Mary Aikenhead, Inspiring us to be in solidarity with the Poor
Mary Aikenhead, Inspiring us to be in solidarity with the PoorSolidarity with the poor means to me ‘to stand with the poor’.
It is to opt for people who are poor.
It is to commit oneself to acting and living in a way that respects people especially those who are not treated with respect in our society.
It is to proclaim by ones’ actions that people are more important than the system that deprives them of their basic rights.
To be in solidarity with the poor is to make a personal choice.
It is not something that can be done for me by somebody else.
To stand in solidarity with the poor is to opt for the poor and is a response to the structural injustice that mars our world at a local and global level.
It is a calculated commitment to work for a more just society and more human world.
To stand in solidarity with the poor is to commit to a style of development that promotes social justice and protects the weaker sectors of the community and the weaker nations of the world.
Who is asked to stand in solidarity with the poor?
Everybody – it is part of the universal call of the Christian faith which is addressed to all people.
But what it involves is rather different for those at different levels in our society.
The call to stand in solidarity with the poor is directed in a particular way for us who have a vow of service of the poor.
Once we begin to be aware of the structural injustice, we start to realise the crucial role played by people like us in society.
We are the ones that operate the unjust structures.
To stand in solidarity with the poor is to begin to untangle ourselves from unjust structures. This can be very difficult when we find ourselves living in a huge interlocking system where almost all our actions play a part in maintaining structural injustice.
To stand in solidarity is also a means to begin to construct alternative structures. We can easily be mystified by talking on constructing structures. What it is in practice is the setting up of procedures that promote justice.
And where should one begin? I think it’s important to begin in ones daily work.
A person can begin in any area of their life.
When we talk about the poor we are talking about ordinary people who are at or near the bottom of society. It is very likely that those who are excluded from power in one sphere of life will also be excluded in other spheres.
Solidarity with the poor is also about relationships. To interpret how we relate to poor people. If we are people who lord it over the poor, who exercise power over them, and we at the same time start working for social justice. We may start to try and devise different structures for a new society, but without any personal relationships with those we want to help many result in paternalism. And we might even end up trying to manipulate the poor to fit in to our own plans.
So in addition to working for different structures and a more just system of structures in vitally important that we find ways to begin to share the life of the poor.
The crucial thing in solidarity with the poor is that we endeavour to enter the world of the poor. Gutierrez points out that “this is not just the experience of having little money and not having ones rights respected, to live in this world of the poor is to have particular ways of feeling, thinking, suffering, celebrating, having friends and praying. Anybody from outside who wishes to enter that world must be humble and sensitive.” Gutierrez recalls the words of Jesus that to enter the Kingdom of heaven one must become like a little child. To be spiritually child-like, is the same as being poor in spirit. It is the condition that when you’re entering the Kingdom of heaven, it is a condition of entering the world of the poor. This is what solidarity with the poor is about.
Solidarity with the poor is different at different times in history also. Today we are looking at Mary Aikenhead inspiring us to be in solidarity with the poor.
Mary Aikenhead, she was born in 1787 and died 150 years ago.
Mary Aikenhead stood in solidarity with the poor at a very young age. When at the age of X she heard the sermon on the rich man and Lazarus, she decided to leave the privileged into which she was born, behind her and to walk in solidarity with the Lazarus’s of her time, of her world.
The focus for the rest of her life was “God’s nobility the suffering poor”. She decided to enter the world of the poor.
And if we look at that story from Luke 16
V. 19-23
The rich man and Lazarus.
We get some kind of a sense of what
Mary Aikenhead was moving into.
In this story, Jesus tells us about a rich man. Interestingly, he tells us nothing about the rich man’s life or indeed spiritual life except that he was rich. He doesn’t tell us whether he was a good Jew or not, whether he went to the synagogue on the Sabbath or not, whether he prayed or not, whether he observed the law or not. Instead, he just paints a picture of a rich man for his listeners to imagine. “There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day.” Why does Luke tell us nothing about the rich man’s life or spiritual life except that he was rich? Perhaps because it was irrelevant. Not that the rich man’s life or spiritual life was irrelevant full stop, No, but it becomes irrelevant if he fails in the one thing that is most important to God namely “compassion”.
