My October column is published in the Scottish Catholic Observer today.
How big is your faith?
How powerful is your faith?
How do you measure up?
Check out my column today. The full text is here next week, but don’t wait for that – get your copy this weekend.
Last month I quoted His Holiness, Pope Francis I, telling us to build the Church. We must be the evangelists spreading the Faith. That sounds exciting and really scary all at the same time. It’s exciting because it places us in the forefront of building the Kingdom of God on earth. It is scary because we don’t really know how to go about it.
A few years ago I was in Liberia with Father Gary Jenkins, an SMA missionary. I was learning about how a mission works, looking at the school, the clinics and the people working there. He was a very experienced missionary and was working in remote villages, bringing the Gospel to people who had never heard the Word.
At that time Liberia was emerging from a disastrous civil war and people were returning to devastated villages to try to pick up the threads of normal life again. I asked Father Gary how he went about introducing people to the Gospel. How do you get them interested? His answer was quite simple. The culture in those African communities was an oral one. Most people could not read and write so everything was in the spoken word. Their culture was passed down through the generations in stories. Father Gary told stories.
His stories were the stories of the Bible. He visited villages and told his stories to generate an understanding of what Christianity was about. He told me that Missionaries did not bring God to Africa. God was already there. The Holy Spirit moved in Africa before the white man and created a thirst for knowledge of God. What was new to Africa was Jesus.
This seemed logical but it all seemed a bit too simple. Father Gary agreed and offered to take me on a visit he was making to a village in the forest where he had started a small Christian group. The village was not too far away but was not easy to reach. We drove off the road and down tracks through the forest until we reached a river. There we were met by a boatman in his dugout canoe.
There were only two men who were allowed to ferry people across the river. He came back and forth until the whole party was across. We found ourselves on the edge of the village and walked in to a great welcome. We celebrated Mass in a hut in the centre of the village before sharing a meal there.
As darkness fell we were treated to a spectacular dance display where Magongo, a forest spirit danced through fire, displaying his power over that element. The boys from the mission who accompanied us stayed close to us in fear. The old religion still carried sway. Magongo is really a man in a suit of grass, not exactly what you would wear to dance through a roaring fire but that’s why it is so impressive.
I wondered what it was about Father Gary that impressed the villagers more than Magongo. It turned out that Magongo is a spirit dedicated to Father Gary and he bowed down before the priest after the dance. Now I was really puzzled. Father Gary eventually told me the story.
He had gone to the village, telling his stories and building a community but there was another group there, an Evangelical group who opposed his presence. They disrupted his attempts to have a Mass in the village and he eventually gave up. He explained to the village chief that the people did not seem to want him there.
That would have been the end of the story but for the start of a new war. The civil war was, as I have said, disastrous for the people. Many fled into displacement camps, seeking safety but often finding very difficult conditions. Father Gary stayed in his post throughout the war and did his best to alleviate the condition of the people and sought aid from many people in the UK. Many of you will have helped him via SIR and Mary’s Meals.
When the war finished and the people were returning a messenger came from the village. The chief wanted Father Gary to come back. He went to the village and asked the chief why he had sent for him. He had tried before but the people had preferred a different group. Why would things be different now?
The chief agreed that the people had been drawn to a different Christian group who had offered prosperity in this life. When the war came that group left. Father Gary had stayed and had continued to work to alleviate their difficult conditions. The people had realised that Father Gary brought more than promises; he brought himself. By his selflessness and good works he had shown them the true meaning of the Gospel message.
It seems to me that it’s not the telling of the story that is important. If we are to build the Church we must be prepared to give ourselves to be used. Evangelisation is the work of the Holy Spirit. We must allow the Spirit to use us to influence other people. We can be an influence by behaving like true Christians in the way we go about our daily lives and in the way we treat others.
Telling the story of Magongo dancing through the fire made me think back to the boys who were afraid of the forest spirit. At the time I was both puzzled and amused. These boys had been boy soldiers in the civil war and had seen dreadful things. They were Christians, firmly believing in one God and yet they still feared this other god.
The apparent weakness of their faith made me think of my own faith in one true god. Do I really have no other gods in my life? If that is the case then why did I make sure I had a lottery ticket last night? If my Faith was strong I would understand that money will not bring me happiness or satisfaction. I tell myself that money is useful and could be used to change the lives of so many poor people. It could do a lot of good.
