'O Sapientia': A teacher's reflection on December 17th

Dedicated in prayer to all my former colleagues, retired or still in harness; to those teachers familier to me on the Catholic blogosphere (Mulier Fortis and Bara Brith); and most especially to my dear friend Joan and Patricia in Birmingham and my mother-in-law, Kathleen in Eastbourne.

An extract from my reflections on the way to school, December 17th, 2001:

On the Circle Line, I had been reflecting on poverty. Changing onto the Central Line, I am thinking:
"No power, insufficient numbers, but the responsibility is personal as well as collective. How can I, how do I answer it? Life is a constant battle to pay bils, to make ends meet. I conduct a mental survey of my tutor group at school: one Israeli who knows his Judaism but admits he cannot believe in God, two Baptists, one Roman Cathoilic, one avowed atheist, and the rest floundering agnostics. None however is indifferent to religion. Discussion of it frequently breaks out among them, into which they will drag me if at all possible. They know I will contribute informatively in Christian terms without any attempt to convert them. Increasingly they ask for explanations and solutions. They know all about vested interests; many refuse to buy Nike or Gap products because of the way those companies use sweat labour in South-East Asia; they seem conscious of the spiritual poverty in modern life and express awareness that in spite of technological advances a worse world is being handed on to them than the one inherited by my own generation. But I cannot remain silent in the face of their desire to have my Christian response. They deserve more than.....the failure of Christians to obliterate material and spiritual poverty from the world.

".......my constant answer is that too few people of all religions have loved enough, too few have prayed enough, too few have lived their calling to the full. As a result an unstoppable monster of greed and selfishness has free rein over the earth. My students have not yet asked whether this neglect and failure is redeemable. In the underground I pray that if they ever do, God will grant me the right words to express the Christian faith that an affirmative answer is possible only in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ: 'With you is wisdom, she who knows your works....Send her forth from the holy heavens, and from the throne of your glory send her.....For she knows and understands all things, and she will guide me wisely in my actions and guard me wih her glory. Then my works will be acceptable....' (Wis. 9:9-12)

"Leaving the train, I begin the fifteen-minute walk to school. The poor remain firmly in mind until I come to the chestnut tree* a few yards from the playground gate. This morning I do not walk straight past it but stand for a few moments tracing the bark spirals with my fingers, and remembering that to the Victorians the tree had the meaning, 'Do me justice'. Turning to the tree I silently anticipate the first great Advent Magnificat antiphon, 'O Sapientia': 'O Wisdom, which came from the mouth of the most High, and reaches from one end to another, powerfully and sweetly ordering all things; Come and teach us the way of prudence.' And then as I enter the school gate, the voice of the Spirit speaks to me through the Psalmist, 'I will instruct you and teach you the way you should go. I will counsel you with my eye upon you.' (Ps 33:8)"

*The chestnut was chosen for today because of its being the basis of polenta, 'the food of the poor'.

copyright Jane Mossendew 2002