Skips of the Heart - Chris Gleeson SJ
In early July I revisited one of my old stamping grounds, St Ignatius’ College, Riverview, and joined about forty Jesuits and their lay colleagues in the 2009 Province Retreat. Instead of looking to some Jesuit guru to lead us this year, the retreat organizers stepped out of the square to choose the team from the Campion Spirituality Centre in Melbourne as our presenters. As if that group were not formidable enough, they were joined by our own Faber Centre star in Kerry Holland, former Campion team leader and now Jesuit Theological College Rector Michael Smith SJ, with the doyen of conference presenters, Richard Leonard SJ, making some colourful cameo appearances from time to time. We retreatants were given a feast.
On the first morning the Team Captain, Bernadette (Bernie) Miles, invited us to listen for the surprises during the next 8 days, or 4 days for those of less robust spiritual stamina. In particular, we were challenged to watch out for those surprises that come to us in the greatest simplicity and elegance. They were not long in coming. My own spiritual director for the retreat, Michael Smith, suggested at our first meeting that I should “take my apostolic dreams for a walk” during that day. What a lyrical challenge Michael set me at the outset!
The theme for the Retreat was “Through the eyes of Ignatius” and the presenters had us looking through many different lenses – poetry, music, art, film, guided meditation, and for the more adventurous, some faith formation groups. Resident poet Marlene Marburg reminded us of the very radical nature of Ignatius’ decision to let go the reins of the donkey when trying to make up his mind about pursuing the Moor who, he thought, had insulted the Virgin Mary. A retreat, our prayer, like poetry, is about letting go the reins. When on our journey with Ignatius we reached the famous shrine of the Black Madonna at Montserrat, Jan Geason challenged us to ask ourselves: ‘what arms am I placing before the Black Madonna?’ The enormity of what Ignatius was doing here in totally relinquishing his comfortable past for a radically new and uncertain future, his absolute freedom and trust in God whatever might come, was palpable.
Not surprisingly, there were some fine lines from our presenters during the eight days. In one of the nightly guided meditations, Bernie Miles used an excerpt from the film “Copying Beethoven” in which the great composer has become deaf and is unable to hear his beautiful music played except in his head. With the help of his beautiful copyist giving him the leads for the orchestra, he conducts the 9th Movement before all the famous people of Vienna - some of whom had come to see him falter – ending with their standing acclaim. Like Daniel Daréus in that wonderful film, “As It Is in Heaven”, Beethoven’s dream was to play music that would open people’s hearts. Accordingly, Bernie sent us away with the question ringing in our ears: What is God dreaming in me tonight?
Many people associated with Ignatian spirituality around Australia would know Kerry Holland, a member of the Faber Centre team in Brisbane, as a very fine artist in her own right. On this occasion, however, it was her words that struck a chord with me. When talking about finding God in all things, Kerry mentioned that God meets us in the surprising events of life, “in the skip of our hearts.” How true this is! When reflecting later about these words, I remembered my heart skipping on four recent occasions.
The previous day, as I walked past the tennis courts on my way back to Kevin Fagan House, a young man playing tennis walked out of the sun and out of my head magisterial past, to introduce himself with a broad smile. “Tom Carney, Father, Class of 1999. Very good to see you.” He told me that he had just finished his Master’s degree and was waiting on a big job interview that afternoon. I told him that I would be praying during the retreat for a successful outcome.
Just prior to the retreat, I received an email from a teacher friend, Jim Skerl, at St. Ignatius’ High School in Cleveland, Ohio, where I taught for a time in 1986. He told me that the Head of the Theology Department during that era, Mike Pennock, had died recently of colon cancer. There was a skip of the heart as I thought how this good man, a brilliant teacher and published writer on High School theology, had made me so welcome all those years ago. I even went on a golf retreat he conducted for the students, where his presentation sessions on Ignatian spirituality were quite outstanding. Jim wrote: “I was able to see him in Texas a couple of times the past few weeks. The first time, at the end of May, was full of conversation and laughter. The second time, this past weekend, was a time of quiet friendship. Mike wanted to be remembered to you. He held you in the highest esteem. I know the feelings were reciprocated.” The heart skipped. A God moment.
There was another skip of the heart when I placed the priest’s stole on Norbert Olsen’s coffin at the Mass of Thanksgiving for his life in mid-May. Norbie, as we all knew him, wore his stole – as he did most of his vestments and ordinary clothes – at odd angles. He was that sort of person – someone with an angular view of the world that helped the rest of us keep life in more accurate perspective. He would be very surprised, two months on, to hear of our affection for him and to know that we still miss him very much in the Jesuit community at Toowong.
One of the great films of recent years is surely ‘As It Is in Heaven’? During the retreat I saw for the first time the English translation of Gabriela’s Song, one of the high points of the story. My heart skipped at the words: “I want to feel that I’ve lived my life.” How easy it is simply to go through the motions of living our lives and letting life wash over us – ‘living and partly living’, as T.S.Eliot writes in his play ‘Murder in the Cathedral.’
May you find a new spring in your step during this wonderful season of growth and new life, and especially may you experience God in each skip of the heart. Let me register one final skip. On the last day of the retreat Tom emerged from the tennis courts again to tell me joyfully that his job interview was successful and he was beginning on Monday. “I owe you a couple, Father,” were his parting words as he returned to his tennis match. A promise of prayer always brings a skip of the heart.
