Frederick William Faber, the 19th-century Roman Catholic priest and theologian, is perhaps best remembered for his writings, and especially his hymns, which include My God How Wonderful Thou Art and All Creatures of Our God and King.
Interestingly these are probably better known and more widely used in Protestant circles but there is one notable exception: Faith of our Fathers belongs in a very special way to the Catholic tradition.
Fr Faber once observed that “kind listening is . . . a great assistance towards kind speaking”. It is a quality not always present in national conversations on issues like church/state relations or the sensitive abortion controversy. There are good people on all sides but some seem incapable of allowing for the possibility that their opponents might have something important to say. Trenches are dug, minds closed and too often voices raised and pens sharpened.
This is the way of the world but it should never be the way of the church. Kind listening is part of our vocation, a fact demonstrated by Jesus again and again.
Speaking in Tralee two years ago Archbishop Diarmuid Martin said: “Where the church argues from general principles, there is inevitably the feeling on the part of others that it is somehow against the concrete individual men and women who have a different viewpoint. This is made more complex if church leaders, or self-appointed church spokespersons, use language which is insensitive and over-judgmental.” He said that Jesus Christ never criticised those with whom he may have disagreed about their morals, “except with those who were hypocritical and all too often the hypocrites in Jesus’s judgment, it is clear in the gospels, were the religious leaders”.
Past and present meet in one of tomorrow’s readings. The Books of Acts gives an account of St Paul’s visit to Athens in AD 50, mentioning the Acropolis and its famous Parthenon, places familiar to any 21st-century tourist.
Paul spent time with different groups; people of faith in the synagogue and others in the marketplace who were willing to listen.
Finally he was given an opportunity to address a formal meeting of the Areopagus on Mars Hill.
He had seen numerous idols across the city, one of which was dedicated to the unknown God but he didn’t talk down to people; he listened and showed respect for their views: “Then Paul stood in front of the Areopagus and said, ‘Athenians, I see how extremely religious you are in every way. For as I went through the city and looked carefully at the objects of your worship, I found among them an altar with the inscription, ‘To an unknown god.’What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you.’”
His message was simple: the unknown had become the known through Jesus Christ.
Paul believed it was the duty of the church to reach out to those who had no faith, as did Bishop Lesslie Newbigin of the Church of South India. Newbigin said: “the truth is that we do not truly understand the gospel if we spend all our time preaching it to Christians . . . The gospel is communication of news to those who do not know it, and we only really understand it as we are involved in so communicating it. ”
In the gospel reading Jesus promises that his people will not be left without support for this work and so the gift of the Holy Spirit is promised. But it is not sought by everyone: “the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him.” William Barclay suggests that “world” means those who live as if there was no God. “The person who has eliminated God never listens for him; and we cannot receive the Holy Spirit unless we wait in expectation and prayer for him to come to us.”
Before talking to the world, we must first listen and respond to God’s Holy Spirit; not as easy as it sounds because the Spirit of truth is often the Spirit of change.