When did Jesus Christ become a swear word?
I grew up Roman Catholic and since adulthood I have alternated between regular Mass attendance and being lapsed. I go to Mass to connect with God, and I have to say the finest priest I ever saw was Father Richard. To me he was like a ‘vessel for my conference call with God’. Does this make me sound like a Religous Nut? Perhaps it does. All I know is that the priest makes a world of difference to whether I lapse or not, and that makes me sad. Surely the Religion should churn out mass produced priests who all ‘sing from the same hymn sheet?’ And yet, no, over the years I have felt anger in Church over sexist remarks, listening to ‘grandstanding, self pity, moaning about how hard it is to be a priest’, etc….and this is not the purpose of the role. The purpose of the role is to ‘answer the call’, ‘fall in love and give yourself up entirely to a higher power’ where you cease to be anything other than a vessel; and as such no longer are aware of resentments, low wages, lack of a wife…for how can a vessel have resentments?
Now please let me be clear, I am far from perfect, in fact I can count divorce and many other infractions against my ‘tally to be a good Catholic’. I am not judging, I am just saying how I feel and explaining why I lapse. You see in the Catholic faith a priest should be halfway between us and God, better than us, purer than us, and so it grieves me greatly when they fall, the paedophilia horrors, how can this ever be covered up? This was not the original intent..
Jesus was fundamentally kind. He didnt do the ‘five loaves and two fishes miracle’ to show off, he did it as he had just finished the ‘Sermon on The Mount’ and rather than ‘returning to his trailer as the star of the show’ he was worried that the thousands who had come to listen to him were hungry, and so he shared what he had and performed the miracle. When dying on the cross, he worried about how his Mother would cope without the protection of a male and so said to one of his disciples ‘This is your Mother, Mother this is your son’, this was as he was dying. This was an act of Kindness.
When he refused to join in the stoning of Mary Magdalene and instead said ‘let he without sin cast the first stone’ he was again showing his kindness. And yes, I do believe it is likely he married her, to protect her, as in those days a woman belonged either to her Father or her Husband, and if you had neither the only option left for survival was prostitution and so he saved her. Did they have sex? Does it matter? Did they have children? Possibly if they had sex.
You see the ‘intent’ of Jesus’s message was Be Kind. As simple as that, BE KIND. And somewhere over the years it has got lost in translation and the Religion now resembles the Pharisees who created his desire to form a new Kind Religion, for who among us has not seen ‘finely dressed churchgoers, who leave the Church and commence gossiping?’
We have gone full circle, and if Jesus were to perform an Audit on the Catholic Church today he would ‘turn over the money lenders tables again’. The opulence of the Vatican, the paedophilia, the judgement of the Divorced, or the fallen…dont forget Jesus kept company with Lepers,Tax Collectors and Prostitutes….do you really think he would deny the Divorced Holy Communion??
And the Body and Blood….my daughter when she was 8 described this to a fellow classmate who was non Catholic, and it makes us sound like vampires or cannibals…as my daughter had a mischievious sense of humour she told her class mate with great relish “Yesterday I had the little toe”….only a child can sometimes point out the absurdity of our world. And so what was Jesus’s intent at the Last Supper? Did he not say ‘Remember Me?’ Did he say ‘Eat Me?’ No, I believe, again, he gathered his followers for a communal meal to savour their last time together, sharing, being kind, inclusive. Would he have said to one of his disciples “You cant have any as you are divorced?” Unlikely. So how can we say the current Catholic Faith represents his teachings?
This is my theory on why it has become widely acceptable to use his name as a swear word. In the Moslem faith, whenever the name Mohammed is said, the response is ‘May he be praised’. They still respect the creator of their faith. Why have we lost respect for ours? Paedophilia? Judgemental? Please do not blame Jesus for the numerous ‘ammendments’ done to his message over the past two thousand years resulting in the mess we have today.
I love Jesus. He is my friend. I love his kindness, and, yes I am currently lapsed as the only Churches on offer locally to me do not represent how I see him. In fact the last time I went to Mass was in St Patricks Cathedral in New York in July and there was a Missionary Priest performing the Homily (sermon) and it was so simple and beautiful and kind it will stay in my memory for ever. In essence he said as a child in India his Mother trusted him, the elder brother to keep his little brothers lunch in the same container as his own, as they could only afford one container. Each school day he and his little brother would walk the distance to school, have lessons, then meet for lunch and he would share the food as his Mother instructed. He then urged us to view our lives as ‘a packed lunch’ and share with others less fortunate, as Jesus has trusted us the way his Mother trusted him. Kindness. Sharing. That is Jesus. Not a Swear Word. An inspiration to be better and most of all Be Kind.
A Kind person would not cause a war, commit genocide, the holocaust, be cruel to animals, murder, be a paedophile. If we can only encourage Kindness to be seen as a MUST not a choice we can make a better world for all of us,
God Bless
