My view with Father Paddy O'Kane: A saint and sinner in each of us
The year was 1770, and in a small Italian church, two altar boys prepared for Benediction.
Annibale Della Genga and Francesco Castiglioni entered the sacristy, put on their surplices and soutanes, and then as little boys often do, they began to fight using the heavy brass candlesticks as weapons, arguing over who would stand where on the procession.
It escalated into a shouting match and alarmed parishioners turned their heads to see the commotion, and that’s when it happened: Castiglioni cracked Genga over the head with his candlestick.
Shocked parishioners screamed, ‘Throw them out! Throw them out!’ to the priest when they saw the blood dripped from Della Genga’s head.
So, the angry priest grabbed them by the neck, led them to the door, and tossed them out, saying ‘come back when you’ve learned how to behave in church!’
Now fast-forward several decades to 1825.
Half a million-people gathered in Rome for the great Jubilee celebration, much like our recent ‘Year of Mercy’ and its grand climax was the opening of the Holy Door at St. Peter’s.
Traditionally, the Pope knocks on the door three times with a large silver hammer and sings, ‘Open unto us the Gates of Salvation!’
On the third knock, the door would open, and the Pope would lead his people through.
That Jubilee year Cardinal Della Genga made his way to the door.
It was fifty-five years after the candlestick incident.
Cardinal Della Genga who had now become Pope Leo XII neared the door.
Turning to the assisting Cardinal beside him, Cardinal Castiglioni - the Pope - said ‘Let me have the hammer.’
With a sly grin and in spite of the solemnity of the occasion, Castiglioni joked back, ‘Just like that time I gave you the candlestick?’
Four years later Castiglioni succeeded his friend as Pope, taking the name Pius VIII.
Now if you had told any of those at Benediction that evening in 1770 that they had two future-Popes in those fighting altar boys at the back of the church they’d have laughed right in your face.
Last Sunday’s Gospel gave us the good news that God can change even smallest shoots that look like weeds to become wheat and that we should be patient with each other’s weaknesses.
Bishop Fulton Sheen said in one of his famous radio speeches: ‘The history of the world might have been different if the Christian authorities had shown compassion, patience and mercy instead of expelling Hitler and Mussolini from the schools and Stalin from the seminary in disgrace as ‘weeds’.
In October 1990 I had just been here in Holy Family a few months when I heard the last of all the bombs I experienced during ‘The Troubles’.
Patsy Gillespie’s family was held hostage while he was tied to the steering wheel of his car with the curtain cords from his home and ordered to drive it loaded with a bomb to the Coshquin checkpoint.
Together with five British soldiers he was blown to pieces.
Fast forward to the present and those who planned and executed this evil deed are now the champions of peace and justice in the nationalist community.
Jesus did not pretend there were no weeds.
We are called to recognize evil for what it is, to name it and then hand it over to God in prayer so He can take care of it, the way the farmer in the parable told his servants that he would take care of the weeds.
The disciples to whom Jesus addresses this parable were both saints and sinners, including Judas who would betray him, Peter, who would deny him, Thomas, who would doubt him, and James and John, who would have their own personal ambitions, all this showing us that many ‘weeds’ can become high yielding wheat. Each one of us is a combination of wheat and weeds.
There is a saint and sinner in each of us. Which do we nourish? The reason therefore why we should resist the temptation to rush into judgment of others and become ‘weed gatherers’ is that we cannot draw a neat line on the sand which would clearly separate the good from the bad.
As I say, in every one of us there is a mixture of good and evil – only the final determination will be made by God. Evil will coexist with good until the second coming of Jesus.
Those with gardens have to constantly root out the weeds.
The Good News is that his grace, love and mercy, - as in the story above about the two fighting altar boys, or the Coshquin bomb- are the most effective forms of ‘weed control’.
Through the power of the Holy Spirit, God can change even the ugliest thorn into a blossom of faith.
In the end, it’s enough to know that we are all “seeds” who have been planted by the ‘Son of Man’ to simply try to do our best in spite of our wounds, our sins and broken bits and hand our lives over to him in hope and trust knowing that we’re all part of that healthy harvest that will someday be reaped by the angels of God.
Dear Lord,
On the day of the harvest the straw is set aside, the chaff is blown away by the wind, and the weeds are consigned to the flames. But the wheat, like sacks of gold, is gathered into the barn.
On that day of death, the harvest of my life will be poured out before you, wheat and chaff and weeds together. Let your wise hand sift through it, keep what is worth keeping, and with the breath of your kindness, blow the rest away. Amen
Word of Wisdom
Whatever I’ve done
Whatever my troubles today
Whatever tomorrow may bring
You love me as I am Lord
And nothing’s greater than your love
Joke
How do you kill a circus? Go for the juggler!