Fr Martin Sirju

“Boy, that interpretation so high like that wall, I can’t even reach it!” He knocked the wind out of my sails as a seminarian but the lesson was learnt – that was not a good meditation.

That is my first memory of direct interaction with Fr Michel de Verteuil who has been starring in the Catholic News over the past few weeks.

I have been following the write-ups of the seminar in his honour via the Internet and join in congratulating those who organised this event. For a nation that has become somewhat famous for posthumous awards (remember the one for Archbishop Pantin?), it was refreshing to see an acknowledgement of one of our theological trailblazers.

While I am enjoying my sabbatical abroad tremendously, if there was one time I wish I could have been home it would have been to attend this seminar in honour of Fr Michel. Since I was not there to hear the different presentations I hope I do not sound repetitive for those who were there.

While in no way purporting to be exhaustive, these are some of the highlights of Fr Michel’s theology that remain deeply etched in my memory.

The local Church

First of all, Fr Michel has an inestimable love for the local Church. The term “local Church” needs some explaining since it is often seen in opposition to the Universal Church.

In the New Testament we see both images of Church: one that is expansive and includes all the Christian communities within Palestine and beyond into the Graeco-Roman world (Universal Church), and the other that is particular to a specific region (local Church).

We also see especially in the writings of Paul that this Universal Church is really a communion (koinonia) of local Churches. Ecclesiologists today also speak of the Universal Church being present in the local Church as well as the local Church being part of the Universal Church.

Hence our local Church in Trinidad and Tobago is a Church in its own right in communion with all the other Churches in the world, including the Church of Rome, and in a special way with the Churches that form the Antilles Episcopal Conference (AEC).

Fr Michel de Verteuil

Fr Michel served both, teaching and learning with Churches in Europe and North America, but above all with those in the Caribbean.

One way in which he realised the latter was through Liturgy School, which not only has participants from the Archdiocese of Port-of-Spain but from other dioceses in the region.

Gaining a sense of the local Church was, for him, a way of making us feel proud of who we are. One of the ravages of colonialism everywhere was self-hate; as Naipaul once remarked: “We lived in a society that denied itself heroes.” Fr Michel taught us to see the heroes of our Catholic faith on our own soil.

Through lectio divina he took us away from other nations and gathered us from countries that would want to impose their understanding of Jesus and the liturgy on us; he sprinkled clean water over our minds so that we might think anew and cleansed us of our self-hate; he took out the heart of stone that recoiled at new possibilities and put instead a heart rooted in the fleshy confidence of our own experiences; he put God’s spirit in us so that we might live according to the good news.

Above all he helped resettle us on our own “soil” – our culture, history, spirituality – and we saw too that we are His people and He our God (Cf Ezk 36: 24-28).

Human freedom

A few years ago when the position of Associate Editor of the Catholic News came up Fr Michel thought it a good idea to take it. While there I had the opportunity to read many of his editorials.

There were certain recurring themes that were not only important in giving a vision for Catholic News but also revealed what was important to his theology and spirituality.

Human freedom was a recurring theme and one we need to hear again in the light of so much determinism. It is rather common for social scientists and psychologists to insist how much we are determined socially and genetically.

While much of their argumentation is true it is not totally true; indeed we often underestimate our ability to triumph above our social context and our genes.

The history of Caribbean society is a history of our ability to move beyond “forced contexts” as Sr Diane Jagdeo OP pointed out some years ago at our Caribbean Theology Conference. Fr Michel was an unrelenting champion of human freedom and creativity that have so marked our Catholic tradition.

Small people

He was also a “small person” thinker, deeply influenced as he was by EF Schumacher’s Small Is Beautiful. He felt we give too much power to hegemonic structures be they political, economic or cultural. Here he learnt a lesson from Lloyd Best.

Fr Michel once remarked to Lloyd Best how sometimes the numbers who believe in the power of the gospel to transform society are so small to which Best retorted: “Why are you making such a fuss? Jesus had only twelve.”

Fr Michel was deeply influenced by “small people” – the “children of God” – who were able to leave unforgettable marks on society: Romero, Gandhi, Mother Teresa etc. He felt the “simple person” – not to be identified with any kind of intellectual naiveté – in the parish could do a lot for his/her Church or country and always affirmed local heroes in Church, politics, economics, science, art, music and yes, Carnival too! He always felt that “little axe does cut down big tree.”

Lectio Divina and humility

Fr Michel was a firm defender of the virtue of humility. He often said: “We are all one in sin and grace.” He always insisted that good lectio should lead to humility and contrition – “There for but the grace of God go I”.

In the oratio part of lectio divina the first part is always thanksgiving but the second part is repentance. Good meditation makes us aware of sin which is a fruit of humility and which in turn purifies whatever little humility we have.

At the first Caribbean Theology Conference in St Lucia Fr Michel preached on the Feast of the Presentation. He pointed out the contrast between the first reading in which God promises to purify his Temple in a divine theophany.

Yet all the Gospel has is two humble people, Mary and Joseph, presenting their little boy before another humble man - Simeon. How did God purify his Temple?

By leaving the “big people” out, including the priestly caste! It is from this humility springs another quality – the subversive character of the gospel.

Fr Michel, as anyone who knows him, was not a subversive character, at least not openly. But he always showed the power of the gospel to subvert the status quo.

One cannot subvert the status quo as part of some self-righteous agenda; that would be arrogance. But sometimes one is called to humbly and respectfully do so, which explains why genuine prophets are few.

We see this in the person of St Francis of Assisi who is known for peace yet this “peaceful” man revolutionised the Church of his time. The severest critics of the Church are also those deeply rooted in it. It is from the bowels (“gut” being another of Fr Michel’s catch words in lectio) of the gospel that one of our foundational Caribbean theologians, Idris Hamid (Presbyterian), wrote Troubling of the Waters.

And here as in so many places the inspiration has always been the humble carpenter of Nazareth who subverted the status quo of his times in fidelity to his mission of proclaiming the kingdom.

The above reflections do not exhaust the man, priest, theologian, team-member, scripture scholar, journalist and pastoral worker known as Fr Michel de Verteuil. He is not without faults and those who know him far better than I would know what these are.

But what is not in doubt is that he is a trailblazer in the area of theology and spirituality and he saw the dichotomy between the two as one of the great scandals of the modern Church.

May that wonderful idea that was the symposium in his honour encourage us to celebrate our local Church heroes who teach us to proclaim the marvels of God in our own native dialectos.