32: Three Wise Women

Episode 32: Maggie, Eleni and Lorraine return to the podcast  - this time together. In conversation, they share their thoughts about moving in to a new year - and where Jesus is being revealed to them, and us, in our world today. Is the Year of Jubilee helpful? And does the theme Pilgrims of Hope speak to them? 


Find out more
Jubilee Year Vatican
Jubilee Year England & Wales

A new episode, a different conversation, every Wednesday!
Email me: theresa@KindsofCatholic.co.uk
Facebook, Instagram and X/Twitter Give me a follow @KindsofCatholic
Find the transcript: https://kindsofcatholic.buzzsprout.com

Music: Greenleaves from Audionautix.com

Transcript

 You are listening to All Kinds of Catholic with me, Theresa Alessandro. My conversations with different Catholics will give you glimpses into some of the ways, we're living our faith today. Pope Francis has used the image of a caravan. A diverse group of people travelling together. On a sometimes chaotic journey together. That's an image that has helped to shape this podcast. I hope you'll feel encouraged and affirmed, and maybe challenged at times. I am too in these conversations. 

So listeners, thank you for joining me today on the pod. This is another special episode in that I have 3 guests joining me today. I was thinking about what to do to link this episode to the Feast of the Epiphany. And I had this idea through some prayerful reflection to invite three wise women to talk to us today. So, you'll be hearing from Eleni, Maggie and Lorraine, who all have been a guest on the podcast previously, but are joining me today for a conversation together. And I hope it's gonna be really fruitful. So welcome, Eleni, Maggie and Lorraine.

Morning. 

Morning 

Hello.

 I've thought of a little structure for the conversation because obviously these are guests that listeners will have heard from before. So what I thought would be worth talking about is the fact that we're going into a new year. And I read a really interesting thing about somebody was saying that transitioning into a new year can be difficult because you may be leaving behind things in the year past that you don't want to get further away from, things or people, but necessarily we're moving forward. And, of course, at other times, there are things you very much want to get away from, you can leave behind. So I was thinking about myself in the new year. I was thinking about I had this image of, if I was getting on a plane and taking luggage with me into the new year, would it be a little carry on bag, or would I have, like, 4 suitcases in the hold? What am I taking forward into the new year? So we might talk about that together as a way into the conversation. And then I wanted to make some link to the Feast of the Epiphany, Jesus being revealed to us, the Gentiles. And I thought maybe you could reflect on where you can see Jesus working in your life in the year ahead, as far as we can ever predict or see into the future, but just where you think Jesus is with you in this time of going into a new year. And then I thought we could reflect on the church because this is a jubilee year now, and we have the theme Pilgrims of Hope. And I thought we could think about what that means for each of you, whether you have some thoughts on that, and where hope is for you, if you can find any. Because these are obviously difficult times in the world. Difficult is a strange adjective to use there because for some people, these are dangerous, terrifying times. Let us begin the conversation then thinking about baggage and the new year. And I wonder if I might ask oh, let me see now. Maggie, what's the new year looking like for you, this time of transition? 

It's an interesting question. I would normally, as a traveller, I would normally be just a carry on baggage traveller, I have to say. But when you posed the question that way, I thought, I think I might be taking quite a lot of luggage in the hold. We had a Christmas with quite a few family illnesses and ill health. Some of them are long term. So that combined with what's happening in the world sort of did put a bit of a downer on a season that I absolutely love. So, quite nice to shake it all off, but I'm not sure I can. So I think I might have to put them in the hold, but then the question is how to take off with that knowledge and move into this jubilee year of hope with a bit more positivity. And and maybe I'll come back in the other questions and hear how are the other people travelling as they move into the new year. 

Thank you, Maggie. Thank you. Eleni, what about you? 

Yeah. I don't really know. I think I'm not carrying very much with me at the minute. It's something about life in your early twenties. You don't have very much to sort of carry with you. But I like to see a certain amount of continuity from one year to the next. And I suppose this ties into what you're gonna ask later about seeing Jesus in your life. But I'm always quite interested to see how one thing comes from the last thing in the slightly Hegelian way. You know, one wonders how one would have got to the point that one's out right now without the things that came before it. So I don't know that it's necessarily that I'm carrying baggage, but rather that things are sprouting from each other. 

