victim, persecutor, rescuer

Dec 3, 2013

Last Saturday I led a reflection day for our parish of the Good Shepherd, Hurunui . There are few things that are as helpful for a community as the opportunity to retreat together. Of course not all parishioners take part, only a relatively small number, but numbers are not important since there is nothing more positively contageous than one person seeking to live the life of Christ fully.

As I prepared for the day I was thinking about Pope Francis’ Exhortation last week entitled “the Joy of the Gospel.” If you have followed Pope Francis’ words and actions over the past eight months you won’t find any surprises in his writing. However it is encouraging and helpful after having seen the evidence of this man who seeks to follow Christ in his public papal role, to have this insightful reflection revealing his motivation and mission in a single document.

A number of people have commented that Pope Francis is a man who never seems to be defensive.  While defensiveness is often hailed as a virtue (perhaps when I defend the values or the people I hold dear), it is always motivated by fear which is the opposite of love. A country may maintain a defence force, but only because they fear an enemy attack.

I recall hearing a story years ago about the newspaper delivery boy who every morning would receive verbal abuse from the same man after delivering his newspaper. Every morning the boy would give the same response to this attack: “Have a nice day.”  A neighbour who often noticed this one day took the chance to ask the boy why he responded so kindly to the man’s abuse. The boy’s response: “I’m not going to let him decide how I am going to act.”

WIth all of this in mind I began Saturday’s reflection day. As the day progressed I realised again just how important the example of Pope Francis and the paper boy is for we who seek to live fully. And then I remembered the “Karpman Triangle” as an especially  helpful tool for the one who seeks to live without the imprisonment of defensiveness.

Stephen Karpman is an American psychiatrist who presented his “triangle” to help clarify a central problem that most of us have in our relationships. In the clip below, this ‘drama triangle’ is applied to a work situation. But the same artificial roles of ‘persecutor’ ‘rescuer’ and ‘victim’ are at play in our families, parishes, schools, social networks… (anywhere people are together).I suspect that if Jesus was presenting his Sermon on the Mount today, Stephen Karpman might get a mention.What do you think?

0 Comments

Submit a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Latest Posts

Ascension

Ascension

Most people think of the Ascension of Jesus as being a ‘departure’ moment. Jesus was here and now he is gone. We imagine Jesus going up into the clouds and the disciples waving farewell from below.
This is an unhelpful image.
It is essential that we understand what does happen and what does not happen in the Ascension event.
It would be easy to wrongly think that in his ministry showed us how to build the city of God on earth, and now he has gone and the mission is left to us.

touching the sacred

touching the sacred

A few years ago I was on Rēkohu Chatham Islands for what has become one of Aotearoa New Zealand’s most sacred days, the ANZAC day of remembrance in gratitude for those who gave their lives, their health, their youth, their service that we may live in peace.
The art above was produced by one of the students at the local Te One school.

every which way

every which way

A good number of Food For Faith readers have discovered one of the more recent FFF initiatives, the weekly Homily Studio.
The recording of this half-hour podcast is one of the highlights of my week.

in the room

in the room

Today’s reflection marks the end of the FFF Lent-to-Easter daily email posts. Thank you for your company on this journey.  While these daily posts (for those who have signed up for the Lent / Advent reflections at this link) will take a break until Advent, those who have signed up to receive every post or regular posts at this link.  You might take a moment now to visit this page now to check your email preferences.

During retreat this week I found myself pondering just how difficult it is to accept that God, in Jesus, is really with me today.

disciplined discipleship

disciplined discipleship

As I write I’m nearing the end of retreat days with a group of fifty priests from across the USA.  As I mentioned a couple of days ago the diversity and youth of the group is remarkable with the majority being aged under 40 and a good number ordained for fewer than five years.