Luke tells us about a poor person, again interestingly, he tells us nothing about the poor man except that he was poor. He paints a picture of poverty for his listeners to imagine. “And at his gate lay a poor man named Lazarus covered with sores who longed to satisfy his hunger with what fell from the rich man’s table, even the dogs would come and lick his sores.”
In particular, Jesus doesn’t bother telling us how he became poor, maybe he drank all his money, maybe he gambled it, or maybe like the prodigal son he squandered it on a good life. Why does Luke not tell us how he became poor? Perhaps again, because it was irrelevant. For Luke and God, there is no distinction between the deserving poor and the undeserving poor.
The story concerns a child of God in need and another child of God who could have reached out and met that need but failed to do so and therefore was no place for him in the Kingdom of God.
For Mary Aikenhead, like Luke and Jesus there was no distinction between the deserving poor and the undeserving poor. This is a story about a child of God.
And that is “the world of the poor” that Mary Aikenhead entered into. It wasn’t the spiritually poor, it was a poor man covered with sores who longed to satisfy his hunger with what fell from the rich man’s table and even the dogs would come and lick his sores.
It is a picture that is hard to take; it reminds us of Isaiah 52. The suffering servant, “A man of suffering and acquainted with deformity and as one from whom others hide their faces. He was despised and held to no account.” From Isaiah 52:V 13-53.
And from that small beginning as she heard God calling her Mary Aikenhead continued in her solidarity with the poor for the rest of her life.
Mary Aikenhead’s letters written 30th December 1833 to the Commissioner of Inquiry into the state of the Irish poor makes it clear that this is a woman who “lived in the world with the poor” who “stood in solidarity with the poor.”. This letter was not written by somebody removed from the reality of the poor. It was written by a woman who suffered with the poor.
The letter written
Convent of the Sisters of Charity
Sandymount
30th December 1833
My Lords and Gentlemen,
A copy of the “Queries for Parishes in Large Towns” has been sent to me, requesting that I will favour “The Commissioners of Inquiry into the Sate of the Irish Poor”,
Describing conditions of the poor she wrote:-
“It would be painful to describe the instances of heart-rending misery which we daily witness. Many in the prime of life are reduced to debility from want of food, subsisting for forty-eight hours on one meal, without sufficient clothes to cover them, their wretched furniture and tattered garments being pledged as a last resort. Within the last year we have witnessed forty cases of men willing to work, if they could procure employment, who were reduced to sickness, which in some instances terminated in death, from excessive misery.”
Describing conditions of the sick she wrote:-
“There is no dispensary in this neighbourhood, and the poor have no other medical aid than such as we can bestow. IN the course of the last summer the cholera morbus broke out in the villages of Sandymount, Irishtown, Ballsbridge and Ringsend, and raged for five weeks with violence. We found some in the agonies of death, without the means even of procuring a drink;” “many perished without medical aid, till at length the bounty of Lord Anglesea, who contributed £20 from his private purse, added to £20 given by the Hon. Sidney Herbert, and a private subscription of £50, enabled us to open a hospital containing twelve beds,
which were constantly full to the termination of the epidemic.” “The same subscription enabled us to give medicine and relief to one hundred extern patients, attacked with incipient cholera, and since that period we have continued to administer medicine under the charitable advice of medical practitioner in Dublin.” “When the poor are confined to bed by fever they frequently fall victims to the want of medical aid, and more frequently relapse for want of proper food when in a convalescent state.” “It is difficult to imagine how the population of these villages is supported.”
Writing about situations in employment:-
“There is a factory at Ballsbridge which employs a few families, but the wages are so low, and the rent of their wretched hovels so high that they have not the means to procure wholesome food. The distillery at Dodder Bank employed eight families; it has been closed within two months, and they are now obliged to pawn their clothes and furniture to procure a scanty subsistence. The glass works at Ringsend has been closed since last May, in consequence of which a great number of individuals are thrown out of employment. The proprietors of salt works, which formerly employed a great number, and a foundry once in a flourishing condition, have so much curtailed their establishments that we now find many reduced to the utmost misery, who formerly earned an honest livelihood in these establishments. The fishermen and poor sailors, often without friends and reduced to sickness by cold and want, are objects of great compassion. Excessive poverty produces a want of cleanliness which aggravates their misery.”