That's a good image, Eleni. Thank you. Yes. We're not parachuting into 2025. It is another step. And Lorraine, what about you? 

I'm always looking to save money with carrying luggage on planes, seeing as we're thinking about this analogy. I think I'm taking a very small bag into 2025, actually. I've been carrying a lot of heavy bags over the last few years. I think it's time for me to be a bit more trusting. You know, when you go on holiday and you think, I will need this and I will need that and I will need something else. And quite often, I don't need very much of it at all. So, yeah, I think I might be taking a smaller bag partly because I've been feeling very tired, and I think it's because I carry a lot of responsibility for other people. You know, I've done a lot of thinking over Christmas, and I don't think I need to do that. I think I just need to look after myself a bit more and keep the essentials, and that ties in with only needing a small bag because we don't really need very much. 

Thank you, Lorraine. And that leads into the next question actually because we don't need very much as Christians. We're supposed to have our hope and trust in God that there's a path for us and that what we need will be provided. So there's also a sense, I don't think you're necessarily speaking about it from a point of faith entirely, but there is also a sense as people of faith that we can travel lightly because we're following Jesus.

 So let's think about this idea of Epiphany then. When we're recording this episode, we're a day or two before the feast of Epiphany. And when people listen, it'll be a day or two after. Let's think about where you can see Jesus, where Jesus is being revealed to you at the moment, looking forward into 2025 or just on this cusp? 

That's a difficult one. Yesterday, I got the latest issue of the Tablet. I have to say there were lots of articles in it that really gave me hope. Often, the Tablet makes me feel sort of sane again. One of the quotes was from Archbishop John Wilson, and he was talking about, you know, ‘the hope we speak of is not mere optimism. It's a serene gift that confronts and conquers all pessimism and cynicism. The hope we speak of fosters that patience which addresses the frenetic haste of a world that has lost its way.’ That really sort of spoke to me because it was talking about going forward with Jesus, with our faith, to try to have an impact on our, obviously, on our own internal spiritual life, but on our family, on our community, and on the wider world. We're talking about the bigger challenges facing us and maybe a role for the church in speaking out more forcefully about them. So I think I was reflecting to myself that I have to put more faith and will try to do more to build up my own sort of spiritual resources as I'm not sure that I've really invested sufficiently in those in the past, and that's something that I would like to do some more of and it would help me. I was reminded about my earlier interview I talked about when I was a child, you know, and racing Jesus upstairs. You know, if I had a bit more of that sense of Jesus in my day to day life, not quite racing him upstairs these days, I mean, he'd definitely win now, you know, to bring him more into my consciousness more, more explicitly. 

Thank you, Maggie. Thank you for your honesty. And for listeners who haven't heard that episode, that is Episode 2 that Maggie is talking about, of the podcast, racing Jesus up the stairs. And I've had a lot of feedback that that image is really sticking with people, Maggie. Yes, I liked what you quoted there from Archbishop John Wilson about the cynicism, about our Christian faith combating cynicism because I do think sometimes when I'm watching telly, celebrities being interviewed and things, there's a great deal of cynicism about the world and about people of faith. It is hard to know how to combat that in an authentic way without becoming, you know, argumentative. Thank you for sharing that. Eleni, what about you and where Jesus is being revealed for you? 

Yeah. I think a lot of what Maggie was saying resonated with me, particularly in terms of, like, seeing signs of hope. I think a lot of what we hear is quite doom and gloom. But then every now and then, you hear something like how ordination numbers are going up in France and Spain or, how bible sales went up 22% last year for unknown reasons. And it's something I know in real life as well that the people I meet are actually quite interested and quite kind of open, I would say, not necessarily to, like, conversion per se, but more in the ideas of faith or respectful about people of faith and faith views. I'm thinking as well specifically of a Mass I went to for the feast of the Holy Family at Westminster Cathedral, where it was the busiest Mass I've ever been to. There were so many people in there. Every single seat was taken. I ended up sitting in the side chapel with a bunch of other people. The seats on the way to the confession were all full of people. The ledge behind the seats on the way to confession had a family of, like, 6 sitting on it. And I'd been feeling a little bit spiritually dry as well until that Mass. And so really feeling the Holy Spirit move among the congregation and feeling that community again actually brought that that sense of hope and inner calm back in a very real way. 

