In Tom Wolfe's novel, The Bonfire of the Vanities, there is a scene of an opulent dinner party. The two dozen diners chatter endlessly conveying the sense of the frenetic pace of life among the successful and wealthy in New York. Towards the end of the meal the enormously rich host introduces the guest of honour, an elderly English poet, who, a gossipy guest lets us know, is being treated for AIDS.
Old and haggard, this man rose to thank his hosts and to the brilliant, glittering gathering he tells a story by one of their own famous writers, Edgar Allen Poe, The Masque of the Red Death. A plague is ravaging the land. Prince Prospero assembles all the best people in his castle with enough food for two years. He shuts the gates against the outside world and begins a masked ball that will last until the plague has burnt itself out beyond the walls. The ball takes place in seven salons, each more intense than the one before and the revellers are drawn on and on towards the seventh room which is all in black. One night a guest appears in this room, dressed as Death. The prince is angry and orders him to be ejected but no one dares to touch him. Finally the prince himself goes to throw him out but the minute he touches him he, the prince, falls down dead. The Red Death had entered the house of Prospero.
The elderly poet continues, "The guests have known all along what awaits them in this room, yet they are drawn irresistibly towards it, because the excitement is so intense and the pleasure is so unbridled and the gowns and the food and the drink and the flesh are so sumptuous - and that is all they have. Families, homes, children, the great chain of being... mean nothing to them any longer."
The guests were dumbstruck embarrassed, not knowing how to react. "The intruder the Bavardages (the hosts) dreaded most, silence, now commanded the room." But not for long. "Gradually, without conviction, the hive began to buzz again."
Poe's is a story for our time. So many people, like the guests at the ball, live mindlessly, looking for their own comfort and wellbeing and totally ignoring or neglecting others. Bombarded by advertisements at every turn many end up believing the seductive promises offered, "Buy me, eat me, wear me and your life will be different, better, more exciting." The plague rages outside but it does not affect them. The earth is being ravaged, rainforests destroyed, seas and rivers polluted, species facing extinction - so what? What is that to do with me? There are enough people around to worry about these issues. And they move to the next distraction.
Can it be that, like the listeners in Wolfe's novel, we too dread ‘the intruder?' Is there a niggling fear that if we pause to give thought to these issues, to reflect on the direction of our lives, we might have to change? We might, for example, begin to feel that we should, for a start, give some time to a neighbour in need, to help out in a parish or community, to join an action group against some injustice. Too demanding? Much more comforting to leave things as they are.
And yet, all the time, God is calling us to more authentic living. The good life he wants for us is devoid of selfishness and self-centredness; a life where the welfare of others is as important as our own. Like the Good Samaritan, we are invited to break our journey, put our plans on hold, take appropriate action to bind the wounds of others. Otherwise we may end up with all the luxuries of life - the money, the possessions, the leisure - but our hearts will be shrivelled.
Many years ago the psalmist wrote lamenting that the people of Israel would not respond to God's call. What happened? "So I let them go with their stubborn hearts to follow their own devices" (Ps:81).
"Oh that today we would hear your voice, Lord, and walk in your ways!" (cf. Ps:95).
Sister Redempta Twomey is a Columban Sister living in Ireland.