Again describing the conditions in the area:-
“The lanes and streets are filled with filth in Ringsend and Irishtown; there are no sewers; no attention is paid to the ventilation of the houses, and the poor are obliged to buy even the water which they drink; it is of the worst description, and tends to promote disease as much by its scarcity as by its quality The poor have no bed-clothes; we have often seen them expire on dirty straw, and are frequently obliged to furnish them with covering before we can approach to administer to their wants. Their sufferings from want of fuel, want of water, and of covering can only be credited by those who have witnessed them. The poor are inclined to indulge in spirituous liquor; they often resort to it in despair to drown the recollection of their sufferings. The small sum which will procure spirit is insufficient to provide a meal, yet we have reclaimed many from the habit of drinking by remonstrance, and a small supply of food.”
Writing about the children:-
“The sufferings of the poor children cannot described; many perish, and those who survive, are in many instances, so debilitated by want as to become sickly and infirm at an early period of life. There are no public establishments in this populous district for the relief of the poor. Some charitable persons send small sums to our convent for the relief of the distressed, which enables us to distribute broth to the most destitute – three pints of broth being the only subsistence for two days, of families consisting of eight persons. In this way we are enabled to assist twenty families out of the many who require it. It is most painful to witness distress, beyond all description, without having the means of relieving it.
We shall be most willing to furnish any further information on the state of the poor in this district which may tend to their relief.
We are ready to lend our humble assistance in those works of mercy which may tend to alleviate the sufferings of our fellow-creatures of every creed.
I have the honour to be, my Lords and Gentlemen,
Your obedient servant,
Mary Aikenhead”
Solidarity with the poor is about recognising the dignity of the poor people.
Mary Aikenhead recognised the dignity of every human person. She recognised all human beings are children of God equal in destiny and dignity.
In 1842, she wrote to Sr. Mary Catherine “the poor are the chosen children of the Lord, we are called to be instruments of his mercy and protection in their favour, we must try to become fitting instruments.
When Jesus found someone whose dignity as a human being the child of God was being undermined or denied by the attitude of society by the way in which they were treated, if he had to respond.
He affirmed their dignity by the way in which he himself related to them by reaching out to them in a respectful and dignified way. He communicated to them a sense of their own dignity in the face of contrary message that they were continually receiving from society. He challenged the attitude of society that looked down upon them. And he challenged the structures that kept them in a marginalized position. E.g. the attitude of Simon who was embarrassed by the presence of the woman who was a sinner.
It was as if he said society may not have much to do with you, society may look down on you but the God from whom I came, we acknowledge your dignity, the same dignity as any other human being in society.
In her life, Mary Aikenhead shows us very clearly her deep respect for the poor. “There is no charity”, she said, “Where there is no respect for the poor.”
And again, she said very clearly, “we must give to the poor what the rich can buy with money.” Again declaring clearly the inequality of all human beings. She was saying we must ensure that the poor not only have the basic necessities of life but they also have justice and equality.
Respect is about acceptance. It is about not judging. It is about listening. It is about waiting. It is about empowering. Respect is about letting the other know that they are important.
It is about letting people know that no person is unimportant. That serving the poor is always important. It is not something we can take lightly. It is something that commands our full attention and our full respect. To give to the poor what the rich can buy with money is to provide a high standard of good quality and in doing so making a statement to society to everyone the poor have a right to respect and dignity because they are God’s nobility. So we don’t give worn clothes to worn people or broken cups to broken people or a shabby poor service to people who feel shabby about themselves. And the reason we do that is because we believe that in serving the poor, we are serving Christ. And this is what Mary Aikenhead taught us.
At the very early stage in the congregation Mary Aikenhead introduced the prayer that we all recited in the morning which openly stated that in serving the poor we have the happiness of serving Christ. “We firmly believe that you reside in the persons of the poor and in serving them we have the happiness of serving Thee”
Poor people always know who respect them. We may work for years and years with poor people giving them clothes and dinners and money.
But if we don’t respect them, if we don’t love them, they know it.
In 1983 when I started my work in the area of homelessness I began with a study on the nature and extent of homelessness amongst women in Dublin and I spent the following year with eight young women between the ages of 15 and 25 who had been homeless.
We spent the year trying to understand each other. I, trying to understand what it was like to be out of home.
They described in great detail what it was like:-
to have no place to go,
to have no address,
to have no place to leave your things,
to have no place to wash,
no place to change your clothes,
no door to lock behind you.