Lovely. Wow. Yes. I think there is something about being at a well-attended Mass, isn't there? Being with lots and lots of people and feeling the Holy Spirit there. 

I mean, it felt very medieval because where I was, you couldn't see a thing. I could see a tiny sliver of the sanctuary. But they had this beautiful tableau of the nativity scene in that particular side chapel. And so I remember just looking there and thinking, okay, I'm not gonna be able to see the host. I'm not gonna be able to see the priest or the celebrant or anything. So I just have to focus on this image here and really feel the Mass rather than just watching it like a spectator. And I think everyone else was having to do the same thing too just because of the sheer number of people in there. Nobody could see anything. 

What a blessing. What a blessing for you to be there. Okay. And, Lorraine, what about you and, where you can see where Jesus is being revealed to you at this time?

The way you asked that question made me made me think about some of the plans I have for 2025, but they are driven, I think, from where I feel Jesus already. I feel already nudged in this direction because I've been trying to think about my relationship with God, with Jesus. You know, what is it about this relationship? Because obviously, you know that I'm a convert. People talk about this relationship with God, and I had been trying to think about how can I strengthen this in myself? You know? And I was thinking, well, what can I learn from other friendships that I've got? You know, what can I bring? And I was thinking, well, you know, sometimes friendships, good friendships are steady. Perhaps I'm sometimes trying too, I don't have to try at all really in good friendships. That's what I feel. I feel that's something that Jesus would want me to know. I don't actually have to try quite so hard. I do get a bit caught up with it all. And I was thinking about this in relation to hope because I've been feeling very depressed about the world. You know, I'm not a cynical celebrity as we are talking about. I'm not a cynical person, but I do really feel very, or was actually until very recently, until I reflected on it, feeling very hopeless, actually, looking around and wondering where Jesus was to help me out there, asking for a bit of help through prayer. Some years ago, I used to listen to Tony Benn a lot. And one of the things that he said, he was asked whether he was a religious person or if he had a faith, and he said, ‘No, but I follow closely the teachings of Jesus Christ.’ And I remember thinking, Woah, that's encouraging. And one of the things he said in another interview was, ‘I'd like to think people think that I encourage them.’ And I thought, yeah, that is encouraging. And I thought back recently to that, particularly around hope, because I suddenly realised that my tea towel is a quote from Tony Bennett. He says, ‘Hope is the fuel of progress, and fear is the prison in which you put yourself.’ And I and I re-looked at it and thought, He'll have got that from Jesus. He'll have got that somehow from Jesus. And I started reflecting on hope. I hope for things and feel hopeless because I'm in fear. If someone tells me they're not well, I hope you get better. And behind that, I'm worried that you won't get better. I hope that the government does this, and actually, I'm frightened they won't. So thank you to Tony Benn, and thank you to Jesus for inspiring him, and thank you for all of that coming together to sweep me into 2025 because I feel genuinely very refreshed by that. 

That's great. And that leads on really well then to the next part of our conversation, the Year of Jubilee, where the church is going and how you might be interacting with that in some way. The theme is Pilgrims of Hope for this Jubilee year. And I was just thinking to myself when I was looking for sources of hope, I was very moved as loads and loads of people were by the refurbishing of Notre Dame Cathedral. I think at a time when it seems people are more interested in killing each other, seeing people work together to rebuild a building which is, its purpose is to give glory to God, not a steelworks or a wind farm. It is a building whose purpose only is really to give glory to God. I mean, they'll be making tourism profits out of it, I'm sure. But people came together in such a selfless way using their skills to rebuild something that, that really means something to people because of what it stands for. That has given me a little glimmer of hope that we Christians are not in such small numbers because there are people who, like Tony Benn, have some values that accord with us, like Eleni said, are interested in what we believe in and want to know more. So what about this Jubilee Year then? What about this, Pilgrims of Hope? Maggie, does that speak to you? 

