There were two rituals attached to the winter fire.

One was setting the fire with crushed newspaper, strips of kindling, and pieces of larger wood.

Setting the fire so it lit readily and well was no mean feat.

The second ritual involved disposing of the burnt ashes from the night before.

From memory (and I am going back a few years), the ashes would be scooped into a bucket, taken out, and spread over the vegetable garden.

Why the veggie garden?

Because that is where you were told to dispose of them!

Little did I know that wood ash is an excellent source of lime and potassium for your garden.

Using ashes in the garden also provides many of the trace elements that plants need to thrive.

Wood ash fertiliser is best used either lightly scattered or by first being composted along with the rest of your compost.

This is because wood ash will produce lye and salts if it gets wet.

The lye and salt will not cause problems in small quantities, but in larger amounts, the lye and salt may burn your plants.

So, this is why we have Ash Wednesday.

Ashes are a good fertiliser for your garden, providing trace elements needed for you to thrive.

Like the seed (See Mark 4), they are best scattered and used lightly or sparingly - once a year ought to be sufficient!

Practically speaking, on a liturgical note, the distribution of ashes is not a function reserved to the ordained minister.

Consider a large glass bowl laden with ashes on a stand in the centre of the sanctuary. Individuals are invited to come forward to the ashes and sprinkle themselves with ash however they wish.

In turn, this opens up the possibility of couples approaching together and, in turn, sprinkling each other.

What an extraordinary metaphor of forgiveness.

For those with a disability, invite others to assist them - one of the most frequent phrases in the Gospels reads, "They brought to him,"

Some complain, "What about the mess?"

Our Eucharistic celebration is a recalling of the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross.

I am told it was quite messy, "instead, one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and at once blood and water came out." (Jn 19: 34).

Another thought to consider: dispense with the celebration of the Eucharist on Ash Wednesday. Rather, focus on the Liturgy of the Ashes.

A final thought: those who regularly minister to the sick in their home through the Liturgy of Communion take with them a container with the blessed ashes and celebrate with those housebound a Liturgy of the Ashes.

Being housebound does not dismiss you from the Eucharistic community.

• Gerard Whiteford is the Marist priest, retreat facilitator, and spiritual companion for 35 years.
• First published at Rest a While.

'Ae,' te whakahoki.

'Na, kaore ahau. E ki ana tonu ahau ki te whakarihariha mo ratou.'

'I tena ahuatanga,' ka ki tana hoa me te ngawari, 'kei roto i te whareherehere tonu koe.'

"He tangata kaore e taea te whakamurua i etahi atu, ka pakaru i te whakararangi e whai ana ia ano... mo te katoa he hiahia ki te whakamurua," i tuhi a George Herbert (1593-1633).

E rere ana te murunga i roto i te ngakau o te ao tangata; kaore i a ia ka waiho he tangata hei repo o te tukino. Na te mea he pokapu ki to tatou oranga, kaore he mea nui ake i te tirotiro hohonu ki roto i ia ano.

He kupu 'pai' te whakamurunga, i te mea e harikoa ana te katoa kia whakaahuatia hei whakamurunga.

Me whai mana rawa tena kia whakatupato tatou; ka taea e tatou te whakararuraru tuturu kua ngana ki te whakatau pera.

Ka tino whakaiti ahau - ka taea e huna. Ka ngaro ahau i te kaha kia tohu anake.

I roto i nga wiki (nga tau ranei), ka whakaki ahau i te riri puku. Engari kei te wehi ake ahau i tenei wa ki te tohu i te he na te mea ka tino pahu te riri, a, ka wehi ahau i nga pahutanga.

Engari, ka horomia te riri e ahau, 'whakawairua' ahau, a, ka korero ki ahau ano kua whakamurua ahau ia.

Ehara tonu! kaore ahau e murua.

Mahue ke, ka horomia e ahau he rongoa whakamate ka whakamate i taku hononga ki taua tangata. Kua huna te wehi hei whakamurua.

Katahi, ka whai te tangata e tatau ana; ka whai te tangata e whakaae ana ki te whakamurua, engari kaore e wareware; ko te tangata e tirotiro ana tonu mo te mea ki te whakamurua; a, he tokomaha atu.

