Matthew under the arm 135

We were in a crowd of pilgrims who were making there way to some festival. There standing on a pavement was a pathetic young woman, cheeks soiled with tears. Her baby was wrapped in a filthy shawl and crying with hunger. The door of an adjacent house slammed shut. ‘Well pilgrims, eh? Well, pray for the slut!’ came a shout from a window. ‘She’s a whore and the child is the result of her whoring’. Two pilgrims as they passed her, haughtily scolded her. ‘You ought to have been on the pilgrimage with us, repenting of your slimey practices.’ Columba immediately went to her and hugged her and kissed her on the forehead. I was embarrassed. He took the child from her and urged her to join him. ‘Come with me. You are a pilgrim with us. We will find warmth for the night’. The other pilgrims? They had gone, of course.


Matthew 27.39-44
The passer-by… To pass by or to be at a safe distance can lead to the cowardice of finger pointing. Watching a drunken brawl on a city street can call forth dismissive accusations from that cold distance of righteousness. As I stand and condemn, I realise the dark confusion and violence of my own soul. When the pain is happening to someone else, so often it comes with relief for me. The jeering and laughing continues: ‘Save yourself!’ Here is an appeal that has echoed down history. A party atmosphere forms as jibe after jibe, including quotes from the Old Testament, gather pace and volume. ‘He has put his trust in God’. Death by countless sneers that probably for his crucified colleagues was at least a little distracting from their own pain.

OPEN THE EYES OF MY HEART THAT I MAY SEE WITH CLARITY YOUR LOVE IN THE DESPISED.

Before entering this exercise, use the sentence to still yourself for a few moments. Then…in your memory, go back to a time when you were jeered at; when you were powerless, belittled, humiliated at a meeting. See the people; listen to what is being said. Notice the looks on the faces. Imagine Christ there with you. Do not ‘do’ anything – just experience and watch in your prayer. Now recall the time when you have rejected and participated in negativity towards somebody. Now see Christ with that person. This exercise is not about shame or guilt. It is simply about being aware of the destructive power of group aggression. Allow Christ to be the dominant ‘centre’ of your prayer as he becomes an instrument that ;’short-circuits’ the dark energies of back-biting and jeering. Note down your feelings and reactions. Above all, do not accuse yourself, just notice….That is enough. This is your Passion!

+Martin
Bishop of Argyll and The Isles.

Matthew under the arm 134

There’s not much further to go now. I don’t know what to expect when I arrive, nor what I shall feel like. Columba himself is exhausted. This pilgrimage for him has not just been about his own spiritual journey. ‘What is a spiritual journey?’ he once asked me. He wasn’t really expecting an answer. For him, all there is, is this moment and all that this moment is! Here is God, although, he would add, ‘You wont see him, for if you did, it wouldn’t be God.’ What then is there in this pilgrimage other than an eventful journey? And this morning I had the answer. Columba was leaning against an old tree, shielding himself from a sudden hail-storm. He was holding a piece of torn paper folded up, as if it was the most treasured possession in the world. He knew I was inquisitive. ‘There is a name in here. It’s the name of a woman whose months old baby died. She has been with me all the way, as she asked.’ Pilgrimage.


Matthew 27.32-38
There is a bewildering aspect to Christian Way, in that many seem to be ‘enlisted’ – with little or no choice. Simon of Cyrene is one such. After the brutal abuse that he suffered, Jesus was obviously beyond carrying anything, let alone a heavy cross. Maybe it was the inevitability of his death that was also weighing too much. There’s no telling what Cyrene felt or said. After all, for the Gospel narrative, obedience was of the ultimate importance. And what obedience! Jesus has his clothing removed. All of it? Completely naked on the Cross? God completely exposed and reduced to a squalid and humiliating fate. ‘This is Jesus…’ And to add to the excruciating experience, look at the company God keeps even at His death!

IN MY GIFT OF STILLNESS WITHIN YOU, I CALL YOU TO OPEN ALL OF YOURSELF TO MY LOVE

Maybe you can recall a time when you were asked to ‘carry’ someone’s load, either literally or metaphorically. Maybe someone asked you to carry their luggage, their shopping, their furniture…. Maybe someone asked you to represent them to some institution, some official… Relive an event when you felt you couldn’t really refuse. Whose weight do you feel called to carry in your local community? Have you resisted it? Now, imagine Jesus asking you to carry somebody, something, even his cross for him. Perhaps you are embarrassed at being associated with: ‘…Jesus, the King of the Jews’! Remember to review your time of prayer and imagining.