What it was like to have a home, but not being able to go there. And they described the awfulness of this life.
But they described even in greater detail what it was like and how much more difficult it was for them to be treated badly, to be treated without respect and they described how peoples faces would change when they told them they were homeless.
They described how there whole sense of themselves, their self esteem, their self respect, their dignity, their pride was eroded on a daily basis; by the way people treated them. How people took away from them their sense of dignity and their sense of self respect and their sense of dignity and pride. They could count on one hand or maybe on one finger the number of people who treated them with respect.
This was more important to them than anything else. They did need money, they did need clothes, they needed food, they needed many things, but above all, they needed to know they were respected all of us. In the deepest part of our being we all know a hidden beauty, a hidden dignity, and when that is not recognised by the other, it is soul destroying.
Mary Aikenhead understood well, people’s need for respect and need to know they were respected and the services provided for them were to endorse and affirm people’s self respect and self esteem whether it was teaching or working in the homes or in the prisons and the hospitals.
We have a great description of Sr. Catherine working in Grange Gorman with the Sisters of Stanhope Street who were visiting there, where they worked with great respect for the poor. It describes the awful conditions under which people were provided for in the work house in Grange Gorman and the hard work of the Sisters and the long hours they spent ministering to the sick and the dying.
It is said that as many as eight people died in one bed in one day in Grange Gorman. There is a description of Sr. Catherine who on going home late at night washed and ironed lawn handkerchiefs each night and took them in the morning to put them on the brows of the sick and dying patients. For here we have an example for somebody in the midst of patients sick and dying of cholera in terrible conditions with Sr. Catherine demonstrating her deep respect by trying to ease their pain by placing beautiful lawn ironed handkerchiefs on their
And we know the story about the workman who turned away a poor man who was coming up the avenue in Harold’s Cross. Immediately she sent for the man and asked him “Who was that poor man you’ve just sent away”.
“He was only a beggar”, was the answer. Mary Aikenhead was deeply distressed and she said “call him back at once and send him to the convent door, you have no right to send him away. That poor man may yet open heaven for me.”
Mary Aikenhead knew that there is a beauty in all of us in all of creation and there is a beauty deeply hidden in the broken bodies of the poor and of the suffering. This hidden beauty is of God. It is Jesus himself who is hidden in the poor. He tell us so himself. Whosoever welcomes one of these little ones welcomes me. And whosoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me.
In one way it is easy to help the poor, to help marginalized people. It is easy to give money for example or to organisations that work with them, but what is not easy is to stand in solidarity with the poor, to walk with them. And that is what we are called to do as Sisters of Charity. It is only when we walk in solidarity with the poor that we find God in them.
To walk in solidarity with the poor and enter their world is to open our hearts to them. To acknowledge that no matter how poor a person may be, they carry within them the great beauty of God and we must allow them to reveal that beauty to us.
The relationship into which the poor calls us is not sentimentality, rather it is a call to deep trust, a mutual recognition of each other where they touch into our brokenness and we touch into theirs and when that happens we are transformed.
We are changed by the poor, if they touch into our brokenness and poverty, When this happens to us there is no turning back because it is a life changing experience. And in that transformation, we find new strength, the strength of tenderness and goodness and patience and forgiveness.
Solidarity with the poor for Mary Aikenhead meant suffering with and for the poor. On 15th August, 1849, she wrote to Sr. Mary de Chantal. “Sisters of Charity are not to gain heaven without suffering with and for the poor.”
Mary Aikenhead did not see the Sisters of Charity as “ladybountyifuls” distributing goods. Mary Aikenhead could have been a lady bountiful. She was part of the privileged class and she knew many many ladies who lived a privileged lifestyle and who served the poor in different ways.
But Mary Aikenhead decided differently, she in her childhood in Easons Hill, she had an ease with the poor and she never had to combat the feelings of condescension and paternalism which many of the privileged classes did. She decided to found the Sisters of Charity, to follow Christ and to experience the poverty of the poor Christ “who did not account quality with God a thing to be grasped but emptied himself and became obedient even to death, a death on the cross.”
