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Sunday Reflection with Fr Terry Tastard - 26 June 2011


Ai Weiwei

Ai Weiwei

Oppressive governments go to great lengths to suppress ideas. Who would have thought that the Chinese government would feel threatened by an artist?

But Ai Weiwei has just been released after three months imprisonment for speaking frankly about his own country. He believes that a steep price has been paid for China's frantic economic growth. Its people, he said, 'walk like ghosts on the ever-widening streets, and their true emotions, dreams and homes are long lost.' China is 'a land with no truth, no justice and no soul.' China today is more complex than this, of course - after all, it is a country that can produce an artist as original and thought-provoking as Ai Weiwei himself. But the response of the authorities to his frank speaking demonstrates the proof of what he is trying to say. The people can be free, but only up to a point.

What nourishes us? This is the implicit question that he is asking China today, and it is an uncomfortable question. In fact, you could ask the question of Britain as well. What nourishes us here in our own country? Well, you need food for the body. Our larders are by and large full. You need food for the mind.

Our schools, colleges, universities and media give us plenty of that. But we still need food for the spirit. What feeds our ideals, what gives us hope, what lifts us up out of the narrowness of our lives and broadens our horizons? What challenges our constant human tendency to complacency and points us instead towards generosity, sacrifice, and concern for the well-being of others? These are spiritual questions, and the only answer can be spiritual food. These questions lead us back to God.

Two thousand years ago Jesus sat at a Passover meal and broke bread, saying, 'This is my body.' He passed around a cup of wine, saying, 'This is my blood.' It was a beautiful and powerful symbol that in this food, he would always be present. He would be among his people always, but in this way he would draw close to them. Here they would recognise his living presence among them. And in this food of the eucharist he would give them spiritual nourishment that would lead them deeper into the fullness of life that he promised.

We are so used to the Mass that we sometimes fail to notice the wonder of what it signifies. It is about gifts. In bread and wine we bring the signs of our daily life as gifts to Christ and find that in return Christ gives himself to us.

It is about community, because we gather around the altar as a community who know themselves equally beloved. It is about love, because at every Mass we commemorate the love of God for humankind that led Christ to the cross.

It is about peace and reconciliation, because, knowing that God forgives us, we pledge to try to forgive others, and as a sign of this we exchange a sign of peace. All these aspects of the eucharist and more besides are immeasurably deepened for us because we believe that at the eucharist, Christ is among us.

The bread and wine are changed. Outwardly the bread and wine remain the same, but inwardly everything is different. We hope the same for ourselves. Week by week, year by year, we come to Mass, in the faith that here we are nourished by God. Christ comes into the centre of our lives, so that we may be changed, and sent back into the world as his representatives. Now there's a challenge.


Fr Terry is Parish Priest at Holy Trinity Catholic Church in Brook Green, west London. His latest book: Ronald Knox and English Catholicism is published by Gracewing at £12.99 and is available on Amazon, on ICN's front page. To read Sr Gemma Simmonds' review on ICN see: www.indcatholicnews.com/news.php?viewStory=16114

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