In
the middle of the 1970's Mark Raper S.J., then Director
of the Jesuit “Asian Bureau”, asked me to write an article
on the links between contemplation and social awareness/action.
Mark could have supposed that I might know something
about contemplation, though that would have been a somewhat
doubtful assumption. It is true that I had, been living
a completely enclosed `contemplative” life for twelve
years, before the changes f Vatican II brought our contemplative,
Eucharistic life back to earth and back to an earthed
theology of Eucharist. I wanted to write the article.
I knew that the Eucharist is broken bread for broken
people but in my whole life I'd had very little, if
any, direct contact with poor, broken, dispossessed
and unjustly outcast people. I knew I needed to go somewhere
beyond the walls that insulated our lives and limited
our vision and understanding. But how could I do that?
As I wondered I remembered something I'd heard about
Redfern, in Sydney
-- something about Fr Ted Kennedy and the urban aboriginal
community he and others were living with, serving, looking
after and learning from. After having contacted Ted
and been encouraged by him (albeit in a fairly vague
and general way!) I got permission from my superior
to come to Redfern, from Melbourne.
There is a sense in which I have been here ever since.
One
of my most vivid early memories is of a day which was
like any other in the St
Vincent's
Redfern- Community. The Presbytery, the Convent and
the yard were crowded with Aboriginal people. There
were others taking shelter in the Church. Ted would
be emerging any time from the sacristy where he lived.
Mum Shirl was already outside her room, holding court
and holding forth about something or other. In the small
kitchen huge quantities o food were being prepared by
a few of the team of people who lived and worked in
the Community at that time. These included Pat Durnan,
Tom Hammerton, Joan Hamilton, Chris Smith, Karen Donnelson,
and Germane Hurst.
On
this particular day a woman arrived exhausted, as if
from a long journey. She looked ill, tattered, torn,
weak and hungry. I'll call her “Mary”. Chris Smith and
I went to look after her, thinking “cup of tea or something
to start with”. She knew Chris, looked at her and, with
some hesitation, said, “Sis, do you reckon I could have
a bath?” We took her to the convent and upstairs to
the bathroom which had a really large tub. We ran a
lot of hot water, carefully undressed Mary and lowered
her thin, black body into the bath. She was smiling
as if all her dreams had come true. While we sponged
her she kept reaching her arms out n the water as if
to embrace it. Then she would cup her hands, fill them
with water, slowly lift them over her head and let the
sparkling shower fall all over her. All the time she
was repeating a kind of chant “beautiful I water, lovely
water, lovely warm water”.
As
we continued to bathe this beautiful woman's body I
was overwhelmed by a sense that this was indeed the
body of Christ in our hands. That moment taught me more
than I could have learned in many years of contemplation.
Daily contact, conversation, laughter, many tears and
great sorrows shared with Aboriginal people in and around
the St Vincent's community have coloured and dictated
my life, my thinking and my theology ever since.
One
of the greatest teachers of theology was Harold, a homeless,
aboriginal man who spent most of his time walking around
the streets. Sometime after my first prolonged stay
in St
Vincent's
community, three of us Blessed Sacrament Sisters, Betty,
Marie and I came to live in nearby Newtown,
and Harold became a daily visitor. One night soon after
we moved into the house, I was home alone. Suddenly
there was a loud knocking on the front door. It was
Harold. “What are you doing Sis”, he asked. “Just sitting
in the chapel Harold”, “I'll come in and sit there too.”
We sat in silence for a while and then Harold pointed
to a Breviary lying on the bench between us and asked
“what’s that book?”’. I replied, “It's the book we say
our prayers from Harold.” “Oh, is there a blessing in
that book for me?” he asked “Yes, I'm sure there is.”
I found a blessing and read it for him. Again we sat
in silence for a good while and I felt deep contentment
with the whole situation. Harold stirred. “What is it?”
I asked. His reply was a question, “Don't you want me
to read a blessing for you?” My world turned upside
down and in that instant many of my assumptions and
presumptions were totally shattered. Harold did read
a blessing for me and I have never received a greater
one. He was a Christ-bearer, as are many of the poor.