He tinihanga katoa enei ahua o te whakamurua.

Ko te tohu o te whakamurua tuturu ko te mohio ngangahau he hiahia ahau ki te whakakmurua ano.

Ko tena te mea ka ngaro i nga ahua tinihanga.

"Murua o matou hara, penei i a matou e muru ana i te hunga e hara ana ki a matou."

Ka whakawatea ki te whakamurua i etahi atu i tetahi ara kore whakamarumaru, mehemea ka whakaae tatou kaore a tatou pukapuka i te tika ano - kaore he pukapuka katoa i te tika; ka whai katoa te tangata i tetahi wa ano, me tetahi atu: "whitu tekau whitu"; hei kupu ano, ka mutunga kore.

Forgiveness - Murunga

A former prisoner of a Nazi concentration camp was visiting a friend who had shared the ordeal with him. ‘Have you forgiven the Nazis?' he asked his friend.

‘Yes', came the reply.

‘Well, I haven't. I am still consumed with hatred for them.'

‘In that case,' said the friend gently, ‘they still have you in prison.'

"He that cannot forgive others, breaks the bridge over which he himself must pass… for everyone has need to be forgiven," wrote George Herbert (1593-1633).

Forgiveness flows at the heart of human life; without it a human being becomes a cesspool of bitterness.

Since it is central to our life, nothing is more important than looking into it as deeply as possible.

Forgiveness is a ‘nice' word, in the sense that just about everyone would be pleased to be described as forgiving.

That should be enough to put us on the alert; we can suspect straight away that many vicious attitudes have attempted to dress up like it.

Someone does me harm - it could be unknowingly. I lack the courage simply to point it out.

Over the weeks (or years) I become full of silent anger. But I am now more afraid than ever to point out the wrong because anger tends to be explosive, and I am afraid of explosions.

Instead, I swallow it, ‘spiritualise' it and tell myself that I have forgiven him or her.

Of course, I have not.

Instead, I have swallowed a dose of poison that will kill my relationship with that person. Fear has been masquerading as forgiveness.

Then there is the person who keeps count; there is the person who claims to forgive but not forget; the person who is always on the lookout for something to forgive; and a host of others.

All these forms of forgiveness are counterfeit.

The mark of real forgiveness is a lively awareness that I am in need of forgiveness myself.

That is what is missing in the counterfeit forms.

"Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who sin against us."

We are set free to forgive others in an uncomplicated way when we accept that our own books are not balanced either - that nobody's books are balanced, that every human being needs another chance, and another: "seventy times seven"; in other words, endlessly.

• Gerard Whiteford is Marist priest; retreat facilitator and spiritual companion for 35 years.

The type of ground prompts introspection: which parts of me are rocky, shallow, or overrun with thorns?

However, suddenly, I find myself at the centre of the narrative.

I recommend reading verses 1-9, as they shift the focus towards the Sower, a figure I find particularly compelling.

The Sower also fascinated the Dutch Post-Impressionist painter Vincent Van Gogh (1853 - 1890).

Throughout Van Gogh's career, he created over 30 artworks centred on this theme, and one that stands out for me is "The Sower at Sunset."

Van Gogh completed this painting in 1888 during his stay in Arles, Provence. This was a period marked by his intense and tumultuous friendship with French artist Paul Gauguin, which unfolded in the Yellow House, a setting that also features in Van Gogh's paintings.

"The Sower at Sunset" depicts a figure in a field, scattering seeds.

The action of sowing strikes me as "indiscriminate."

I envision the rhythmic motion of the hand and arm, moving from the seed bag to the ground, scattering seeds with a sense of freedom and abandonment.

What a contrast, the ripe corn behind the Sower and the Sower who sows the cultivated land with a broad arm gesture.

The Sower does not walk among the fertility of what has been sown and grown.

Instead, he treads upon the cultivated soil, the realm of potentiality.

The Sower and the ploughed land share the same colour.

This leaves me with a question for reflection.

Where might I find my God more?

