‘Hollow’ be thy name...
We are living in exciting times. Our country, population, comforts and services, pleasure and leisure are booming and blooming. It’s the economy, stupid! We have the cash, so why worry?
But all that glitters is not gold! We have become experts at building impressive facades and in valeting appearances. Our culture has specialised in ‘shopwindow deception’. Life is becoming more a matter of form. But what about the substance?
At the risk of being labelled a pessimist, I can’t help reading the writing on the wall. Our society is becoming more polished on the outside but sadly hollow and empty on the inside. Please forgive the following litany, and do not despair, just keep on repeating: “Lord, have mercy on us!”
Yes, our economy is booming, but poverty and despair are exploding. Soup kitchens are mushrooming, homelessness and suicides increasing. “‘Hollow’ be thy name!”
Yes, our parties and lavish receptions are becoming more and more impressively luxurious and costly. But marriages are fast decreasing in number and survival rates. “‘Hollow’ be thy name!”
Yes, building and construction is providing us with a profuse supply of dwellings. But how many are becoming real and lasting homes for real, lasting families? “‘Hollow’ be thy name!”
Yes, childcare centres are sprouting all around us, while baby cots remain increasingly empty because babies are incompatible with jobs, professional success and brilliant careers. “‘Hollow’ be thy name!”
Yes, our roads are beautifully resurfaced, lest we ‘hit our feet against some rock’. But how many of them are caving in due to bad workmanship or cost-saving, corrupt, incompetent workmanship? “‘Hollow’ be thy name!”
Yes, we are restoring our churches and temples, revealing the beauty of these architectural gems, historical patrimony, timeless traditions. But are God’s little children finding refuge, comfort and meaning in them, or is it just the ageing, dying generation ending its days and traditions inside our churches? Who is filling up our churches and propping up their finances? Is it the tried and tired people of God or the profitable droves of tourists and curious visitors from other lands? “‘Hollow’ be thy name!”
Yes, togetherness helps us discover who we are and where we belong. As a small country with a small population we’re constantly rubbing shoulders on buses, in football grounds, village festas, clubbing and dining. Eateries are mushrooming and taking over our public places.
But is loneliness decreasing or increasing? Are we indeed together just when we socialise? Do we belong to communities worth talking about anymore? Or are crowds convenient yet futile attempts to escape our deadly loneliness inside? Are they places that make people feel complete or just spaces in which they just compete? “‘Hollow’ be thy name!”
Yes, politics is the art and mission of leading the people by serving them. It should be the space where people discover a belonging they are thirsty for. But instead has politics been reduced to just the space for self-serving, self-promoting exploitation of divisiveness and greed among the people? Have sleaze and corruption become the sole aims of leaders and followers alike? “‘Hollow’ be thy name!’”
Being still so close to Easter, I cannot help thinking of another kind of hollowness we have just celebrated. It is the hollowness of an empty tomb that has welcomed the body of a dead God. Easter is the joy of a totally different kind of hollowness. It is the emptying from the self that reveals the real fulness of an uncontainable and indestructible togetherness. We call it life. Can we make ours the angel’s words: “He is not here. He is alive!”?
Easter is when what is empty becomes full, when the end becomes the beginning and when death begets life... Only a living and loving God can fill to the brim the emptiness of death with life! Because real life has a name that is empty and hollow enough to embrace all that is and all that can be. That is the name of Jesus. He emptied the tomb of death to fill each human heart with a new and everlasting life. “‘Hollow’ be thy name!” What is your name?
Fr Paul Chetcuti is a member of the Society of Jesus
PCHETCUTI@GMAIL.COM