I’m deluding myself. Millions could be put to good use, but the Gospel message is not about using easy money. It is about the hard reality of sharing the little we have, not the surplus we can’t think how to spend. If I won the lottery would I help the poor before or after buying myself a shiny red sports car?
Yes, there are still some false gods in my life and I need to recognise them for what they are. Only then can I live a life that truly teaches by example. Only then will I be able to live up to the task Christ set for all Christians; to lead the world to Him.
Now I’m not so sure of myself than I was when I started writing this. I need to go off and seek out those other false gods that might be lurking there, somewhere in the back of my mind.
You will find him there. Are there any false gods lurking in your background? They might not be dancing through fire but they could be hiding in that lottery ticket or that bottle of red. Oops, that might be another of mine.
My September column is published today (Friday 27th September) in the Scottish Catholic Observer. This month I look into how missionaries share the Faith. I talk about an African village and Magongo – a forest spirit. See the video below.
Get the paper this weekend for the full story.
Worried about the rent? (Photo credit: Gauis Caecilius)
I’ve been puzzling over the bedroom tax or whatever the government call it. They argue that it all about fairness. It’s only fair to withdraw the benefit money for the rooms the poor in social housing don’t need. That sounds fair. They could be living in a smaller place that is cheaper and let a larger family move in to the bigger house. Very fair – if you don’t look any closer.
Nobody has produced figures to show where these smaller houses are and they haven’t show where the overcrowded families are either. The closer you look the hollower the argument becomes. Now I thought that a government with lots of civil servants to work these things out would have all the data to hand to explain their arguments. – They don’t, perhaps because they have paid off the civil servants, perhaps because they really don’t want to look to closely at the facts.
It seems to me that they are picking on the poor, putting them out of their homes or cutting their income – because the benefit bill has to be cut – because we are in a financial fix. Why are we in a fix? I think we are in a fix because the big bankers trousered large amounts of cash in bonuses for dodgy deals that collapsed eventually. The bulk of us have our incomes restricted or cut while the rich get more money.
That might sound like a good idea – especially if you are rich. For the economy it is bad news. Most of us – especially the poorest spend the money we get. It keeps the economy going. If we have less, we spend less and businesses fail – the economy goes down. So why hit the poor? Simple: the government are not poor and the poor can do little about it. The government can blame them for the fix we are in.
At Mass yesterday we had a reading from the prophet Amos. I’ll quote it here.
Now Amos must have been some prophet, he could see these guys coming two thousand years before or is it just that nothing has changed over all that time? The Lord will not forget and neither should we.
Remember what is being done to the poor and remember who had a part in it. You will be faced with a choice in two years and you will be responsible for calling them to account.
In this series of articles we are walking on our journey of Faith. We are taking the opportunity of the Year of Faith to examine the roots of our faith and look at how we can develop and grow it. The Journey of Faith is not a simple straight road. There are many bends and forks in the road. Sometimes we can go off the path and find ourselves lost. It is then that we see the value of having a good guide.
At this point on our journey I thought it might be a good idea to find a guide. Fortunately, our guide arrived in the person of the Holy Father. Pope Francis travelled to Brazil for World Youth Day to bring his message and guidance to the young people of the world. His words are freely available to guide us on our journey.
Now, there may be some readers out there who are thinking that I am no longer a youth. They may say that the Holy Father’s words are not for me. I disagree on two grounds. First I have to point out that we are called to eternal life and that even those who have reached the age of one hundred are mere infants in the scope of eternity. We are all children. Secondly, having looked at what Pope Francis said, I can see that he actually addressed the whole Church with a focus on the youth.
So, what was his message? It was simple, “Go and make disciples of all nations.” We have heard that before. Jesus said that to the apostles, but the message was not just for the twelve, it was to all of us. We have been given the gift of faith and to make it grow within us we must give it away to others. Trying to keep it for ourselves, hidden away from the world will cause it to wither. We are urged to bring our faith out into the streets.
Now the image of standing on street corners with a megaphone, broadcasting to the shoppers and passers-by fills me with horror. I can’t imagine anything worse. Telling everyone how to live and what to believe, correcting the errors in their lives on Main Street, telling the world that they are wrong, just seems ineffective.