Is my God in the anticipation of what is to come, represented by the ploughed field, or in the fruition of what has been symbolised by the fertile field of corn?

• Gerard Whiteford SM is a retreat facilitator and spiritual companion for 35 years.

• Have I chosen the right place?
• Am I in the right posture?
• How often?
• For how long?

Each becomes part of the criteria for prayer efficacy.

Luke's Gospel (18: 9 - 14), often has the heading, The Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector.

It's a story remembered by many of us -Pharisee up the front, the tax collector down the back.

The Pharisee begins his prayer as a contest, "God, I thank you I am not like. . . . .", and immediately the Pharisee's prayer is about himself.

Christian prayer is not something we do - an activity.

Rather it is a relationship with another, and for those in a relationship, you will be aware that what happens is a matter of initiative and response, first by one and then the other; and in those moments of exuberant joy, there is a syncopation like only lovers know.

If I am engaged in Christian prayer because I have to, in order to be good and acceptable, then I am not engaged in Christian prayer!

There is a story told about a Jewish farmer who did not get home before sunset one Sabbath and was forced to spend the night in the field, waiting for sunrise the next day before being able to return home.

Upon his return home, he was met by a rather perturbed rabbi who chided him for his carelessness.

"What did you do out there all night in the field?" the rabbi asked him.

"Did you at least pray?"

The farmer answered: "Rabbi, I am not a clever man. I do not know how to pray properly. What I did was to simply recite the alphabet all night and let God form the words for himself."

When we come to celebrate, we bring the alphabet of our lives.

Our psyches go up and down.

Sometimes we feel like singing and dancing.

Sometimes there is a spring in our step.

However, we have other seasons too - cold seasons, bland seasons, seasons of tiredness, pain, illness, and boredom.

If prayer is lifting of heart and mind to God, then clearly, during these times, we ought to be lifting something other than song and dance.

If our hearts and minds are full of warmth, love, enthusiasm, song, and dance, then these are the letters we bring.

If our hearts and minds are full of tiredness, despair, blandness, pain, and boredom, then those are our letters we bring.

Offer them and allow your God to construct them into words!

• Gerard Whiteford is Marist priest; retreat facilitator and spiritual companion for 35 years.

I would invite you to reflect on two paintings of this moment of Ascension. In these paintings, rather than focusing on the departure of Jesus, focus on the remaining community.

The first is titled, "The Ascension of Christ" and is by the German artist Hans Suess Von Kulmbach. Painted in 1513, the picture now hangs in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY.

What I find striking is very little of the ascending figure of Jesus, the Christ, is visible - shins and a pair of bare feet!

What is in sharp focus is those gathered to farewell Jesus.

Maybe, that is the point of the Ascension story; not the one departing but rather those staying.

This is highlighted by the second artwork. Painted sometime in the 18th Century by Hans Stiegler, it is part of a diptych in the North Gallery of the Amandus Church, Freiberg, Germany.

Certainly, more of the person of Jesus the Christ is visible, however, a close inspection of the painting reveals he is leaving his shoes behind!

The world is a particularly 'funny' place at the moment.

Maybe, the shoes have been left for us to fill, and rather than looking skyward, we are invited to step into the shoes of the other.

The 16th Century Spanish mystic St Teresa of Ávila may provide us with an answer. There is a prayer attributed to Teresa which is published under the title, "Christ has no body now but yours".

I've adapted the prayer swapping out "yours" and substituting it with "mine."

Christ has no body now but mine.
No hands, no feet on earth but mine.
Mine are the eyes through which he looks compassion on this world.
Mine are the feet with which he walks to do good.
Mine are the hands through which he blesses all the world.
Mine are the hands,
mine are the feet,
mine are the eyes,
I am his body.
Christ has no body now on earth but mine.

• Gerard Whiteford is Marist priest; retreat facilitator and spiritual companion for 35 years.

A magnificent example of such a mosaic is in the south gallery of Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, Turkey.

The mosaic is what as known as the Deesis mosaic.

The mosaic is of Christ, Pantocrator and of Mary and St John.

