GOLF IS GOOD FOR YOU

Not all that long ago, “evangelisation” was a “Buzz” word. It made the conversation fizz like a tablet dropped into water. Not now! The high hopes have receded. The Fizz factor is not so common. Now, honest spirits emerge from yet another church meeting, without that once noticeable spring in the step. They seem weary that all the hours and all the words have not yet produced the longed for “Snap, Crackle and Pop”. To the side, there are those who feel that all these local initiatives and weary hours of discussion miss the point. We need only keep to the faith, as handed down of course, not as shared from within. We can only reach out to others by being what we are, loud and clear.

Bishop Patrick appears immune to this debate or else his footwork is remarkable. He continues as before to smack out the word “evangelisation” with almost boyish enthusiasm. You can’t miss it, which makes the lack of material evidence that much more mystifying. Why, in spite of such a clear lead, is there still so much uncertainty about? The answer my lad, may be found on those wide green acres where so many lessons about life can be learned, the golf course. Come!

Every weekend-golfer knows that it is not enough to hit the ball. Any duffer can do that. No, it is what happens afterwards, once the club head has made contact with the ball, that really matters. Golfers call it the “follow-through.” The secret of success on the fairways lies there. Neglect the “follow-through” and your second shot may be a sight more difficult than it need have been, if indeed you are granted a second sight. As with your drive, so with evangelisation. Not sufficient simply to make contact, not enough merely to smack it into play with impressive force, the follow-through is everything. If we say “evangelisation” then we must DO evangelisation. The follow-through must show in the structures we set up and in those we abandon, in our choice of personnel and in our financial priorities. Especially, our follow-through should show in the risks we are prepared to take. Like all the really memorable golf shots, evangelisation always calls for daring. Nothing ventured; nothing crucified. If evangelisation stays safe, always stopping at the point of utterance, then, as John McEnroe used to say in the course of another game, “You can not be serious.”

And golf can teach us even more. There is for instance, the “wind” factor. Wind can be an absolute beggar, especially if it is one of those quietly lurking winds that allows your shot to look good at the outset and then deposits it where you never intended. Lesson number 2 then, my lad, use the prevailing wind if you can, but don’t rely on it to do your job for you. Which takes us neatly to lesson number 3, or should it be Numero Uno? It is this. Know clearly what it is you are hoping to achieve. Pointless to look back in anger, blaming everything from the noise the butterflies made to the way some silly beggar designed the course. Most golfers are eventually persuaded to admit the game is greater than all who play it. So with evangelisation, God is in charge. Just remember; God is now. Don’t spend too long listening to advice from others, much of what they have to say will be no more than well-rehearsed mistakes. Sinful to play for time for instance, restoring the past is not the way to God. The time is NOW. God speaks to us from this NOW, not someone else’s now, long ago. Keep it simple. Follow through on your own gut feeling. It’ll be right, as God wants you to be in this life. Trust your spirit, when the round is over it is you who must sign the card.

MYSTICS IN THE MARKET PLACE

There has always been a tension in our living of the Gospel. Alongside the command to love embodied in words such as, “as long as you did it to others you did it to me” there is the longing to spend personal time with the Lord, “come to me all you who labour and are overburdened.” A Martha & Mary thing, perhaps. To a large extent it may be a matter of timing, balancing one with the other, neglecting neither. But the unease seems to spill over into the liturgy too.

People are sometimes unhappy with the use of the word “celebrate” in connection with the Mass suggesting that it often amounts to a mere celebration of ourselves. But is there anything wrong with celebrating ourselves if in fact the self that we are celebrating is the new self, born again in Baptism? As St. Paul so famously put it, “we went into the tomb with him and joined his in death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the Father’s glory, we too might live a new life”. Celebrating such a unity between the risen Lord and ourselves, is the very holiest of communions, sufficient surely to unite our need to be still and our urge to action. Then we can truly say, again with St. Paul, “I live, now not I, but Christ lives in me.”