Jesus could have come as a King, as a world leader and changed everything but he didn’t. He came, a helpless babe; he came like one of us who had no quick fix, who had no answer to political, social and economic problems of his time. He did not come to shine out because of his knowledge and skills, he did not come as a great philosopher. He did not come to win the hearts of people because he could cure the ills and work miracles. His greatest triumph was his suffering and death. He was to model for Mary Aikenhead.
Following Mary Aikenhead we are no extraordinary people, we are not miracle workers, we are not geniuses.
It is not easy to walk with the poor when we have nothing to give them. It happened so many happen in Mary Aikenhead's time when the Sisters going out amongst the poor and destitute had nothing to give them but their time. A listening ear, their encouragement, their prayers and above all their presence. It is not easy to do that and yet it is clear that when we walk with the poor that what they appreciate most is our time with them.
To be a Sister of Charity often is to simply suffer with the poor, not to have solutions. It is often to have nothing but our presence, being with and standing with them.
To work with the poor is a slow process, it means listening and that takes time, it means learning from the poor which is never easy. It is not easy because we like things to be fast and immediate.
Often we run away from being with the poor and turn to projects and programs and developments. There is nothing wrong with projects and programs and development but what is important is that we recognise within ourselves that we are not doing these things to bring about our own kingdom and when we do develop services it is important that we do them with the poor, suffering with them and not to hide our powerlessness behind projects.
When we choose to walk with the poor in solidarity, we can suffer because they disturb us through their prophetic cry for understanding, friendship and trust. They reveal to us our hardness, our selfishness, our resistance to change. They reveal to us how imprisoned we are in our own fears.
There is a secret meaning and beauty in the lives of the rejected and poor people. They teach us that we must not shrink from suffering but enter into it and discover there the mystery of the presence of Jesus. They teach us not to turn aside from our pain, or anguish or brokenness or emptiness by pretending to be strong. They teach us to go into ourselves to go down the ladder of our own being until we discover in our own vulnerability the shining light in the darkness, the presence of Christ.
There is another suffering too that comes that when we walk with the poor. We have to learn not to be surprised if they reject us. They have suffered a great deal at the hands of the knowledgeable and the powerful.
They have suffered so much from broken promises and people wanting to learn from experiments. People who write about them. They are sick and tired of good and generous people who reach down to them from their pedestals to do them good.
Because she knew that the poor were waiting for someone who really cared and loved them, wasn’t going to talk down to them from their pedestal. Who saw in them the light of love and wisdom. who recognised their gifts and their beauty. They were waiting for someone who will accept them just as they are with no preconceived ideas, of how they should change.
Mary Aikenhead wanted us to be those people the people they were waiting for. The people who were willing to know their pain. People who were willing enough to become vulnerable enough to love them. People who would meet them where they were.
Mary Aikenhead knew that poorer people knew that they have life within them. That they have life to give us. They know that this is their right, they know it in their heart, they know it in their bones.
Mary Aikenhead knew that if we were to bring them life and allow them to give us life, we would have to be full of sacred wonder, full of respect and reverence in front of the mystery of the person and the beauty within beyond all that is broken.
She knew that to stand in solidarity with the poor is not to give of our riches but to reveal to the poor their riches, their value, their gifts and to trust them and their capacity to grow.
This suffering with the poor. We fail and fail again but we are not really failing if our deep desire, like Mary Aikenhead’s desire was to reveal to them their beauty. And if we are prepared to allow them to reveal their beauty to us.
The solidarity with the poor for Mary Aikenhead was to take risk. Mary Aikenhead had few certainties. She didn’t have enormous successes, at least there was very little evidence of great successes. But Mary Aikenhead was able to take the risks because she had an extraordinary confidence and trust in God. Her strongest characteristic was her dependence on divine providence. And again and again she called her Sisters, to have unlimited trust in God. She said “exercise unlimited confidence in God and God will never allow you to be tried above your strength of whose miraculous powers we have had such constant and wonderful proofs.”
Today, we have to ask ourselves, what rejected poor people are waiting for me to reveal to them the real beauty and gift of their lives, contrary to what other people think of them. What risks are we called to take today?
Reverence to the poor was clearly one of Mary Aikenhead’s gift and because of her reverence and because of her presence to the poor; she was recognised by the Governor of Kilmainham and was asked to visit the people in prison who were condemned to death.
She knew that it was very important to approach poorer people gently and with reverence, never force ourselves upon them but to accept them as they are with humility and respect.
