Edmund Rice - "Turning aside to the miracle of the lit bush"

“I have seen the light break through
To illuminate a small field for a while
And gone my way and forgotten it.
But that was the pearl of great prize,
The one field that had the treasure in it.
I realize now that I must give
All that I have to possess it.
Life is not hurrying on to a receding future
Nor hankering after an imagined past.
It is the turning aside, like Moses,
To the miracle of the lit bush.” (The Field – R.S.Thomas)

“You have seen how the Lord your God bore you, as a man bears his son, in all the way that you went until you came to this place.” (Deut 1: 31) I am of the firm belief that Edmund must have believed and laid faith in this ancient text to enable him to listen for God in his life.

Edmund lived a fulfilled and happy life pursuing his dream and ambition to be a successful businessman and a devoted family man. Within seven years of him arriving as a young apprentice, he had established himself as one of the respected ‘merchant princes’ in the bustling port city of Waterford. His uncle had signed over the chandling business to Edmund who by this time had also found the woman, Mary Elliot, with whom he would share his life. What more could Edmund ask for? He had the world at his feet. The society respected him not only for being a successful businessman but also a charitable man, his business was thriving, he owned a substantial amount of land and property, and was happily married with the prospect of becoming a father soon.

It was at this time when he was at the very peak of his life that sorrow came knocking on his door. In 1789 Mary Elliot died either of a virulent fever or following a horse riding accident leaving to Edmund’s care their newly born mentally challenged daughter. Edmund was torn by a deep sense of grief and in his own words experienced the very “dregs of misery”. This tragedy in his life was his defining moment. He could have been defined by this moment or he could have used it to define the path he would pursue for the rest of his life. In many respects this was the beginning of his conversion experience. Faced with tragedy some people turn away from their God while others discover their God more intimately. Edmund in these dark moments must have felt God’s blind hand groping to find his face.

Edmund had quite a few choices set before him now. He could throw himself whole heartedly into his work, consider the possibility of marrying again, remain the widower and care for his daughter or he could follow his brother into priesthood. What followed therefore was a decade of listening for God in the daily ordinary experience of life for it is the basic experience of life that each of us has that is the first and fundamental Word that God speaks to us. Edmund listened for God in his experiences and in the people that he encountered, reflecting on these in silent moments of prayer. Like Mary, he pondered in his heart all that had happened. (Lk 2:52)

This decade of the 90’s was one of discernment for Edmund. He had lost everything that was dear to his heart, yet he did not “stay in (his) weakness fingering the scraps of linen that bound the (life he) used to know.” He left the “tomb of dead hopes” to “emerge into the light.” Even as he cared for his handicapped daughter helped by his own stepsister, he used the period to rethink his life using both a practical and spiritual approach. He was very conscious of the rapidity with which life can change. He was increasingly aware of those at the margins of society – his own daughter – himself as a widower – the hordes of poor boys wandering the Waterford quayside – his Catholic co-religionists who had been marginalized for over two hundred years since the Reformation. These were years of personal struggle for this increasingly spiritually and socially aware businessman. During this time he had procured the Douay Bible (1791) and become part of an association of young men to deepen their spiritual life (1792). He reached out to the disadvantaged, setting them back on their feet and restoring their sense of dignity and humanity. He reached out to the likes of Black Johnny, Bianconi, the Connolly girls and Moll McCarthy to name but a few. He spend time at the wharfs and in slums with people living in absolute poverty and squalor and visited mental asylums, prisons, scaffolds. He initiated an organization to look after the homeless men of the city. To many he was advisor and confidant. He showed a “wonderful sympathy for God’s poor.”

Edmund must have agonized over the direction his life would now take even as his business thrived as never before. His business pursuits called him to travel extensively around Ireland and this would have given him first hand experience of the desperate poverty of the people around him. On one of these travels he shared a room with a friar who spent the entire night in prayer of thanksgiving. This had a profound influence on Edmund. Could it be that it was at this moment that Edmund came to truly pray the words of Job, “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, naked I shall return. Yahweh gave, Yahweh has taken back. Blessed be the name of the Lord!”(Job 1:21) Going to the continent to study for priesthood was now a distinct possibility. But when he expressed this view to a lady friend she challenged him to do for the poor boys of Waterford what Nano Nagle had started for the girls of Cork. It was in these circumstances that Edmund contemplated his ultimate transformative decision to dedicate his life to the service of the poor of Waterford.

As the decade of the 90’s drew to a close there was a definite clarity emerging in his discernment of the path he would travel having in those long years of reflection groped obscurely towards his emergent vocation. He did not make his decision hastily but when it was taken it was marked by the crisp style of the accomplished businessman who had weighed all the factors. There is an echo here of the Jesus in Luke’s gospel who “as the time drew near… resolutely took the road for Jerusalem” (Lk 9:51) Edmund’s decision was permeated by his deep and rapidly evolving sense of personal spirituality, which must have drawn a lot of its inspiration from his reading of the scriptures, his commitment to prayer, the daily Eucharist and time spent in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament.

As he drew the multihued threads of his varied experiences together he recognized the beauty of Gods creative pattern emerging in his life. He had seen the “lit bush” at the wayside inn where he encountered the friar who spent his night in thanksgiving prayer. He had seen the “light break through” on the crowded quays, the back streets and alleyways of Waterford where everyday he interacted with so many of the poor children of the city. He had recognized the finger of God pointing to the road less traveled from the window of lady friend's house. In Bishop Hussey’s provocative pastoral which strongly condemned the proselytizing activities of the Protestant schools and urged Catholic parents to withdraw their children from such schools he had recognized the “pearl of great prize” for which he was willing to give all that he had to possess it.

In selling his business and returning to the stable at New Street to set up his first classroom for the poor boys of Waterford Edmund had certainly chosen the road less traveled … less traveled for a wealthy businessman who had enjoyed the excitement and buzz of Waterford’s busy social life; less traveled for the chandler who had no experience of teaching; less traveled for the catholic layman forging a new path through the dangerous minefield of Protestant establishment; less traveled, as the philosophy he espoused and realized to raise the dignity and social status of the poor through means of education was counter-cultural to contemporary perceptions of social justice.

Edmund had heard the voice of God and he would follow convinced that he was being led and held by his God.

“And in the changing phases of man’s life
I fall in sickness and misery
My wrists seem broken and my heart seems dead
And the strength is gone, and my life
Is only the leavings of a life:
And still among it all,
Snatches of oblivion, and snatches of renewal
Odd, wintry flowers upon the withered stem
Yet new, strange flowers
Such as my life has not brought before,
Now blossoms for me –
Then must I know that still
I am in the hands of the unknown God,
He is breaking me down to his oblivion
To send me forth on a new morning, a new man.” (Shadows – D H Lawrence)