The Pope is encouraging us to become missionaries in our lives in a proactive way, showing how to live rather than telling others. His words in Rio were;
“Go and make disciples of all nations”. With these words, Jesus is speaking to each one of us, saying: “It was wonderful to take part in World Youth Day, to live the faith together with young people from the four corners of the earth, but now you must go, now you must pass on this experience to others.” Jesus is calling you to be a disciple with a mission! Today, in the light of the word of God that we have heard, what is the Lord saying to us? What is the Lord saying to us? Three simple ideas: Go, do not be afraid, and serve.
Now I was not in Rio and did not have that experience to pass on but the message is not to be avoided. If my faith is to grow then I must share it. The Holy Father said;
Faith is a flame that grows stronger the more it is shared and passed on, so that everyone may know, love and confess Jesus Christ, the Lord of life and history (cf. Rom 10:9).
Careful, though! Jesus did not say: “go, if you would like to, if you have the time”, but he said: “Go and make disciples of all nations.” Sharing the experience of faith, bearing witness to the faith, proclaiming the Gospel: this is a command that the Lord entrusts to the whole Church, and that includes you;
How are we to bear witness to the faith? In his talks to the pilgrims and others Pope Francis continually uses the word “Solidarity”. He urges us to look outwards to the poor, the sick and the excluded. In his visit to St. Francis Of Assisi Of The Providence Of God Hospital he said;
As Jesus says to us: “As you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me” (Mt 25:40).
The Holy Father is calling us back to the very basics of the Church, to the examples Christ gave us. We are called to rebuild the Church. As individuals we can become set in our ways and the same is true of the Church. We can become bogged down in the minutia of daily life and miss the big picture. Then it is easy to wander off the path. He talked of the Church as a building made of stones, living stones and the part we play.
each one of us is a living stone, a small part of the edifice; when the rain comes, if this piece is missing, there are leaks and water comes in. Don’t build a little chapel which holds only a small group of persons. Jesus asks us to make his living Church so large that it can hold all of humanity, that it can be a home for everyone!
This is no invitation to join a small faith-sharing group. This is a challenge to grasp the faith and follow where it leads. We are challenged to take on the injustice in the world and expose it for what it is. We are expected to identify what is wrong in our world, and in our Church and make changes. This is not a ‘happy clappy’ church we are being invited to. We are called to work for the coming of the Kingdom.
When I really was a youth the priest brought the sacraments to us and we received them. We were passive. The reality of the Church is that we are called to be active. Some of us may find that exciting. Other might be frightened off. How can we do this on our own? Well, as the Holy Father reminded the pilgrims in Rio, we are not on our own.
“Do not be afraid!” When we go to proclaim Christ, it is he himself who goes before us and guides us. When he sent his disciples on mission, he promised: “I am with you always” (Mt 28:20). And this is also true for us! Jesus never leaves anyone alone! He always accompanies us .
I stop and think about this challenge. It seems immense. I don’t even know where to begin. Pope Francis was there before me. To the pilgrims at his Mass on the beach at Copacabana he said;
Some people once asked Mother Teresa of Calcutta what needed to change in the Church, and which wall should they start with? They asked her, where is the starting point? And she replied, you and I are the starting point!
There was so much more in the Holy Fathers talks in Rio. I have tried to convey something of what he said that will guide us in our journey but it is worth reading all of what he said. The whole text is available on the internet, on the Vatican website. You will find a link to it here.
So, you and I are the starting point. Let’s get out there and grow the faith.
Joseph McGrath
My latest column on this year’s theme of Journey of Faith is published today (Friday 23rd August 2013) in the Scottish Catholic Observer. In this issue I look at some of the things Pope Francis I said about Faith on his recent visit to World Youth Day in Rio.
Have a look and tell me what you think. If you miss this issue the full text will appear here next week.
My July column in the Scottish Catholic Observer has been out for more than a week now.
The full text is shown below. My theme this year has been “A Journey of Faith”. I’m examining how we get the Faith and how it grows. This month I looked at doubt.
I’m writing this article on the feast of Saint Thomas, Doubting Thomas. Doubt is often thought of as the opposite of faith. Parents tend to panic when their children express doubts about Catholic belief. Sometimes we have doubts and wonder why God allows doubts to creep into our heads. Is it the Devil putting these thoughts in my head? Is doubt so bad? If so, what about Thomas? Was he less of an apostle than the others because he doubted? Perhaps he was the one who voiced the thoughts that some of the others had but were afraid to say.