Yeah. Definitely. Just aside, really, but it was amazing when Eleni was talking about the service at Westminster Cathedral, I immediately thought back to, I've spent a year in Paris in in the early seventies and used to regularly go to Notre Dame and would sit opposite the rose window and just contemplate it. And the thing that came through was this sense of, that this was a building in which people had prayed for whatever it was, 800 years or something. It wasn't a museum, you know, it was a beautiful building and the rose window was stunning, but it wasn't a museum. There was something different about the feel of the place. So, just because both of you alluded to, you know, you made the connection between the thoughts I was already having. But to come back to your question about hope going forward and the Jubilee year, again, just to quote something I saw in the Tablet magazine about Jubilee 25 as exploring God's call for a reset, a renewal of faith, and a recommitment to a just world. And that was really quite challenging, you know, because I definitely think we need a reset. And speaking of the world and politics now, it just seemed to be on a very dangerous path. And how can you as an individual engage in that? Yeah. It does need a renewal of faith, sense that something can be done, something needs to be done, how to form your conscience and those around you to engage. We definitely need a recommitment to a more just society. That's the evil that we're sort of facing on all sides. So I think the fact that this is a new year sometimes also we don't notice the potential for hope too. I mean, even the developments in Syria, of course, we're immediately worrying about, well, what does this mean? Will we get a fair and just leadership emerging, and will the country benefit from this new openness? Or the fear is obviously that it may not. But looking back on how bad the situation was, so how to turn those challenges into things that you can pray about, that you can contribute to in some small way. I think I'm just being a bit vague at the moment because I haven't really thought it through, but for me, because the situation is so bad, or at least that's the way it feels again, every people think they're in the worst situation possible. Cause when I was much younger, it was the nuclear threat was immediate. Now it's kinda come back onto the agenda again. What can we be doing as people of faith to try to challenge the direction of travel, to try to, yeah, try to inject some hope? I liked your quote from Tony Benn. Fear is a prison. We have no hope - we will do nothing, just sort of retreat to our bunkers. It's a very good analogy. I'm hoping that something like the Synod, this Jubilee Year of Hope focuses some thinking from some parts of the world on how we can move forward. 

Thank you, Maggie. It reminded me when you were speaking about the justice element that I'm reading, or doing, this Bible in a Year podcast. I'm not sure, Eleni, if it was you that told me about the Bible in a Year podcast with Father Mike Schmitz. Anyway, I was inspired to give it a go. And so it's this American priest who does little episodes, a podcast that's taking me through the bible in a year and many, many other people too. And at the moment, I'm in the Old Testament. And the Jubilee is explained there from the earliest times. And it is about this kind of reset, as you were saying, a reset of economic justice, really, for the ancient peoples. And so it can sound like a time of happiness and rejoicing  ‘Jubilee. Yay!’ But actually there is this element of resetting, making things better than they are. And so I think you've captured that actually in your thoughts about the Jubilee year. Eleni, what about you? Where are you at with looking ahead to this year of Jubilee? 

The theme Pilgrims of Hope, I think, points to something that we as Catholics have to offer the world, which is the idea of an ultimate good or, like, a first principle. Because, you know, if you're on pilgrimage, you're heading somewhere. You're going somewhere. You know, there is a tell off. There is somewhere to end up. The great reset that might be needed is the rediscovery of this first principle or the rediscovery of an idea that there is some fundamental good, some grand narrative that makes everything make sense. Because I think people nowadays are actually getting quite fed up with this kind of total semantic chaos that we get with postmodernism and the idea that meaning is just what you create or meaning is just what you want it to be, really. I was watching this interview with Jordan Peterson, actually. It was the one that made him more well known, actually, with Cathy Newman. He's talking about the relationships between men and women and how - and this idea of different but equal. Actually, I was quite interested to see that a lot of the things he was saying were actually very Catholic concepts just phrased in secular or psychological terms. And she was really pushing back on him being like, Oh, well, are you saying that, you know, women can't ever be successful or it's actually not good for women to be successful? And he was like, No. No. No. That's not what I'm saying. But he was basically saying that there are fundamental things that make women, men and women different, or the qualities that women tend to have, that men tend to not have, and and vice versa, that are predictors for various outcomes. And one thing I found quite interesting about that interview is that when he said women tend to be more agreeable and agreeableness is not a predictor for career success, so she would say, Oh, well, why shouldn't it be? You know, maybe we should reframe the way we think so that agreeableness is a predictor of success. And it seemed quite interesting to me that I think the cultural conception of these things is shifting back to Doctor Peterson's side. Instead of saying, Oh, well, everything could just be as we say it. And if something isn't the way I like it, then we should redefine it so that it is, of accepting that, actually, some things are just true and some things just turn out in certain ways and that maybe a path to better happiness and better contentment with your life is to just accept that and to work with it rather than constantly trying to say, Oh, well, you know, maybe we should just be redefining things until it all looks the same. And I think people are sort of coming to terms with the fact that this constant redefinition and constant self creation is actually quite exhausting. And that actually maybe returning to the first principle, becoming a pilgrim beholden to your environment, is a more natural way of living. And I I wonder if that's something we can offer the world. 