Fr
Ted Kennedy's ongoing, consistent teaching of Gospel
values in relation to attitudes towards and care of
Aboriginal and other poor people has formed, at St
Vincent's,
a community of care, concern and justice for all. The
weekly celebration of Eucharist is prayerful, joyful
and open to the unexpected. The “Sign of Peace” is much
more than a brief gesture to whoever is close by. At
St
Vincent's,
when “Peace” is announced, the community becomes mobile,
tactile and vocal. We move we seek out, we touch, we
inquire. We shall have been told already whose birthday
it is, who is ill or anxious or in need one way or another.
The presence of Aboriginal people brings all of us into
direct contact with the world Jesus seems to have loved
the most: - the world of the poor the afflicted, the
dispossessed and outcast. They show us the face of Christ
who made himself one with them.
Through
the years since the 1970's many things have changed.
The Convent has been demolished – (perhaps a sign of
the times in which we live?) The Aboriginal Medical
Centre has developed and expanded. The number of Aboriginal
people in and around the Church has diminished but,
wherever they may be, they know and we know that this
is their place - a Sacred Site. So many Aboriginal people
have died on this land and/or been buried from here
that the Church the Presbytery and the land are forever
sacred to them and also to us as a community.
In
St
Vincent's
Redfern Community the air we breathe, the land on which
we stand is laden with the suffering of generations
of the dispossessed original peoples of Australia.
The overwhelming spirit of the community is of longing
for Justice and Reconciliation for and with a People
who have been so comprehensively and unjustly dispossessed.
Surprising as it may seem, running beneath and through
every layer of this situation is a constant overflowing
river of laughter. It can break out at any time, suddenly,
unexpectedly. The unexpected is never far away and whether
it arrives in laughter or in tears it is generally presumed
to be somewhere close by.
One
of the reasons why I love this community so much is
that the telling of stories is given considerable space.
Be they sublime, terrible, funny, shocking, sad or too
long, every story is received and honoured. The liturgy
enfolds the stories of the day - the personal and the
communal. This can be demanding. At St
Vincent's
the liturgy is not always consoling or comfortable.
The Mass is not ended until announcements have been
made by anyone who wants to let us know something: how
a sick member is managing, when one or another protest
march will be on, when the next meeting of the women's
Christian/Muslim group will be, or the next meeting
of parents of Gay or Lesbian people, or some urgent
message from Pax Christi or from members of our congregation
who visit refugee detention centres. The needs of the
poor and oppressed are woven into the fabric of every
celebration of the Eucharist at St
Vincent's,
Redfern, just as they are woven into every aspect of
the life and teaching of Jesus.
When
we are listening to the Sunday readings my eyes are
sometimes drawn to the wall behind the reader. The paint
is peeling off in curving ribbons, exposing another
layer underneath. What could seem, at first sight, like
neglect reminds me that there is always something more,
something beneath the surface or behind appearances.
Our Church building appears to be run-down, perhaps
a bit like “Mary”, but just as there was something revealed
in “Mary's” worn out body there is more teaching in
the poverty of the stone and the wood the paint and
other simple decorations than might at first appear.
Yes, some work needs to be done on the building but
I hope it will remain simple, bare, minimalist, allowing
for that other layer of history and meaning to be glimpsed,
always there, just below the surface: - all the broken
black bodies, the lost land the suffering, all the laughter,
all the “broken” rights and “all the broken rites” -
just below the surface and always in our consciousness.
The
song is gone; the dance
is
secret with the dancers in the earth,
the
ritual useless, and the tribal story
lost
in an alien land.
`Bona
Ring” {Judith Wright, Collected Poems, Angus & Robertson
1994)
Oh
yes, I did learn something from coming to Redfern all
those years ago, something about the links between contemplation
and social awareness/action. You can't have one without
the other, at least not in the Christian scheme of things.
by Maureen Flood
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