She knew that entering into solidarity with the poor was to enter a beautiful experience of communion. A gentle experience of love and presence. She knew there was something very fragile in the poor and that if we are not careful, we can walk on it, crush it, ignore it or pass it by.
Mary Aikenhead knew that when Jesus was speaking with the Samaritan woman, he was not just speaking to the poor of the world, but he was speaking to the poor in each of us, the broken part of our being, where there is so much fear and we have no confidence in our ability to love and be loved.
Over and over again, she talks about the sweet providence of a rich bank. When they needed funds in Cork she wrote, “the great bank on which we depend cannot fail”. Then she says “we ought to have confidence in the holy bank of divine providence and allow faith to satisfy for all deficiencies of visible funds.”
Then she says “you and I and all of us with charge of charitable institutions have resource exceedingly great and our embarrassments are quite finite, highest of protector of his poor is infinite.”
Then she says, “Our greatest wants with pressing necessities are nothing to our imperishable bank of his almighty providence.”
Mary Aikenhead herself and the work she did was a living expression of dependence on God and on providence. Setting out as she did to build and develop a big hospital with a donation of £3,000 with £20 for running costs was a remarkable act of dependence on God and in divine providence.
The trust and divine providence so characteristic of Mary Aikenhead and her companions who often experienced actual poverty challenges us today to witness to God’s provident care of us and of our world.
Dependence on divine providence is rarely understood by the world and it is less understood today than ever before.
We live in a very rich society in this part of the world and there is very little relies on providence.
Where in poor parts of the world, or when Mary Aikenhead was alive, there were a lot of people who lived in poverty and had to depend on God.
But dependence on divine providence wasn’t understood in her time either. She too had her ideas and plans questioned. She too experienc3ed rejection and lack of support. She too experienced a shortage of funds. She too experienced failure. But she was not put off and continued to on called her sisters to have unlimited trust in God.
And this trust in providence and trust in God should be the mark of the Sisters of Charity. It has been the mark of so many Sisters in Mary Aikenhead’s time but even since.
Today it must also be our hallmark. Being able to reach out to take the risks, to do what we have to do because we believe it is God work and God will watch over it.
What will it be like for us today to live and work at the edge of our resources and depend on Divine Providence?
It would be very, very different.
What would it be like to branch into new much needed responses to the poor of today?
Poverty that can be found in children in families, older people, younger people, migrants, people who are victims of violence of different kinds. Women, victims of violence and trafficking.
If we did that we wouldn’t necessary be working in them but we could develop those services with lay people and with the spirit of Mary Aikenhead if we took the risk. Think of the risk of starting St. Vincent’s hospital and think of the risk of establishing the little hospital for the Sandymount/Irish Town, Ballsbridge and Ringsend area with only £90 and using part of it to give medicines and relief to other patients.
That took risk, that took faith and Divine Providence and from my own experience I would say that there is nothing as challenging or as rewarding and developing services with the poor and having to depend on Divine Providence month by month, year by year.
Depending on God’s providence doesn’t mean the lack of thought, the lack of responsibility, or lack of discernment or lack of accountability, it is not a question of doing it my way because I know. It is the very opposite it is a total belief that God will not be found wanting if we place it in his hands and if we do his will and not our own will. And if we use the gift that God has given us. Using our heads and our hearts, bringing our heads and hearts together. Having intelligent heart. When we have intelligent hearts, we can speak out boldly and we can do great things for God.
Mary Aikenhead showed us that we must always be prepared to take risks, not to be afraid to see the bigger picture, not just our own difficulties and problems but look beyond the boundaries of what we know to see other possibilities in our service with the poor.
Mary Aikenhead’s solidarity with the poor was also a collaboration with many people. Friends, benefactors, co-workers and colleagues who from the very beginning shared in the dream, ministry and vision of Mary Aikenhead and the Sisters of Charity.
Today too we are called to work in collaboration with others.
Today we are also called to collaborate with people, for our ministry for the service of the poor. When we collaborate with others, and here I am talking about very many women other religious orders but also the poor.
These too not only help us to deliver service but they can have the potential to change us and our sense of the world and our sense of God and our sense of the poor.
Today we hear that we have to work with lay people because we haven’t got vocations. This is not about numbers, this is not a numbers issue, it is a theological issue.