Thank you, Eleni. There's a lot there for people to get their teeth into. That's really interesting. I haven't ventured into the world of Doctor Jordan Peterson myself, so I'm grateful for a little glimmer from you of what it might be like. 

He's becoming a bit of a caricature of himself, so maybe go for the earlier stuff. 

Okay. Well, that's a good tip. You've related to the pilgrim part of that. And also, what you've said there connects a little bit with what we were saying at the beginning about how much baggage we don't need because we are where we are and who we are, and we are given what we need. Okay. Lorraine, let's see where you're at with Jubilee and hope, Pilgrims of Hope. 

I'm engrossed in in what everyone else is saying and almost forgot that I had to speak. The obvious sort of picking up on the pilgrimage and the not needing very much and the small bag and all of the threads together… I had a bit of a birthday this year, or last year rather. And I thought I've been wanting to go myself on a pilgrimage. I've been wanting to just walk, actually. I have this strong desire just to set off a bit like Forrest Gump. Just take off and walk until I stop, really. I guess that's what I'm doing by living. It seems slightly more purposeful if I pack a bag. When I saw, the title of Pilgrims of Hope, I was thinking, that's auspicious. That's a great year for me to do my pilgrimage. Whether it happens or not, I don't know. I suppose I'd like to go back in my mind to the sort of first steps of that pilgrimage, getting the old stuff out of my bag before I pack a new one. So I've sort of done a bit of a loop in my thinking, really, particularly around how I approach the world and what I'm thinking. And maybe a little bit of what Eleni is saying really is, do I have to recreate the world to fit what I want, that fits how I want to see it? You know, how I want the world to operate, how I want governments to behave, and or can I look closer to home? Can I look at my own house and see how I'm gonna put that in order? You know, at the end of the year, they have, these programs about people who've died. And, you know, whether you believe in them or not, these ideas of the King's Awards and who gets them and all the amazing people in Britain who have been given these awards for doing very ordinary things in quite extraordinary ways. All of that wrapped together has helped me with my thoughts about hope because I realised that hope going into 2025 is as much about how I feel about the world as what's actually happening. That may sound -  I don't know how that sounds. But I suppose what I'm trying to do is unpack a bit and be much more reflective about what I expect of the world before I've looked at what I expect of me. So when I'm crying because Maggie Smith's died or because Mrs Smith from Hampshire has got an award for the amazing work she does with soup kitchens, When all those people touch me, it's that feeling that hope gives you. It renews. It gives you a renewed feeling of hope. And so I think I might wind my neck in a little bit this coming year. Leave the world issues a little bit to themselves and start rebuilding from me up. Start to recognise and think about how much amazing hope there is. From the daffodil that comes in March to the woman who runs the soup kitchen to the amazing actors and all the people who give everything of themselves, that if we all just concentrated on what it was we had to give. That sounds very simplistic in some ways, but it is simple. When I look at what Jesus is saying, it is quite straightforward. I'd like to just start 2025 with that. By February 1st, I shall be raging at the television and the world leaders and getting very upset about it all, but I just thought I'd start quietly in 2025. That's my beginning of my Jubilee Year.

