Sunday Reflection with Fr Terry Tastard - 20 November 2011 - Anna Pavlova and Freud

ANNA PAVLOVA ....... 23 - 1 - 1931

Recently I took a funeral at Golders Green Crematorium. I was most impressed with the place. A huge cloister, an Italianate chapel, 12 acres of gardens. There is also a mausoleum like a vast hall, with niches containing the ashes of perhaps well over a thousand people. At one end of the mausoleum is an urn containing the ashes of Sigmund Freud. His ashes are in an ancient Roman urn from his own collection. At the other end of the mausoleum can be found a shelf with a stone urn containing the ashes of the famous Russian ballerina Anna Pavlova. On her shelf there is also a porcelain swan, recalling the grace with which she used to dance The Swan, the ballet for which she is best known.

It struck me that in many ways this sums up the human condition. We are somewhere between Freud and Pavlova. Freud made the world aware of the surging life of the unconscious, especially our primitive drives of desire, aggression, and power-seeking. Anna Pavlova showed the world how a life of discipline, self-control and co-ordination can lead to beauty and grace. In the human condition we need both Freud and Pavlova. We need to have drives and desires. But unless these are disciplined and reined in, they will be destructive and lead to chaos. For our human flourishing we need to find a way to harness our energies so that they can be used creatively and wisely.

But how to do this? Here we turn to the image of Christ our King which tells us that there is one who rules our hearts. And he does this by being the one on whom we focus through all the storms and upheavals of our passions. Christ is the living presence in our hearts of the love of God for us, a love that laid down its life for us, a love that is the pattern for our own living. This is not just an idea but a presence within that reassures, steadies, and encourages us onwards. As Jesus himself says, the refreshment that he gives us day by day will be like a spring of water, welling up
within us, seeing us through to eternal life (John 4.14).

Christ our King rules our hearts by gentle persuasion. It is his presence as a living ideal that helps us shape our unruly natures. It is literally a lifelong process. It is a common Christian reaction to feel that we make no progress. Many of those who go to confession know the feeling that they seem to bring the same sins again and again. Yet day by day, year by year, our hearts are being shaped. And it is significant that we use the metaphor of the heart.

The heart is literally an organ that pumps blood around the body. But because it beats faster in times of excitement or dread, it has become a powerful symbol of our desires and fears. Christ shapes our hearts by being a living icon. He is there at the centre of our being, shining through our deepest desires and our strongest fears, helping us to rise above the narrowness of our constant self-absorption, so that our loves may become part of a greater love, and that our fears may be overcome. In this he is our King who draws us onwards.

Within every society this kingdom can be growing. Its citizens are you and me. In our desire to follow Christ, to live as he would have us live and love as he inspires us to love, we build what the late Pope John Paul called 'a civilization of love'.

Fr Terry is parish priest at St Mary's in Finchley East, north London. Fr Terry's 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