All summed up in one word

Saturday in the Twenty-fourth Week in Ordinary Time, Cycle I

1 Tim 6, 13-16; Lk 8, 4-15

Feast of St Pio of Pietralcina 

Anybody would tell you that the best way to learn a skill or a craft is to sit next to a master and see how he or she works. Somebody called this "elbow learning" you sit there at his or her elbows and master the same skill with all the tricks of the trade not by reading an instruction manual but by observing. Up to a few years ago, girls watched their mothers cook for hours on end and learnt the art of cooking. Nowadays you know that you can find instant food at B-Fresh so you know that it is no longer worth it to do so. Boys used to hang around in the workshops and garages of their fathers to learn the crafts of woodwork and how to repair the car engine when it breaks down. Nowadays nobody learns the craft of woodwork and nobody repairs broken down cars. We buy Ikea furniture instead and buy new cars when they break down. Unfortunately in doing so, we have also lost the value of apprenticeship.

The church has long learnt the value of apprenticeship, and that is why we value saints and present them as exemplars, as role models for our lives. We know how complicated life can be. There is no instruction manual for navigating through life. We do read the Bible, we listen to sermons, we know the story of Christ's birth, his ministry on earth and his death and resurrection. However because we are human beings made not only of a soul but also of a body we also need to see all this in another person not removed from time and our cultural situation. That is why the church presents us with saints, so that they can act as our masters and we can be their apprentices to learn the skills of navigating through life.

Who knows how often did Padre Pio himself hear the gospel that we have heard today! We might feel discouraged when we hear the gospel because we might find ourselves always identifying ourselves with the same type of ground. By sitting next to Padre Pio as his apprentices we can learn how to grow in holiness. Padre Pio showed signs of holiness since he was young however this does not mean that it was easy for him or that he did not find obstacles in his relationship with the Lord. He must have worked hard to make sure that his heart may be a good and fertile ground where the seed, the word of God may germinate and take root.

And change is possible. Sometimes I notice how along the front gardens of some houses, there is a narrow path which was not meant to be there but so many people have passed through that same spot because it is a shortcut that the soil has hardened and grass no longer grows there. But then I also remember how St Benedict specifically wanted that monasteries are built on ground that is infertile so that it can be changed into fertile ground by the monks themselves. If ground can change from fertile ground to infertile ground and from infertile ground back to fertile ground, then can't our hearts change too?

Padre Pio did so through a lot of hard work but he too was nourished by the same word of God and His same Body and Blood. And all that he did and that made him holy can, in the end, be summed up in just one short word, and that word is: Love.