Doubt is not the same as refusal to believe. When Thomas expressed doubt about the identity of the risen Lord he was being cautious. He was not willing to accept everything he was told. He gave Jesus the opportunity to show the proof of His identity. He gave us a good example to follow. The Church is cautious. Reports of miracles and apparitions are not accepted readily. Only after close examination of the evidence will the Church eventually recognise such incidents. When someone is canonised it is the last stage of exhaustive examination. Thank God I’ll never be canonised; imagine having every aspect of your life scrutinised.
I visited the tomb of Saint Thomas in India and saw the spear head that reputedly killed him. There was some doubt about this. Some claimed that this was a different Thomas but Pope John Paul II had been there before me, so I thought it must be ok. My visit was just after the Tsunami that made the headlines here. The tomb is in a basilica in Chennai. At the time of the tsunami the water came up into the town, causing a great deal of damage but stopped at the Basilica. That banished the doubts of many people about this being the tomb of the saint.
So, what role does doubt play in developing our Faith? When doubts creep in we are forced to think seriously about our Faith. Edward DeBono, a writer on educational psychology, declared that we only think when we don’t know. For example, we can do long division without thinking about it because we know how it’s done. If we are asked to do a long division in roman numerals, that’s a different story. We have to think about that. Having doubts can make us think more deeply about our Faith and make it stronger because we have deepened our understanding.
When I was growing up we were taught about mysteries of faith. As one teacher, I remember, put it “That’s a mystery and you’ll never understand it.” That seemed too simple to me. If we just accept things without trying to understand then faith does not grow. Why would God give us the ability to recognise a problem without giving us the ability to learn from it? It is in recognising our doubts for what they are and trying to solve them that we deepen in faith.
But, what if we can’t solve the problem? Is that our faith declining? I don’t think so. It’s just the same as any other problem, if I can’t sort it out myself I ask for help. Turn to someone who has some expertise. We are lucky to have priests who are well trained and know what they are about. Being asked for help with a doubt that bothers me will be a welcome change from some of the questions priest are asked.
Priests can have their doubts too. A few years ago I was visiting Ecuador (I wasn’t looking for political asylum) and staying with a missionary order there. One of the priests told me about a problem he had recently encountered. Their cook had a little boy who became seriously ill. She could not afford medical treatment so the priests arranged for him to go to hospital. Despite the best medical care he was getting worse and the doctors offered no hope.
The founder of the order had been recently canonised and this priest found himself in the little chapel, praying for the boy’s recovery. He looked up at the statue of the founder and, in a fit of anger, said “How could you let this happen? Ach I never believed you were a saint anyway. If you really were a saint you would do something about this.”
Next day the word came that the boy was sitting up in his bed; on his way back to full health. Now the priest never really understood how that had come about but he felt that his problem with doubt had sparked some action.
So how should we handle the situation when our children express doubts? We could just tell them that they are wrong and they should put aside their doubts and believe. I don’t think that will do much good. Perhaps we are better to see this as opportunity to get them to think more deeply about questions of faith. When we don’t really understand ourselves, we should be honest and admit that. Encouraging them to find help to get the solution might help them to see that our Faith is not blind faith. It is through engaging with questions of faith that we can grow in Faith.
Sometimes I think God could have come up with an easier way for us to deepen our understanding of our faith. Why do we have to suffer the anxiety that doubts bring? Could there not be an easier way? Perhaps there could, but it seems to me to be the story of our lives. Nothing comes easy. I was watching my wee grandson via the computer link from Vancouver the other day (I know, I’m too young to be a grandpa). He was dribbling away and shoving his hand in his mouth. He has just cut his first tooth and others are on the way. His sore mouth is just a symptom of growing.
Our anxieties about doubts are just symptoms of our growing in Faith. If we look at it that way then we should be happy when we are in doubt. That is evidence that we are still in a process of growing in Faith. If we had sunny days all year and no rain the garden would dry up and there would be no growth. If we see our doubts as a challenge from God rather than temptation from the Devil then we can happily get on with deepening our understanding and strengthening our Faith.
Joseph McGrath
Window On My World 