PEOPLE KEEP US NEW

After the Melbourne Cup fever had subsided in the first week of November, I experienced three very different days of travel and changing emotional gears. It was, nonetheless, a very rich time, meeting a variety of good people in different situations. Some were long standing friends, some were acquaintances of more recent origin, but I was a better person for their company. As we move into the newness of 2005, let us remember that it is people who keep us new.

On the Wednesday of Cup week, two of my former students from Sydney came to visit me and join my Jesuit Community for dinner at Xavier College in Melbourne. Initially, Daniel Street and Charles Magnus, from the Riverview Class of 1998, might have been a tad wary of their former Principal’s opinion that our own chef, Jackie, could match anything served in the best Melbourne restaurants. However, being young men of good faith they approached the table constructively, and were soon persuaded to my point of view. They did justice to Jackie’s many treats too.

Teachers and educators are springtime workers, often having to wait many years before seeing the fruit of their labours in their former students. Not a long wait for me with these two young men, however! It was a delight to hear of their achievements thus far, their plans for the future, their commitment to sound values and giving generously to the wider community.

Knowing hat I played some minor role in their formation, there was a certain pride for me too in meeting these fine young people again. ‘Hope is an echo’, Carl Sandburg once said, so these two and all who make up their world have a bright future.

The next day I drove to the beautiful Gippsland town of Sale in eastern Victoria. My mission was to give a presentation to a group of teachers and interested parishioners on ‘The Traces of God in our daily routines’. Such a theme is our Ignatian bread and butter, of course, and the good people of Sale devoured this fare with consummate ease.

It was also comforting to meet some faithful Madonna readers in the audience who came forward to identify themselves after the talk. Their day begins with a limp, so they claim, if for some reason they do not turn first to Madonna’s Daily Prayer. Our prayer composers can take a bow for placing hundreds of readers across the country in touch with God each day.

Reinvigorated by the robust spirituality of those Sale educators, I headed off early next morning to Nagambie in the central north for the state funeral of Marie Tehan. Sadly, Marie had been the new Chair of Jesuit Publications for only one meeting before she succumbed to the ravages of a rare brain disease and died just a few weeks later.

The beautiful little church of St Malachy’s, the Tehans’ family parish, could seat just 150 of the mourners while the overflow of some 600 people sat in two commodious marquees on the lawn outside.

Feelings of sadness at Marie’s untimely death at the young age of 64 were mingled with pride in knowing someone who had achieved so much in her life. Her strong and effective leadership as a politician in state government has been well documented, but the requiem Mass at Nagambie celebrated also her rich family life and her compassionate concern for the weak and needy people in our society.

Part of a minute for our next Jesuit Publications Board meeting reads: ‘Like so many in the community, we at Jesuit Publications were deeply saddened by the death of Marie Tehan. We grieved with Jim and the family who had so suddenly lost their wife and mother, and grieved with the many community groups to whom Marie was contributing so much. But we grieved also for ourselves, because Marie’s death was such a loss for ourselves’.

From Nagambie, and without having time to attend the wake at ‘Dalhousie’, it was time to turn the car in another direction and proceed to a wedding rehearsal at Anglesea. Fortunately, that generous supporter of Jesuit Publications and Board member, Damien Nolan, was the driver and I could limit my concentration to his dulcet tones.

The change of emotional gears was not too difficult. From the sadness of a funeral I soon found myself in the happy anticipation and lightheartedness of a wedding rehearsal. It is not easy to practise walking down the aisle without some sense of awkwardness and fun. Nonetheless, it is always a privilege to be part of a celebration that unites two fine individuals and their families.

People keep us new. When I think of the inspiration I received from my two young alumni friends, the hunger for God so evident in the people in Sale, the enthusiasm and passion I encountered always in Marie Tehan, the willingness to commit to enduring love in my married couple, there has been much refreshment for my soul in these experiences.

Every time we begin the Eucharist with the Penitential Rite, we commit ourselves to becoming new, to conversion and renewal. ‘Turn to me and be saved’, the prophet Isaiah says. Change is always a challenge to our comfort zone, but we can resonate with Cardinal Newman’s oft-quoted words that ‘to grow is to change, and to become perfect is to have changed many times’. Keep new.

And may you find yourself held in the hollow of the Lord's hand throughout 2005, and may the Irish Blessing bookmark, our New Year gift to you in this issue, keep life new for you.