Friday Thought with Fr Chris Ferguson: The height of my ambition

Although, I’m still trying to figure out how my sister has three brothers and I only have two. Maths was never my strong point, and there are many who would argue, Mass isn’t my strong point either. Being the eldest I had to take full responsibility for getting myself into trouble. This is where your first small group of friends prove to be vital. At such a young age, you’re still trying to figure out what your good at. As children living along the front row of Maybrook Park, we were spoilt for choice when it came to having places to play. On the other side of the Racecourse Road, where playing pitches, which were known as the Tech pitches, the Plantation, or the Belmont pitches.

As a young child I wasn’t allowed over to the pitches, so taking the warning seriously, I had to cross over the road either further up or down from the house, so as not to be caught or seen by my parents.

At the time there were two full-length football pitches that even had their own goal posts, which was a novelty. These were proper full-size nets, and standing in the nets I looked tiny, or tinier. This was the moment I decided to dream big, I wanted to be a goalkeeper. But life is full of disappointments, you might be encouraged to dream big, but I never even made to 5’4. Our other playground was the grounds of Pennyburn Primary School. In the days before fences, we used to be chased out of the grounds of the school on a regular basis. There is a certain irony to the situation, during school hours were didn’t want to be there, after school, you couldn’t keep us out of the place. Now is the time for the sad part of the story: When it came to football, I was always the last pick. This explains why I wanted to be a goalkeeper; I was useless at football. My one saving grace, I could sprint. In many respects, I was Derry’s version of Forrest Gump. I was great at running in straight lines but only without the football.

Our lives are often shaped and characterised by the dynamics of selection, and, our ability and awareness to recognise our strengths, weaknesses, limitations and talents.

Often, we can be our own worse judges, we need the wisdom and experience of our elders to help give direction to our lives. Currently, we live in a world crying out for leadership, confronted by a moral, political and social muddle, we no longer appreciate what good leadership looks like. If leadership can be described as a reflection of society, then, you and I, have to accept our own responsibility for the confusion and lack of clear direction, which seems to prevail.

Yet, there is the danger of rushing into false certainties, failing to appreciate the brokenness and unpredictability of life. As a Church, which has been rightly criticised for the hypocrisy of our moral crusades, we need to reflect on the reality of our own lives.

Each one of us need to confront the messiness of our personal histories, our stories of light and darkness, recognising our faults and limitations.

I struggle with my own hypocrisy, haunted by my faults, my selfishness, and the recklessness with which I have treated people, by using them and causing hurt. Fundamentally, I fear judgement based on my lack of witness, or a concrete acceptance and embodiment in my life of the message of Jesus.

Charles Peguy warns all who would dare to call themselves disciples, that the reality of the Incarnation has radical consequences; for we are redeemed by the blood and flesh of Christ. Peguy was very critical of those spiritual people who distained the everyday world, the physical, the natural and the historical, only to identify themselves with the heavenly. What they have renounced in the name of the eternal, is nothing less than what is essential to Christianity, the part, which is salt of the earth. Peguy argues against seeing the world as empty and pointless, somehow created badly by God. We have to involve ourselves in the messiness of the world, because we have been chosen and sent out to be living witnesses to God’s saving love.