The mosaic, which is 2.5 times life-size, is somewhat damaged, however, there is sufficient to wonder at the skill of those who created and worked on such a piece.

Each little piece seems so insignificant.

One piece is bright red, another cold blue or dull green, another warm purple, another sharp yellow, another shining gold.

Some look precious, others ordinary.

Some look valuable, others worthless.

Some look gaudy, others delicate.

We can do little with them as individual stones except compare them and judge their beauty and value.

When, however, all these little stones are brought together in one big mosaic, portraying the face of Christ, who would ever question the importance of any one of them?

If one of them, even the least spectacular one, is missing, the face is incomplete.

Together in the one mosaic, each little stone is indispensable and makes a unique contribution to the glory of God.

That's a community; a fellowship of people, each with their own unique colour who together make God visible in the world.

• Gerard Whiteford is Marist priest; retreat facilitator and spiritual companion for 35 years.

None of this sits easily with me in relation to Jesus.

Then when I consider the word "kingdom" images of wars and dominance, getting bigger by beating other people into submission and taking over their land and their indigenous way of life and supplanting that way with a supposedly "superior" way.

Again, there is within me a disquiet.

Then along comes, Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde, an Irish poet and playwright, known to most as simply Oscar Wilde (1854 - 1900).

Wilde wrote a short story titled "The Happy Prince", a story I read and heard read on the radio throughout my childhood.

Now I know that a prince is not a king, however, they are a sort of ‘baby' king!

In Wilde's story, I found an entry into the feat of Christ the King.

A short synopsis of the story, and as you read have in mind the Jesus of the Gospels: During his life on earth, the prince had lived a very sheltered life.

When he died the people erected a statue of him in the main square of the capital city.

The statue was gilded all over with leaves of gold. It had two sapphires for eyes and a large red ruby on the handle of the sword. One cold evening, a little swallow, on its way south, landed at the base of the statue.

As he was resting there a few drops fell on him.

He looked up and saw that the Happy Prince was crying.

"Why are you crying?" the swallow asked.

"When I was alive, I saw no suffering," said the Prince.

"But from my perch up here I see that there is a lot of unhappiness in the world. I'd like to help but I can't because my feet are fastened to the pedestal. I need a messenger. Would you be my messenger?"

"But I have to go to Egypt," the swallow answered.

"Please stay this night with me."

"Very well, then. What can I do for you?"

In a room, there is a mother tending a sick child. She has no money to pay for a doctor. "Take the ruby from my sword and give it to her."

The swallow removed the ruby with his beak and bore it away to the woman and she rejoiced.

The doctor came and her child recovered.

The swallow came back and slept soundly. The next day the prince asked him to stay another night.

Then he asked him to take out one of the sapphires, and to give it to a little match girl down the square.

She had sold no matches that day and was afraid she would be beaten when she got home.

Once again the swallow did as he was asked.

As he was running these errands of mercy, the swallow's own eyes were opened. He saw how much poverty and suffering there was in the city.

Then he was glad to stay with the prince and be his messenger.

One by one, at the Prince's urging, he stripped off the leaves of gold and gave them away to the poor and needy.

Finally, he arrived back one evening.

The night was very cold.

The next morning the little swallow was found dead at the base of the statue.

By now the statue was bare, having been stripped of all its ornaments.

The prince had given away all his riches, but he could not have done so without his faithful messenger, the little swallow.

Christ, our King, gave himself away totally while he lived on earth.

Even as he died, he was still giving to those who were receptive. And from his lofty perch in heaven, he surveys the plight of God's children on earth. But his feet are fastened, his hands tied, and his tongue silent.

He needs messengers.

He needs us.

He has no hands but ours, no feet but ours, no tongue but ours.

And it is his riches, not our own, that we are called on to dispense - his love, his forgiveness, his mercy, his good news….

What is involved is helping in simple things, things that are available to everyone - giving a hungry person something to eat, or a thirsty person something to drink, welcoming a stranger, or visiting someone who is sick or in prison….

To do things such as these one doesn't have to be either wealthy or talented.

All one needs is a warm and willing heart.

Everyone can do something - yes, even a little "swallow".

