FATHER FRANK’S RANTS - Bearing the Cross

Rant Number 345 25 March 2009

They compelled a certain man, Simon of Cyrene, the father of Alexander and Rufus, as he was coming out from the country and passing by, to bear His cross. St Mark’s Gospel 15:21

In a speech to AIDS workers and patients in Cameron, Pope Benedict spoke of Simon, the Cyrenian. As Simon helped Jesus on his way to the crucifixion, so must the Church reach out and minister to all kinds of sufferers today.

A beautiful image. Carrying the cross. A painful, intolerable, crushing burden. Not just your own cross – there is hardly a choice or merit there – but someone else’s. Yet French politician Alain Juppe’, angry like other sundry politicos about Benedict’s refusal to commend abortion and contraceptives to Africans, has accused the Pope of becoming ‘autistic’. Of turning into ‘a real problem’. Funny. Did he expect the Roman Pontiff to scatter condoms to the cheering faithful from the popemobile, like confetti at a wedding? Chacun a son gout. Guess Catholics like Juppe’ are one of the many crosses this Pope has to bear.

Mind you, as a poor Protestant I don’t need to suck up to the Bishop of Rome. He is as likely to offer me a Cardinal’s hat as Ayatollah Khameini is to appoint me Chief Imam of Great Britain. Oh, well, the Holy Father can look after himself. I am grateful to him, though. For reminding me that I was once a Cyrenian. I mean, I briefly belonged to a Simon community. A small group of Christians working among outcasts. In our case the ‘cross’ we bore was minimal. Only occasionally being spat at by drunks. I once just dodged a biggish stone. A gentleman of the road, I recall, threw a cup of scalding tea into the face of a girl colleague. Mishaps that went with the job.

Simon of Cyrene, yes, a very inspiring figure. About whom we know so little. For me he has the handsome face of young Sidney Poitier. The black actor who played him in The Greatest Story Ever Told. A movie from way, way back, when Hollywood had not yet gone actively anti-Christian. Was Simon an African? Perhaps. More likely a Diaspora Jew. Cyrene boasted a large Jewish colony. Probably Simon had come to Jerusalem for the Passover feast. St Mark knew him well enough to mention his sons, Alexander and Rufus. The Gospels use a Persian word, angheria, meaning being pressed into service. Thus the soldiers forced Simon to carry Jesus’ cross. Bet he was hardly pleased at first. I see him huffing and puffing, even cursing his fate, while struggling up the hill under the hefty crossbar on his back – the upright being already fixed in its place on Golgotha. They reach the top. Then Jesus looks into his eyes. Wham! An upheaval. The man from Cyrene feels as if the prisoner had probed into his very soul. Shortly, he numbly stares at the horror of the crucifixion. Then he runs away, revolted by the spectacle’s inhumanity. Later Simon embraces the faith of the Crucified. Christians point him in awe out as ‘he who bore the Saviour’s cross.’ His children too become members of the Church…and so on.

Odd how Simon’s destiny has been to carry another, posthumous cross. Some heretics, dupes followers of a Gnostic fellow called Basilides,

claimed that the Cyrenean not only bore Christ’s cross but was crucified in his place. A senseless idea, for several reasons. First, it is unthinkable that the Roman soldiers would have colluded with such a deceit – they well knew the penalty was death. Second, the Jewish authorities who were present at the crucifixion, many of whom (though not all) were bitter enemies of Jesus, were not blind. They would certainly have detected the fraud. Third, even if they hadn’t there and then, it is impossible the truth would not leak out later. (Basilides obviously thought he knew it.) What an excellent rebuttal would that have been to the resurrection! ‘Your alleged Messiah did not rise, because he was never crucified in the first place’, the Jewish leaders would have triumphantly told the disciples. But they never did. Hence the whole idea is rubbish. QED.

In Brothers Karamazov Dostoevsky conjures up the by now all too famous fantasy of Christ’s return to earth. In medieval Spain he is recognised, arrested and burnt by the Inquisition. A haunting tale. And very unfair to Catholicism, I think. Groan… these Roussky writers do go over the top in sentimentality. I propose an alternative vision. Imagine this. Christ walks the streets of London today. Carrying his cross. Leaving behind a trail of blood from his tortured, scourged flesh. Up Oxford Street, Charing Cross Road, New Bond Street, take your pick. Among the busy shoppers. People stare. Some giggle. Some just look away. ‘Who’s that? Some nutter. Must be a stunt. Another Mel Gibson movie? What else?’ And so the Messiah walks on, staggering under his load. However, our people simply ignore him. A nation whose ancestors were Christians cannot even recognise Christ. They choose to go on jabbering into their mobiles, groping their partners, looking at the shop windows, munching their hamburgers…the awkward figure carrying the cross they don’t want to know.

Actually, many times I did see a man carrying a big cross up and down the fashionable Kensington High Street. No, don’t mean mystical visions. He was real. A tall black man, dressed in black, wearing white gloves. Slightly shabby. His cross was huge enough. He would rest it against a wall before going into Marks & Sparks. People of course studiously gave him a wide berth but I decided I had to speak to him. I tackled him on the way out: ‘Excuse me, why do you carry that?’ ‘It is a symbol of Christ’ he replied, in a pleasant musical voice. ‘Yes, I know, but why do you do it?’

His answer was a mere whisper. I could not really understand it. He then picked up the cross and was off.

That was the last time I saw him. Only later I realised one thing: I had not offered him to carry his cross.

Revd Frank Julian Gelli

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