A new drama series by Jimmy McGovern finished a couple of weeks ago on the BBC. Broken tells the story of Roman Catholic priest Father Michael Kerrigan, a broken person ministering to other broken people in an unnamed northern city. It's still available on BBC iPlayer and I would encourage you to watch it - only be prepared for a few grim hours. I'll try to avoid spoilers here.
Michael has a problem: whenever he celebrates Mass (which I think in the Roman Catholic Church is every day), he has flashbacks. At the moment of consecration - the point at which, Catholics believe, the bread and wine physically become for us the body and blood of Christ - he remembers every shameful thing he's ever done, and every shameful thing that has been done to him. We see his mother screaming at him that he's a dirty, filthy little boy; young women crying because he has treated them badly; mistakes he has made as a priest; people he has let down. His voice falters and he struggles to get through the words he must say to fulfill his duty as a priest.
As a Christian minister, and as someone who suffers from anxiety, I find Michael's conundrum fascinating. I, too, have had times when my anxiety has made it very difficult to carry out the usual duties of my ministry. Interestingly, when my anxiety is bad I have always struggled most with preaching, and in Baptist services the sermon has a similar place in worship that the Mass has in a Roman Catholic service. It's not that Roman Catholic priests don't preach and it's not that Baptists don't celebrate Mass (though we call it Communion or the Lord's Supper, and we understand its significance in a different way). But while Baptists would tend to expect God to minister to them in a particularly special way through the sermon, Roman Catholics believe God's grace is ministered to them in the most holy way as they celebrate Mass.
Michael has a fellow priest to whom he confides his secret struggles. He confesses that, at the "supreme moment of priesthood", as he calls it, he remembers all the terrible things he's done and asks himself how he can possibly think himself worthy to preside over the holy mystery. Roman Catholic Christians certainly have a different understanding of priesthood than Baptists do, but even taking into account our theological differences, it seems to me that it is precisely at the Communion table that a priest, minister, or any Christian should rightly be most aware of their own brokenness. And yet what is missing from Michael's experience - perhaps because anxiety lies to us and prevents us from hearing truth - is the grace that meets us just at the point when we are most aware of our unworthiness. At the communion table all Christians remember that Christ died to save sinners: knowing our brokenness he became broken so that we might be made whole. At the communion table we receive, not God's accusation or disapproval, but his forgiveness, his pardon, his unconditional love. In the last five minutes of the last episode (and it's worth getting to the end for this) Michael finally receives the love and forgiveness he needs from an unexpected quarter.
Emma, it’s good to doubt. Francis Bacon said: ‘If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts; but if he will be content to begin with doubts, he shall end in certainties.’ And of course for ‘man’, read ‘person’. I would say that a person who has never had real doubts, has never thought deeply about anything. Only doubts and questioning about the status quo can ever generate progress, and without progress there is only stagnation and decay.
ReplyDeleteI like Michael in the TV series because he had doubts. But with all that, he lived the word; he helped the broken around him, and in the end, he, himself, found fulfilment.
I have memories only of pure misery and humiliation from my Catholic upbringing. But if the priests had had one tenth of the real Christian charity that Michael demonstrated, it might have been a different story.
Thanks for this Dad. I'm so sorry you had such a terrible experience of church when you were young. I think I would like to go to a church led by someone like Father Michael!
ReplyDeleteYour comment about doubts is interesting. Yes I agree that he has doubts, although I read them as doubts about his own choices and doubts about the rules imposed upon him as much as doubts about the goodness of God. His pastoral experience leads him to question his certainties, which shows he has a caring heart. I think I might add the word vulnerability. He shows vulnerability, admitting when he is wrong, confessing his faults to others, never claiming to be perfect. And of course he himself is broken (as we all are). Perhaps the fact he thinks he's not worthy to be a priest makes him the very person who should be one.