“Giving witness”, 2nd Sunday

While I was in China, I enjoyed a wonderful privilege. I had the opportunity to visit the Catholic places in the remote areas of Mainland China. The churches there were founded by French missionaries.

Since their expulsion by the previous regime, no priest has been living there, and only on rare occasions does a priest visit them. In some places, I was the first priest they saw in more than a year. I was very curious to see how a Catholic community was able to manage without practically everything that we usually take for granted in our churches here. Like for example, how they celebrated the Mass without a priest, and how they kept their faith and shared it with one another. I was dying to learn what kind of faith these communities had.

I knew the standard of living was painfully low. Some of them didn’t even use money, yet they still managed to survive with the scarce crops and little livestock they had raised. They shared the room of their houses with chickens and pigs. A child had to stay with his grandparents because his mother had been sold. Running water and electricity were luxuries that most could not enjoy.

That day was the Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, a Friday. The bell of the church was an old and rusty car tyre, but it was effective enough and soon summoned a huge crowd to pack the church. I had to stay outside for there was no place for me inside. The catechist started the Mass as usual, read the readings and preached in their dialect. I did not know what he preached about, but I did remember that one could hear a pin drop in that beautiful old European-style Church. The rest of the day passed without fanfare.

After dinner, people started to place their chairs facing one of the walls where posters of Mother Mary hung. Then, everyone knelt and the head of the household would start to sing to liveliest form of Rosary I’ve ever heard. This happened in every house, I was told. Some managed to know I was a priest and begged me with tears to visit their elders for they feared they could not pass the winter without absolution and last sacraments. That night I prayed I could have as much faith as they had.

Well, this is what I witnessed in China. Allow me now to put you through a little exercise. I would like you to reflect about what you were thinking when I was elaborating. I guess you would never have thought about my faith, or me, for that matter. You would probably admire those Chinese and the way they kept their faith. At best, you could have thought about how lucky I was to have this opportunity of witnessing their faith.

Well, this is what giving witness is all about. It is the act of disappearing behind the testimony. Rather than making people look at you, giving witness is about making people see through you. It is becoming transparent for others to see what is behind you.

This was the mission of St. John the Baptist, and he did it well. John knew that he had to grow smaller for Jesus to grow greater, and this made him the greatest of the prophets. He knew how to “disappear” for Jesus to “appear”. He knew how to give witness. And his witness was about Jesus being the “lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” Those strange words refer to the prophecy of Isaiah telling about the Suffering Servant.

John identified Jesus and his suffering as a way of removing the sin of the world from our midst. For him, this was more important than himself: the solution for the sinful situation in which the world lives, was coming his way.

Now, how about us? What is our testimony? How do we give witness? To what do we give witness? Giving witness is not only about being a Christian, but about everything we think is worth witnessing. It can be a movie, a friend, something that made us happy, something that made us feel fully alive – it could be anything.

This is the type of witnessing today’s world is thirsting for, and we ought to quench that thirst. Today we are called to “disappear” for our experience of God to “appear”. We need to become transparent for God to shine through, to be the light to the nations like the first reading tells us.

A friend of mine told me that his dream was to live in a poor country working in a slum without anyone knowing about him. That struck me. I know many who want to live with the poor. But his desire was to pass unnoticed as he served others. He knew what giving witness is about. Perhaps, this should be our way of pure witnessing for our neighbours, and for our children: that they see through us the brightness of God.

Saturday, 1st Week

In the past, there was a tendency to abuse the concept of sin and moral deviance, often extending it to innocent people who suffered psychological traumas.

Today, however, there is an increasing tendency to consider the criminal as a victim, a victim of social status, a victim of his genetic make up or even his psychological conditions. We are seeing more and more criminals who are more in need of treatment than in need of punishment.

So, which route shall we take?

Yes, we have heard it many times before, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick.” We know how doctors cure and treat patients, but what exactly did Jesus do with sinners? How did he “treat” sinners? The three gospels coincided in this point: “I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners.” Jesus did not punish them, neither did he accuse them, nor treated them as victims. Instead, Jesus “called” them.

Judging and condemning are too often not very useful to the culprit. Excusing them for lack of responsibility is both ignoring the reality of the harm of sin and denying the sinner’s freedom. Only by calling them (to repentance), do both respect their freedom and integrity, hence, changing them into better persons.

Why has the church always been incriminated of accusing and charged with being a factory of “neurotics”? Have we learnt to call as Jesus called, or have we forgotten how he did it?

Friday, 1st week

“I want to have the Playstation like other children have.” What others have becomes our standard of what we must have early in life. Sometimes parents also make use of the “like the others” argument to try to entice their children into the appropriate response: “See how other children are doing so well?”

The people of Israel had fallen into the same trend. Soon after they arrived at the promised land, they wanted to be “like the other” peoples and be governed by their own king. They were warned by the prophet that having a human king did not come without risks. Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Soon these kings would start abusing their power and would take advantage of the people. Authority would soon evolve from a form of service into a kind of power to “lord over the people they were called to serve”.

Yet, the yearning to be “like the others” was a more powerful drive, and Israel demanded that God gave them a king. Within the Church we don’t lack the same kind of thinking. “The world does…”, “how long shall we wait until the Church does…” These are common murmurings of the new people of Israel. God respected this misguided freedom and gave in. The people of Israel had their king.

Sure enough, these kings did abuse their power and led Israel from disaster to disaster. God wills us to remain “under the control of our own decisions”. Mistake is the price we pay for freedom. We are awakened to truth in freedom. And that implies the risk of failing and falling. Only after the failure of many kings, a remnant of the people was ready to see in Jesus, the true king, who used his power “to serve, and not to be served.”

Jesus healed the paralytic because they thought they needed visible signs. But the true power of Jesus is invisible. It is the power to heal from sin. Because this is the power that is most needed, Jesus is the kind who is most needed. Which mistakes have awakened us into the truth lately? Which failures have helped us realize what is the right path?

St. Anthony Abbot

He is the founder of monastic life. He was born in Egypt in 251. One day in church, he listened to the words of Jesus in the gospel, “leave everything, give it to the poor and then follow me”, and he did just that. He went out into the wilderness to begin a life of penance, living in absolute poverty, praying, meditating and supporting himself by manual work. Disciples gathered around him, attracted by his wisdom, moderation and holiness.

Although living in solitude, he did not live apart from the world, but supported the persecuted victims of Diocletian, and helped St. Athanasius in his fight against the Arians. That text of the gospel, not only transformed his life but also changed the life of the Church. The same thing happened to St. Francis of Assisi. Upon hearing the same gospel, he left everything and founded the Franciscan Order.

A virus behaves only as a living thing when it is inside a life cell. In the same way, the words of Scripture can only “infect” the world when they become alive in human hearts that had learnt to listen and had allowed the words of Scripture to transform them.