A Note of caution: if like the swallow, you give of your time to your "King" you may never get to Egypt!

• Gerard Whiteford is Marist priest; retreat facilitator and spiritual companion for 35 years. He writes regularly at www.restawhile.nz

"Those who are sowing in tears will sing when they reap. They go out full of tears carrying seed for the sowing; they come back full of song, carrying their sheaves", Psalm 126.

Years back working in the parish in Hastings, I started a vegetable garden. The soil is so rich in the area the local people said, ‘if you plant an ice block stick, it will grow!'

They neglected to mention oxalis and convolvulus also grow.

Sowing is a beautiful occupation, but it calls for hard work: the ground needs be prepared, the seed sown, then there is regular watering and aftercare.

The first green shoots bring an up-tempo beat of the heart; the joy of new life.

Then, after time, there is the delight in digging the new season's potatoes, or a lettuce, cabbage, carrot, whatever.

Many of the great artists we admire know well the tears of sowing and one of them is Vincent Van Gogh (1853 - 1890).

The image is a pencil, brush and ink drawing by Van Gogh, with the title "The Sower", 1882. It hangs in The Hague, Netherlands.

During his life, Vincent experienced poverty, loneliness, and much illness. At times life was so difficult for him that he felt he couldn't go on.

Once he said, ‘It is getting too lonesome, too cold, to empty.' Van Gogh's greatest heartbreak was a failure to win recognition as an artist.

Most people who knew him considered him a failure.

He was only thirty-seven when he died and by then he had sold only one of his paintings. It was sold for a few hundred Francs.

"Painting requires a lot of faith because one cannot prove at the outset that it will succeed.

"In the first years of hard struggling, it may even be a sowing in tears. But we shall check them because in the far distance we have a quiet hope of the harvest,' wrote van Gogh.

In spite of everything, he persevered. And the harvest did come, though too late for him.

The day after his death a few of his friends came and decked out the small room where his coffin lay with some of his paintings. It was only then that they realized how beautiful those paintings were. Today his canvasses are almost beyond price.

Van Gogh had a special interest in sowers throughout his artistic career. All in all, he made more than 30 drawings and paintings on this theme.

May the words of Vincent van Gogh, ‘Life is only a kind of sowing; the harvest is not here,' echoing the words of Psalm 126, ‘sowing in tears, they will sing when they reap' fall on rich soil.

• Gerard Whiteford is Marist priest; retreat facilitator and spiritual companion for 35 years. He writes regularly at www.restawhile.nz

These walls have been destroyed and rebuilt countless times. A journey to the old city of Jerusalem often involves a walk along the much-excavated walls.

In 16th century, during the reign of the Ottoman Empire in the region, the Ottoman Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent decided to fully rebuild the city walls on the remains of the ancient walls.

The construction lasted from 1535-1538 and these are the walls that exist today.

The "eye of a needle" referred to by Jesus in the Gospel has been claimed, by some commentators, to be a gate in the wall of Jerusalem, which opened after the main gate was closed at night.

A camel could only pass through this smaller gate if it was stooped and had its baggage removed.

So a travelling merchant wishing to enter the city to trade the following day would have to leave his precious cargo outside the gate, or remove the cargo from the camel and carry it in himself!

This story has been put forth since at least the 15th century, and possibly as far back as the 9th century.

However, there is no reliable evidence for the existence of such a gate.

Whether there was or was not such a gate we may never know for sure, however, it does provide us with a worthwhile metaphor to sit and reflect with.

Am I carrying something that prevents me from entering through the gate?

• An unresolved hurt?
• An unreconciled relationship?
• Anger taking up space?
• A physical or mental illness yet to be integrated as a part of who I am?
• Blame for the unexpected and unwanted death of a family member or close friend?
• The wonderful experience is that healing is found at the gate!

Jesus says, "I am the gate. Anyone who enters through me will be safe: they will go freely in and out and be sure of finding pasture." (John 10:9)

• Gerard Whiteford is Marist priest; retreat facilitator and spiritual companion for 35 years. He writes regularly at www.restawhile.nz

"In the morning on his way to work, and in the evening on his way home, he left his spade and pickaxe in the porch, and he spent a long time in adoration before the Blessed Sacrament.

