In the animated movie “Up,” a shy, lonely man knows joy, married to the love of his life and delighting in their little home, even with its sorrows. After his wife, Ellie, dies, Carl becomes increasingly sealed in by grief and pain, his frown deepening into fixed furrows, the beautiful nest becoming an airless bubble.
Soon, booming industry and development surround the little house, until Carl becomes a bewildered, angry prisoner within the world and within himself.
I wonder if the man in the parable, who hid the gold coin instead of investing it (Luke 19, Matthew 25), was like that? Was he, too, locked up in grief and anger, fearful without knowing he’d become that way? There’s nothing wrong with being fearful, ashamed or angry, but when we get stuck there, we can get as mixed up as the gold-coin burier.
Jesus seems eager to roust us out of such inner prisons. For Him, it’s urgent. He shows us we’re like lamps, meant to be lighted, to be seen and to help others see the light.
We might believe the lie that we’re worthless and the world better off without us; we are as surrounded by that false assessment of the Church as Carl is by cranes and tall buildings.
And the more we believe it, the more it seems to come true: Like Carl, Church people can get crabby and belligerent. The bushel basket we cover the lamp with is dingy and unattractive, but we imagine it’s the lamp that’s the problem.
What to do when built-up shame, fear and anger become the burying places, the bushel baskets, where we Christians hide the word of God we carry? These emotions, given to help us, can become tortuous when they’re misplaced or misused.
Fortunately, God enters our prisons with us, and His glory is never imprisoned. “It will flame out, like shining from shook foil,” wrote poet priest Gerard Manley Hopkins. Try it sometime: Get out your aluminum foil in a dark room, light a lamp, shake the foil and see what happens.
A recent example, for me, flamed out from the “shook foil” that could have become crusted-over fear, shame and anger.
At Mass one day, a retired priest was celebrating Mass. A feeble, elderly man, the visiting priest had trouble finding the right book to read from and needed help to climb the sanctuary’s two steps.
But at the sermon, he became a flame of fire. His suddenly powerful voice seemed angry in a way, but with an anger that pierced through things to the center, rather than destroying things. Not only did he know the Bible through and through, he lived and breathed it. He was preaching on the text, “I have come to set the earth on fire” (Luke 12:49), not the fire of destruction, but the fire that purifies, cleanses and renews our own hearts.
The listener’s heart could not help but burn within, as the frail priest showed how the Scriptures show the way. Not the way to become activists, fix the world or tell others what to do — but the way of Christ, which brings us all to the truth.
How else could we break through the destructive fear, shame and anger that keep us hiding, and show forth the light we carry? “To flame out, like shining from shook foil.”
Mary Marrocco is a columnist for Catholic News Service and can be reached at [email protected].