence and the material universe created by God out of nothingness: “Landscape is not just there. It took millennia to come here. Landscape is the first born of [God’s] creation. It was here long, long before we were even dreamed [of by God]. It was here without us. It watched us arrive. How strange we must have seemed .. to the ancient eye of landscape. ... Yet without the landscape, no human could ever have come here; there would have been nowhere to put us. … Why then is landscape hardly noticed? Why is it so rarely considered to be a presence? Why is it abused, raided and raped? The answer has to do with the powerful motor of greed and blindness in the human. Naïve and arrogant “human come lately” believes he actually owns the landscape. The ferocity and hunger .. to own landscape is probably a subconscious act of vengeance by the human orphan who senses the impenetrable landscape will one day absorb his bones. Despite its vast hospitality to us, providing us with .. countries, towns, roads, and homes, landscape .. never forces us to acknowledge its graciousness. .. Though landscape is always watching us, it rarely intrudes, it leaves us to our preoccupations, our constructed meanings [of life], our desires. [It remains poised and independent in] its stillness and silence.” .. even in the wake of global warming. The holy spirit is in this landscape. God’s face is in this landscape, as God’s face is visible in each other. This week, let us be conscious of our landscape, acknowledge it with reverence and gratitude like our Indigenous friends do, this spirit of God emanating throughout the world around us, graciously giving us a place to dwell. Think of how we can nurture that seed of salvation in us simply by being examples of Christian love to the world, loving God, loving each other, and as good stewards loving, respecting and caring for the holy, sacred, living landscape we dwell in. – Rev Fr Christopher Tracey, Saint Joseph Parish, Saugeen Shores, Ontario The Heart of Humanity Today we honour, give great thanks for, and reflect upon the magnificence of the most holy Body and Blood of Christ, his body which he gives to us in the Eucharist. This is the body which he sacrificed on the cross for us, the body which Apostle Paul tells us we are in fact members of, having been called to be his witnesses to the gospel, mutually loving and caring members of his one body, the Holy Church.
In 1 Cor 12.12-27, Paul says, “For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into the one body. God arranged the body, so there may be no dissension within the body, but the members may have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer; if one member is honored, all rejoice with it. You are the body of Christ and individual members of it.” If we are individual members, and yet all one in the body of Christ, perhaps collectively we are also his new heart. Christ’s life-blood flowed forth from his heart to save humanity, a great sacrifice which we will be remembering and celebrating this Friday in the Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus. As his blood flowed to feed life-giving salvation to the members of his body, we, too, perhaps as Christ’s new heart, are called to feed love and care to each other, our life-blood the good deeds and positive efforts flowing through our joint efforts to bring love and life-saving nourishment to each other. But this body is hurting now. One of its members is bruised, neglected, battered, parts of it now life-less. How can the body of Christ live and move and have its being when its heart is broken? Of course, this is in reference to the tragic and horrific discovery of 215 bodies found buried in unmarked graves connected with the Kamloops’ Residential School in British Columbia. I am not a stranger to the history of the residential school system. I am also familiar with the noble, gifted, generous, loving people whose lives and culture have been devastated by it. Before my studies for the priesthood, my Jesuit spiritual director brought me to Wikwemikong or ‘Wiki’ on Manitoulin Island to accompany him in his outreach. The poverty was indeed disturbing, but the people were wonderful. I first learned about the residential schools’ beginnings with the remains of an early establishment for indigenous youth built next to Holy Cross (1852) Catholic Church where I was stationed. It had burned down in 1913, so the school was re-established in ‘Spanish’, a small town north of Manitoulin, where it was thought the nearby railroad would provide better access to the youth. It was operated by the Jesuits, the Daughters of the Heart of Mary, and the Canadian Govt from 1913 to 1965. The effects of this segregation from family and culture are obviously still being felt today, as they are from other such schools across Canada. Indeed, it was a sobering, wake-up call to their reality for one born safe in the arms of home and family. Citizens, both families and friends of the victims, are understandably in shock, disbelief and bewilderment. Others are ashamed. Many are angry, but angry with whom? – The Government? The Catholic Church? Perhaps even God? At a local ‘Sacred Fire’ gathering, organized in respect and consolation for victims and their families, I was blessed by the words of a coordinator who encourages us not to lose faith in the ‘Universal’ God. Our values of love and for life are the same. God our Creator exists with us and in us, together as one. Just as in Paul’s words, we are all one in the body of Christ. Let us learn from our mistakes, learn to better love and accept our differences, and together renew the face of God’s earth. But what does this look like? Where do we start? As with so many conflicts and misunderstandings, it begins with ‘education’. In a CBC article, Eddy Charlie, a survivor of the ‘Kuper Island Residential School’ off the east coast of Vancouver Island, says we should stop asking how we can help, but just ‘listen’. “I just want people to sit, [and] hear the story about the residential schools.” Therefore, I encourage all of us to listen to our Indigenous brothers and sisters. Learn from them. This is the first step to true reconciliation, to true healing. I, too, am here to listen to these stories, stories perhaps I can share to educate others. The body of Christ, our ‘one’ body, is hurting. Humanity’s heart is broken. We must heal the heart in the body of Christ our Saviour for the joy and harmony of all. – Rev Fr Christopher Tracey, Saint Joseph Parish, Saugeen Shores, Ontario |
Father's Blog
Rev. Fr. Christopher Tracey
St. Joseph Parish Pastor Archives
January 2022
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