"Oh! How I loved to see that! I asked him once what he said to Our Lord during the long visits he made. Do you know what he told me? "Eh, Monsieur le Cure, I say nothing to Him, I look at Him and He looks at me!"

St John Mary Vianney told this story many times over, however, what catches my attention today is the fact that he left his spade and pickaxe on the porch.

His pickaxe and space, the tools of the man's trade.

He came before his God empty-handed. And maybe that is what enabled him to ‘spend a long time' in adoration!

As a young boy, I remember that my aunty (my mother's sister) would call my mum on the phone every day just before she left her place of work.

I always wondered ‘what on earth could they be talking about?

Every day!

Fortunately, I have grown to some degree and realise it was not the conversation that was important, rather, the connection.

It was not the dialogue that mattered, rather the presence of the other.

Our prayer grows best when we stop talking and start looking.

• Gerard Whiteford is Marist priest; retreat facilitator and spiritual companion for 35 years. He writes regularly at www.restawhile.nz
• Written for Wednesday's feast of St John Mary Vianney commonly known as the Cure of Ars.

Lent and Easter well behind us, the Church is in Ordinary Time.

Looking up the definition of the word ‘ordinary' in the Oxford Dictionary its says "not interesting or exceptional; what is commonplace or standard."

Nothing really to write home about.

The liturgical colour chosen for "ordinary time" is green and maybe here the ‘ordinary' becomes ‘extraordinary'.

What is standard becomes anything but standard.

The 12thC Benedictine abbess Hildegard of Bingen wrote, "There is a power that has been since all eternity, and that force and potentiality is green!"

Hildegard names this greening force viriditas, the Latin for her original "das Grün," the greening.

With viriditas Hildegard captures the greening power, the living light, that breathes in all beings, flows through all that is alive.

"Be it greenness or seed, blossom or beauty - it could not be creation without it," she writes.

Hildegard spoke often of viriditas, the greening of things from within, analogous to what we now call photosynthesis.

There is a readiness in plants to receive the sun and to transform its light and warmth into energy and life.

Maybe "Ordinary Time" is about, a readiness to receive the sun/Son and to be transformed into energy and life.

Maybe, we dare rename our Ordinary Time as Greening Time.

• Gerard Whiteford is Marist priest; retreat facilitator and spiritual companion for 35 years. He writes regularly at www.restawhile.nz
  

Or, rather, experience "absence" in a very real way.

The absence that Mary and the first disciples experienced that first Good Friday after the death of Jesus.

They left Golgotha having just witnessed the death of a Son and a dear friend.

As with every death what was left was a vacuum.

They knew nothing of the Easter experience that was to come.

We, on the other hand read the Gospels somewhat like someone reading a novel having checked that the hero, or heroine is still alive at the end.

Now that makes for safe reading.

Mary and the first disciples knew only absence and emptiness.

And what did they do? Self-isolated!

This Holy Week and Easter provides us with a wonderful moment to really experience these events as absence and so journey with Mary and those first disciples' John of the Cross names this absence a "dark night".

As our Scripture says "a darkness came over the whole land (Mk. 15:33).

Or as the poet remarks, "to go into darkness with a light is to know the light; to know the darkness, go dark." (Wendell Berry).

It will not be easy, however, neither is standing under a cross and watching your Son be crucified!

At the conclusion of the Third Week of the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius of Loyola with its focus on the Passion and Death of Jesus, there is frequently a suggestion that the retreatant take Mary to their home after the events on Golgotha.

I would like to suggest this as a prayer experience for this Easter.

Take Mary home, sit her down at the kitchen table, put the kettle on, and, when the tea is brewed and poured out, talk together about each of your experience of Jesus.

Having both participated in and directed a number of these retreats, such an encounter with Mary the Mother, far surpasses any sung Exultet!

• Gerard Whiteford is Marist priest; retreat facilitator and spiritual companion for 35 years. He writes regularly at www.restawhile.nz