+Martin
Bishop of Argyll and The Isles.

Matthew under the arm 133

We came across a series of small houses built around a small loch, where I had imagined we could get some hot food and a wash. ‘We are about to meet someone who needs our help and support’ Columba said crossly. ‘The young man you will meet has been running from village to village hoping not to be caught. Remove your attention from your stomach and pay acute attention to what we must be and do!’ Columba had followed directions he had been given and quickly ushered me into a little stone bothy. There sat the young man shivering from fear. He had been wrongfully accused of raping a young woman in a hamlet back over the mountains. I was completely lost as to what we could do. Through the door came another young man who had been walking with us for days, also in silence. Columba obviously recognised him. ‘Go with Columba’, he said. ‘But you….They will come for…’ ‘Go’, said the young man.

Matthew 27:27-31.
Out of sight – out of mind. There would have been a sense of being in an exclusive situation – the Praetorium. No crowd here. Like all places of torture, it could be applied without censure. Here the expectation would have been to cause maximum fear and humiliation on Jesus. Those who were led to the Gas Chambers, were first stripped and left trying as best they may to cover themselves: a futile exercise. But Jesus remained in silence, fully exposed. Purple was thrown over him: the royal colour and ironically, the colour of healing. The thorns of the crown would not only cause bleeding but constant searing pain. Derision followed: which is designed to reduce and deny any respect. So here we have a bewildering collection of images: royalty, healing, physical torture, humiliation, defencelessness. His own clothes were put back on him in case the crowd grew angry with the soldiers for abusing the precious and expensive sign of purple royalty. With someone else’s phlegm dripping down his cheeks, the rest was inevitable.

I WOULD ACKNOWLEDGE YOUR LOVE WITHIN ME THAT I MAY SEE IT IN THOSE AROUND ME.

There is little necessity to imagine this appalling agony, perhaps because it is too easy to do so. What is almost impossible is to imagine Jesus’ composure. The Passion narrative is pointing us to who Jesus is. He is the Love of God in the darkest and most distant place imaginable from that love. Yes: this is the strangest of paradoxes. So, having read the passage carefully and slowly and briefly experienced it, move into silent prayer with the sentence and allow the positive regard of it to be the focus of the silence. Set a time for the silence and do not leave it until you have remained there with Jesus who remains with you, despite whatever agony we experience directly or indirectly.

+Martin
Bishop of Argyll and The Isles.

Matthew under the arm 132

The sky was clear and the air crisp with cold as we eventually reached the bottom of a range of hills above another of those hidden towns. Columba loves this weather. ‘You can see as if into eternity’. I mocked his sentimentality. We walked by a passage-way and heard a commotion. There was a woman hitting her drunken son with a stick. He was a pathetic sight. He deserved what he got. Was I enjoying his thrashing? I turned as if to leave them. Columba held me by the shoulders and turned me to face the couple. ‘Look into their faces as if you were looking into eternity. Our stillness caught the eye of the woman, who broke down in tears at the tragedy of their poverty.


Matthew 27:11-26
Jesus doesn’t even attempt to defend himself. One can sense Pilate’s and the religious leaders’ frustration. The ‘notorious prisoner, Barrabas, may have been a Robin Hood figure or a psychopathic killer on the other. Some have suggested that he might have been some liberation fighter. The admiration for him in the crowd is not that surprising. We have that strange propensity to admire such personalities. The movie industry thrives on them. Pilate’s wife, like a Lady Macbeth, is desperate to remove Jesus away from the trial and from execution. Somehow, she feels exposed in front of him, just as Herod’s wife felt exposed in the presence of John the Baptist.

THAT YOU MAY TURN MY HEART TO STILLNESS, LIGHT AND TRUTH.

In this exercise, imagine yourself to be there in the crowd….some anonymous figure. You are watching, hardly able to admit that you are enjoying the thrill of someone else’s inevitable suffering. You watch the politicians squirm and the religious leaders sweat at the seeming calm of Jesus. The thrill…such a mess! Gradually, you are startled at your own destructive desires and you long for that ‘skill’ in Jesus to remain still in the face of all those self-obsessed psyches. But try imagining yourself as Pilate’s wife: the anxiety; the alarm at what you see as inevitable from this show-trial. Then be Pilate’s wife: ‘What is it that I long to wash my hands free from...’? Write down in your journal your responses to this exercise and use your writing as a prayer, accompanying it with the sentence.

+Martin
Bishop of Argyll and The Isles