Working with lay people and working with the poor is modelling a church. We are modelling a way of service with the poor. We are sharing our charism because we know as Mary Aikenhead did that we have something special to bring them and they something special to give us. As our hearts are on fire especially for the poor, we want to share it. We want to follow Christ who was always going where there was need.
If we really believed in the charism and really believe that in serving the poor, we are serving Christ. If we really believed that we have something important to bring and to give of course we would involve lay people. Of course we would reach out beyond our present ministries out beyond the boundaries. At times like this, an anniversary time, we must remember Mary Aikenhead’s inspiration and risk taking as she moved into unmapped territory, she reached out to Australia to a place they barely knew about, the other side of the world, but she knew that God was interested in the people there. And Mary Aikenhead was prepared to follow Christ whenever there was a need. Where is the unmapped territory that is calling us today? Is Eastern Europe calling Western Europe? Places like Slovakia which has appalling poverty. Children living in gutters. And where the Roman Catholic Church is in existence and where they speak English, which makes it different from other Eastern European countries.
I think today these are the type of questions we must ask, we must discern about new areas we may be called to if we are to be faithful to the spirit of Mary Aikenhead.
Mary Aikenhead’s story is a story of collaboration; it challenges us today to be brave enough and believing enough to reach out to lay people, to move to those areas of need, the heart of our broken world. To move into areas of poverty and suffering and powerlessness because Christ is there. Christ is not in the safe and comfortable places. Christ will always be found in the places of suffering and hurt and abuse and poverty and isolation.
Today we must steep ourselves in the spirit of confidence and trust and risk taking that Mary Aikenhead had. We are called today to galvanise that spirit that endurance that robust faith.
In Mary Aikenhead’s time it was a miracle time. The miracle was brought about by love. Today we are called as Mary Aikenhead was to serve God with a glad heart and a willing mind. Today we are called to feed the hungry, to visit the prisoner to be with those who are oppressed, those who are rejected, those who are lonely, those who are sick and dying. Our call is to be present to them, to have a presence to the poor in the world in which we live, inviting them to wholeness.
Mary Aikenhead’s solidarity with the poor took her beyond service. She also had a commitment to justice. She did that in different ways by calling attention to the needs of her time. One great example is the letter she wrote from Sandymount (Irish Town) to the Commissioners of Enquiry in December 1838. She talks about the state of the poor in the district in which the convent was situated. She gave very clear examples of the poverty that existed.
She describes how 40 people who were willing to work did not get employment and how their situation was reduced to poor health and even to death. The excessive misery suffered by the people during the cholera that raged in the area. This letter was written by a woman who knew the poverty and of the area. It wasn’t somebody from behind a convent wall but somebody who suffered with and for the poor. Mary Aikenhead really believed in the equality of people and she really believed in justice. The justice she believed in was not a legal kind of justice. Her justice was about compassion, it was about having a compassionate heart. Teresa of Avila writes about a mystical heart, seeing beyond, transcending and seeing God in the person. John Vanier writes about an intelligent heart. I think Mary Aikenhead had all these hearts.
Mary Aikenhead was not limited to alms giving. She made every effort to give people employment, one of the Sisters came to tell her, that through some blunder the workmen, a wall which was being erected but had to come down but with a smile, Mary Aikenhead answered “I am not a bit distressed. It will enable us to give more work to the poor men. God will supply us with the means of paying them.”
Mary Aikenhead’s solidarity with the poor challenges us and it calls us, it calls all of us. And if we are to follow Mary Aikenhead, we are automatically also following Christ.
Today as in the time of Mary Aikenhead, Jesus is calling us to follow him, to walk in his footsteps. To walk in solidarity with the poor. Like Mary Aikenhead, as Christians and followers of Christ, we are called to announce and to make known the presence of God through our lives and in our world and in our time.
Just as Mary Aikenhead did in her time, we are called as Mary Aikenhead was called to make Christ the centre of our lives.
We are called as she was to be the presence of God in the world.
Today Christ needs us to be his presence in our world, he has no hands, no words, no heart, no love except ours. He is calling us to be like him wherever we find ourselves, to live as he lived. To love as he loved, to speak as he spoke, to offer our lives as he offered his, to do what he did, to do even greater things, because of his life, just as Mary Aikenhead did.
