Phibsborough
It happened in the rather anodyne surroundings of the inter-religious prayer space in Amsterdam Airport, where I was saying Mass on my way to becoming a Missionary in China. Excited does not do justice the feelings running through me as I waited for my flight to the East and the beginnings of a mission that had been calling me since I entered religious life. The bland l”ets-not-offend-anybody” design of the “chapel” could not distract from the intensity of the prayers said to God at that moment, a heady mixture of gratitude for prayers answered and requests for blessing of the exotic journey about to be undertaken. At the end of Mass there was what could only be described as a “moment”, (religious experience, would be altogether too grand) when I felt the presence of God in a deeper way. It was, as these things are in my experience at least, fleeting but I was left with the rather disturbing but comforting sense that God was whispering to me as I left for “the Missions” that while he was not promising me success, he was assuring me that he would always be with me. It was an enormously consoling moment, and it sustained me for a demanding lifetime of Mission in China.
The mission itself was nothing like I imagined. There were no friendly natives waiting patiently for the foreign priest to tell them of his religion and receive baptism. Now, I must hasten to add, that intellectually I wasn’t expecting there to be such people, but emotionally I was operating from the stories of Irish Priests and Sisters in Africa from the golden early of Irish Mission in the late 50’s and early 60’s. “The Far East” had shaped my views from an early age and while university had taught more nuanced ideas, my heart was still enchanted by the tales of daring do read from the Missionary magazines by my enthusiastic grandmother. When reality hit, the painful disengaging fo these naive benchmarks of mission from another era almost caused me to go home for disappointment, but somewhere in the back of my mind, there reminded that quite remembered whisper from Amsterdam Airport, “I will always be with you”. In my excitement, I had heard only the second part, the assurance of presence, but had already forgotten the absence of guaranteed success, buoyed along by own self-generated daydreams of daring do in the East, after the fashion of my hero’s the Vincentian Missionaries of previous generations who had left Europe and seemed live inspiring and inspired lives among the people of the “Middle Kingdom”.
Almost immediately, I found my sandcastles in the sky came tumbling down. Gifted at languages, surely Chinese would be a doddle? It wasn’t. Every single word learned was a battle with sounds and shapes that bore no relation to anything familiar, and every exciting step forward seemed only to show up how the territory to be captured actually was. The disillusionment of being a university graduate reduced to kindergarten level communication was deeply humiliating, and no guaranteed offered that it would ever get better. The whispered assurances of the second part of my moment could not compensate for the deeply depressing prospect of failure. Getting into China was also a challenging process. Visas exist only for certain categories of people and Missionaries are not included. Reinventing myself as an english teacher required some economy with the truth, and a willingness not to mention my religious background, something that was foreign to me. In the end, I I found the secrecy a terrible burden, and juggling the gaps my life history so as to be consistent too much. Giving it up in favour of “this is who I am and if they kick me out, so be it” approach saved me from a nervous breakdown I am sure. An unexpected challenge the missionary often faces, but is rarely acknowledged is living with the companions on the journey. The natural human difference aside, there is the extra dimension of language, culture, missionary assumptions and skills in a relativity random group, brought together on the basis of individual enthusiasm rather than carefully honed common purpose. We often rode roughshod over each others sand castles and I am sure I strained Christian Charity to its limits in the process. But one must go on even if building real structures among the ruins of ones romantic dreams is not at all straight forward.
it was the assurance of that airport moment which ultimately saved me. Stripped layer by layer of securities that gave me self esteem, I was forced to trust in God in ways that would have remained only notional at home. Instead of daring do for the age of the internet magazine, I learned that the feet of the missionary leaves only shallow footprints at best, they don’t last. But if s/he is faithful to the whispered assurance of His walking beside one along the way, the footprints that He leaves last FOREVER.