Veritas – From the APRIM

This is my first week back at Blackfriars Priory School after enjoying seven weeks of leave as we welcomed Amelia Ruggiero into the world. Both Amelia and Mrs Victoria Ruggiero are doing exceptionally well and our life is so much richer. For me, the seven weeks have been somewhat of a sabbatical and time of jubilee as I entered a new way of seeing. This coming Friday, our staff will be participating in our staff reflection day, a time to stop and contemplate our relationships with self, others and God.

For the Jewish people, jubilee was a time to realign the balance of wealth, power and priorities. It was a time to let the ground lie fallow, to redistribute land, to erase debts and to reassess life and one’s relationship with God.

Whilst we may not be able to tell the bank to delete our home loan, we can do some things. The notion of jubilee reminds us that nothing we have is permanent. The home we spend so long paying off, will one day be someone else’s mortgage. Our busyness, work, stresses, youthfulness, joys and disappointments, will also vanish away. The people who were with you when you entered this world will usually (and hopefully) not be there when you leave.

Reflection begins with stopping. If we don’t stop, we cannot see what is out of balance. Jesus always made time to stop. Jesus’ dedication to solitary prayer and reflection was paramount to his ministry. You cannot minister to anyone, unless you first minister to yourself. The aim of jubilee is to restore balance. Fiscal, emotional, spiritual and societal practices need to be examined and balanced. The Jewish people, whose Biblical stories are part of our Judeo-Christian story, believed that this we necessary every seven years (and every forty nine years, the fiftieth year being a year of great jubilee). Furthermore, every seventh day is a day of sabbatical and rest and the Jewish people felt that this process resonated well with the human hum drum of life and kept the world in check.

For us, we need to allow our personal ground to lay fallow. Our sacred day of rest, Sunday, is almost non-existent in our consumer driven world. We are obsessed with having more and upgrading our ‘things’ because our internal balance is out. We believe that purchasing ‘more’ will restore our inner balance, when in fact it tilts us further in a negative direction. We all do it, that’s why the Sabbath and the Jubilee were so important to the Jewish people and our Christian story. Without a disciplined approach, we spiral into an unbalanced, unjust, Godless and selfish existence.

What does Jubilee in my life look like? It looks like putting family and relationships first, not money and things. It involves slowing down, not doing as much and reassessing what really matters. It is reflected in seeing injustice and doing something about it, without going with the fear-based negativity of public opinion. It means standing up for what Jesus taught and not being afraid of the consequences. It lives in God and the Sacraments. It is in many ways, counter cultural, but the only path to life.

Blessings and Peace.

Mr David Ruggiero

Assistant Principal: Religious Identity and Mission