What is needed to die within myself? What was the magic recipe in being free to acknowledge the Author of Life, the Creator of Creation? When I was a child, I could never have imagined how my world was going to unfold. From my earliest years and in the most unconventional manner, I dared to welcome voices within myself that would lead me to only God knew where.
“As Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so must the Son of man be lifted up”. What a strange image! The serpent / snake which Moses lifted up was a metal image of a snake. A strange image given the abhorrence for carved images in the Old Testament and the whole drama around the metal bull which the people made and worshipped in the absence of Moses. Strange that Jesus should liken himself to that image of a metal snake being raised aloft for people bitten by real snakes to gaze on and be cured. But that image is still with us today. The sign above so many pharmacies carries the image of a snake. This is because the snake also provides the antidote to its poison. The image of the snake as healing continues.
The Gospel in this Sunday’s Mass is uncompromising; Jesus takes cords, makes a whip of them and drives the merchants and money-changers out of the Temple. Imagine someone doing that today, the shock, the scandal, the headlines, the Social Media response … the talking heads on all the media outlets having common cause - the blaming of over-zealous, over the top reaction to a little bit of common sense business being done in the Church! Well, so runs my imagination.
We are a Roman Catholic Congregation of Priests, Brothers and Lay Associates. Our congregation was founded in Paris in 1703 by a young 24 year old Breton Lawyer, Claude Poullart des Places.
He founded a community for young men who wished to become priests and dedicated it to the Holy Spirit.
