Photos: Fr Colin McLean
“Jesus left the home and sat by the lakeside, but such crowds gathered round him that he got into a boat and sat there. The people all stood on the beach, and he told them many things in parables.” (Matthew 13:1-3).
In 2012, during my 3-month course in the Holy Land, one of our trips was to the Sea of Galilee. Standing on the lakeshore, one could easily imagine this scene. The only question in my mind was how the crowds could hear Jesus, considering the boat was a distance out from the shore. Then, in 2015 I began celebrating masses in communities on an island within my parish in Salvador, Brazil, about 40 minutes away by motorized canoe. Each time I went to one community in particular, Santana, I heard people standing on the shore having a conversation with fishermen in boats some distance away.
The hills behind us acted as some kind of acoustics, so I reflected on that as we stood on the shore of Galilee. There were also hills. Jesus had discovered a novel way to get his message across in a world without microphones!
The hull of a first-century fishing boat found at the bottom of the sea of Galilee. Photos: Fr Colin McLean
One of his parables from the boat was about a farm labourer ploughing a field. Quite by accident, he discovered a treasure someone had buried in the field. The other man in the parable was a merchant of pearls whose quest in life was to find the perfect one, which he did. One by accident, the other after a long search. The parable goes on to say that both, in their joy, found the freedom to sell off what they had in order to stay with the bigger prize. I had something of a similar experience in a bookstore in the city of Salvador. I went into the store looking for a particular book. Quite by accident, I spotted a book of photos of African slaves in the 1800s. I was working in a parish with 90% of my parishioners, the descendants of African slaves. That book became, for me, the “pearl of great price”. I had to have it, even if I went hungry for a month. So, regardless of the price, I bought it. The slaves are nameless in the photos, but the photographers are all mentioned by name. Slaves were property, not people! I could now show the photos, so that, while still nameless, they could now be recognized as people.
The book of slave photos - a "pearl of great price". Photos: Fr Colin McLean
“The two parables describe the freedom and joy of people who have caught a glimpse of the kingdom. They capture the essence of Christian spirituality. Christian life involves detachment: freedom from absorption in the attractions, pleasures and concerns of this world – not because these are bad in themselves, but because believers have been caught by a vision of God’s love and God’s future that simply relativizes all these things and puts them in their place.” (Lifting the Burden - Brendan Byrne).
We now have the treasure and the perfect pearl in the Gospels and in the teachings of Jesus. What remains is our focus and our commitment to implementing both.
Columban Fr Colin McLean resides in Essendon after living and working in Brazil for 35 years.
Related links
- Read more from the current Columban eBulletin.
Comments (0)