Flash Mobs, Bacon and Religious Community

Flash Mob Outside Notre Dame de Paris in January

‘Flash mobs,’ said Fr. Jim, our resident artist and proud Kerryman. Thus started another lunchtime conversation in the community of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart. We tend to follow a stream of consciousness approach to mealtime discussions, which is a polite way of saying that we go all over the place. Over mashed potato and bacon we could end up talking about how Ireland and Wales ( in deference to Fr. Roger – our resident Welshman by way of Australia ) are doing the Six Nations, the Republican primaries or just about anything really.

Today though the topic was flash mobs and as topics go you could pick a worse one. This of course prompted the questions of what are flash mobs and what were the chances of any happening around here? I was able to chime in with my vocations hat on about the flash mob outside Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris for the celebration of the World Day for Consecrated Life last January. Over six hundred young religious from all around the country got together for a fantastic rendition of Happy Day and it was wonderful.

Carl, Dave and Pat at the MSC Jubilee Celebrations

I suppose what I’m trying to get at, in my more than usual round about way, is the central place of community, whether in prayer, during mealtimes, or wherever, that we have as Missionaries of the Sacred Heart. Religious community is about a sense of belonging, having a common purpose and doing your best to respond to God’s call. It’s not always about getting along. Human life isn’t like that. But it acknowledges that we need to come together, if we are to achieve anything at all. In South Africa the parishioners we work with speak of ubuntu, a Bantu philosophy which says ‘I am what I am because of who we all are.’ It explains it all really. And as for the flash mob … we’ll just have to wait and see.