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Dear Friends
I want to share with you some thoughts about this
time of year, inspired by what’s happening in my own community.
“I am very fond of being looked at.” So said
Gwendolyn in Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest, but I
suspect that not all of us could agree. Feeling that we are under
scrutiny is not comfortable. And yet, on the third fourth and fifth
Sundays of Lent, in the Catholic Church we celebrate what we call
“the Scrutinies”, special rites at Mass for those preparing for
baptism at Easter. These rites involve the whole of the community:
we pray for those to be baptised, and we are also reminded of our
own baptism and journey into faith - a journey which, in truth,
never ends.
The prayer in the Scrutinies is twofold: first, for
grace and the gifts we need to nourish and strengthen us along the
way; secondly, for freedom from all that blinds or binds or hinders
us. In the Ignatian tradition we would say freedom from inordinate
attachments and from what lures us to the standard of the enemy
rather than that of Christ.
The context of the Scrutinies is the narrative of
encounter. The Mass gospels are those of the Samaritan woman at the
well, the man born blind and the raising of Lazarus. They are all
stories of being looked at, of being truly seen by
Jesus; they are stories of grace and freedom. Jesus looks at the
woman, and he sees through the difference and the shame and the
rackety lifestyle to the beautiful, thirsty child of God. He looks
at the blind man, and sees through the theories of blame and
retribution to the faith of one who desires healing. He looks at
Lazarus, and sees through the stink of death and rules of
uncleanness to the friend he loves.
In each encounter there is also a theophany - God
also lets himself be scrutinised. And because the stories come to
us from John’s gospel, in each one we hear spoken the name of God: I Am. We
hear it among the trivialities about wells and buckets, and through
Martha’s cries of anger and grief. And in the blind man’s story?
That’s perhaps the most shocking of all: it is the blind man
himself, now seeing, who says “I am he” (in the Greek it’s simply I Am, just
like the others). As Irenaeus put it: “Jesus Christ, through his
boundless love, became what we are so that we might become what he
is.” Imagine the growing excitement of those to be baptised
at the thought of what awaits: to be healed, to be set free to bear
witness, to “put on Christ”.
Seeing and being seen. What has this to do with
spiritual direction? Well… can you remember your first meeting with
the person who is now your spiritual director? Did you wonder where
to begin, what to share? Often underneath those questions are ones
that say “is there anything I can’t share? Will they be shocked?
Feel they can’t work with someone like me?” So often the people I
see who are looking for a spiritual director tell me they want
someone who will make them feel safe and accepted. To challenge,
yes, but to see them as they are and not judge them.
And directors: do we sometimes forget just who is
coming to see us? Is the person at the door just another name in
the diary for today, or someone who will show us - often
surprisingly - a face of the Divine. The loving gaze of God flows
both ways. This, I think, is the most wonderful, disturbing and
amazing thing about spiritual direction. As Margaret Silf says, in
such an encounter “God-in-you is listening to” - and looking at -
“God-in -the-other.” Or, in Anthony de Mello’s words, “behold God
beholding you - and smiling”.
Enjoy blessings, grace and freedom in this holy
season!
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