I’m not very good with fire, or at least, with fire lighting, despite my tenderest years having been spent in a coal fired house. It did have a have a mythical (never seen but much referred to) mechanism called a Back Boiler, but no one explained which backs were to be boiled, or why. Before long, we moved, much to my mother’s delight, who made her detestation of having to clean up a fireplace clear to all, to a house that had central heating, and fitted carpets). So, I never learnt how to like a fire.
This was brought to mind by this Sunday’s gospel in which Jesus improvises a seaside breakfast, though he is using charcoal for the fire, perhaps because it’s better for grilling fish, though I’ve never found it helpful since my noviciate days when I was often tasked with lighting a thurible with charcoal from a damp cupboard, with the result being a deal of hissing and spluttering but rapid hibernation as soon as I looked away. But perhaps the point is that it was it was a brazier filled with charcoal that Peter was standing beside when he was less than frank about his relationship with Jesus to the High Priest’s servants.
Now, fire lighting is or is about to be, very much in the news. Conclaves are irregular and (we hope) infrequent, but the not entirely black, nor yet obviously white smoke against a grey sky will entertain us as before. Actually, I have personal pyrotechnic experience on this matter as well since, as the secretary to the monastic chapter at the time of an abbatial election, I was instructed to burn the ballot papers, which turned out o be more challenging than I had imagined as, assisted by a gentle breeze, I covered the monastery garden with a manna-like film of lightly charred ballots. Fire, for me, means not being much in control. But perhaps that’s the whole point. Peter found out the hard way that he wasn’t in control of much, even himself, and in a time of strident voices declaiming that we much have a pope to do this or stop that, it would do us all good to step back and ask ourselves why we want one result or another; what leads us to make our choices, and is it the Holy Spirit that we are listening to? That’s what the cardinals are doing in Rome. There will be plotting and scheming of course, that always happens, (that’s how we know we are dealing with humans not bots),, but at root it must be about what we most truly desire. And such a search will take us places that surprise us, as those who sought out Jesus always found. A despondent Peter spent the night looking for fish, but what he found at dawn was self-knowledge and Christ-knowledge and became the very first Bishop of Rome as a result..
Let’s pray for the cardinals as they seek the one thing, the one vote necessary. But don’t forget the Sistine smoke makers either.
Happy Easter
Abbot Martin OSB