To me, it's more a question of how do we do both, picking up on what Lorraine was saying first of all. You know, how do we develop the sort of personal resources, the spiritual resources to be almost like an oasis of hope and that your engagement with, you know, the guy in the shop and the road cleaner, whatever, emanates that and tiny little ways we see, in a stone in a pond sort of thing. But also how then does that build into something wider than that? Because I think often there's a risk people of faith almost opt out, concentrate on their personal journey of faith. But then that means that these are the very people who, with so much positivity in the change that we need to see. In a sort of separate context, we were talking about how sometimes our faith isn't expressed. We don't express your faith in our other worlds, in our campaigning worlds, or in our political worlds, gender activism worlds, because somehow it's either, you know, frowned upon or not seen as relevant, or it's not a bridge, can be seen as exclusionary. And yet at the same time, then that means that that voice is absent from those discussions and people not realising that faith can be very important and can effect important change. Because that was also a bit of reaction to Eleni's comment about Jordan Peterson. I mean, my nephew's a teacher, teaches in an all boys, essentially working class school. You know, he's run assemblies about Jordan Peterson and the kind of messages that he gives to young boys these days. I think some of the values that he feels he has to convey comes from his faith background that he now no longer practices. I'm constantly, you know, yelling at the TV or spend a lot of time in activism of different kinds. And I know that I do need to invest more in my own human spiritual resources, but at the same time, I'd be nervous about that being to the exclusion of you then using it in a sort of positive way in to effect change in the world around us. 

You know, Christian love is about willing the good of the other. It's never purely introspective. The edict to love God and love your neighbour are really kind of one and the same thing. You love God by loving your neighbour. And then, so if you're getting a bit too kind of turned inwards, maybe that's something to re-evaluate as well. But I also think that if you're not gonna care about your backyard, then no one will. So maybe the kind of Teresa of Lisieux way of dealing with what you can deal with, and then letting that have the wider effect as the Lord works with it.

Having been an activist most of my life, really, since I knew what it meant, I suppose I'll never not use my newfound faith to influence my activism. I was thinking about a recent pod you did, Theresa, with Father Gerry, and he talks about contemplation leading to action. I suppose I'm asking for a little time with God just to get that friendship nice and steady so that I feel renewed and able to step back out into the world and do what comes very naturally to me. You know, ask questions. Is this is this actually okay? Ask questions of family and friends. You know, the meanness that has slipped into ordinary conversations, which I find very, very strange, very, very upsetting. That to me is a form of activism, which is much closer to home, but is being influenced by bigger conversations, bigger agendas. As Rumi says, there's a there's a field, I can't remember what he says. Something along…there's a field out there. And Maggie and Eleni, I'll see you there. We're all heading in the same direction, I think. 

I think so too. I think there's always a bit of tension in our lives, isn't there, between that inward focus and the outward focus. Just to share one of the images that's helped me with this, probably sounds a bit crummy now, but I did find it useful when I was training years ago to do the London Marathon. I ran the London Marathon only once. That's another story, but I found it incredibly difficult. It's not my natural area of expertise at all. But one of the tips that I read about that I thought was really interesting, that has been something that, you know, I've continued to think about, and that was, that what marathon runners learn to do is instead of running this massive marathon and then lying down for 4 weeks recovering, they learn to recover while they're running. And so they're running in a way that is allowing them to recover and keep going through the marathon and maybe another marathon and another marathon. And so there's a skill there that they, proper marathon runners, develop, which enables them to do both things, to recover and run at the same time. I have found that really useful because sometimes I feel like, you know, there's too much going on. I need to rest. I need to, I need to go lie down. But actually what I need to do is, I need to find a way to find that inner oasis of hope while engaging with the world. That's how I've read that image and found that useful in my life. So I'm just throwing that out there. 

I don't want to run a marathon. 

Wise words.

Listen, thank you then, Eleni and Maggie and Lorraine. It's been really lovely having this time to talk together. And I know listeners will find much to reflect on and be inspired by in hearing your thoughts. So thank you very much. And I have resisted the temptation to put inverted commas around the word wise in the title Three Wise Women, because we all have our identity as baptised Catholics to give us some authority in our thoughts and, and our reflections. And so we're going to hold onto that. So thank you very much for joining me. That's been absolutely great. 

Thank you, Theresa. 

See you.

Lovely to meet you all. Take care. 

Thanks so much for joining me on All Kinds of Catholic this time. I hope today's conversation has resonated with you. A new episode is released each Wednesday. Follow All Kinds of Catholic on the usual podcast platforms. Rate and review to help others find it. And follow our X, Twitter and Facebook accounts, @KindsofCatholic. You can comment on episodes and be part of the dialogue there. You can also text me if you're listening to the podcast on your phone, although I won't be able to reply to those texts.

Until the next time.