By Sr. Walfridis, SSpS
Before I posted to Papua New Guinea in 1592, I taught in our college in Manila. When I received my mission appointment, I thought to myself, now I will really taste some bush mission work. But, to my disappointment, I landed in a school catechists the week I arrived.
But Every Thursday morning (our free day instead of Saturday) I went to Kananam, a nearby village, for religious instruction. When the sea was calm, I went by a small canoe and when the sea is rough, by push-bike.
It was a great joy for me to see those kids lining the beach welcome me, many of them in their birthday clothes. The first thing I usually did was to send them for ‘Was Was ‘ in the sea before starting classes in the tiny bush school. This was a great jump down for me from my college classes. Yet, these bush children were also my brothers and sisters. As the weeks went by, and we get to know each other better, I soon realized how simple and lovable they were. I thought to my self, this is surely what Christ meant when He said: ‘Unless you become like little children…’ This was the first and most important lesson I learned from them and this made me feel very small indeed. And what have they learned from me?
Last year, one of my former students, Matthew Landu, was ordained to the priesthood, and his cousin, Allan Apini, is at Bomana seminary in Port Moresby. They, and the many local priests, religious and church leaders in Papua New Guinea today are among the seeds that have fallen on the good soil.
As a missionary Sister, in this particular vineyard of the Lord, I feel that though my work is very significant, still I can say honestly that, somehow, I have contributed a tiny something of myself.
Hildegard Goss- Mayr
In 1962 under the auspices of the International Fellowship of Reconciliation, Jean Goss, my husband, and I went to Latin America. We were aware that the whole continent of South America was in the pre-revolutionary situation.
For four months, we did nothing but to study the situation and to listen to the people. On that trip, we met two people who, no one sense or another, have marked the recent history of Latin America. We started our trip to Bogota, Colombia, where we introduced to a priest called Camillo Torres. He was then a chaplain at the University of Bogota, where he worked with students. But he had already begun to make his commitment as a priest struggling for justice. When we discussed what he had been doing and how he envisaged the work for Liberation, it soon became very clear that he believed dialogue with those in power was impossible; they would not agree to talk to him. He felt that in the end for him there were no other ways than one day to join the Armed Forces in Colombia. But there is one question in his mind and in his heart. He asked: ‘how can I be faithful to my people, who must be liberated from exploitation, at the same time remain loyal to the message of Lord Jesus, the message of love, not violence and hatred?
We talk to him about the power of nonviolence and our belief that the revolution of Christ goes beyond anything we have discovered by worldly means. We tried to explain how the nonviolent revolutionist is no less radical; he goes with the very gift of his being into the process of change. But he refuses the life of the oppressors. He has a different aim: to liberate the oppressed and the oppressors in the order for real transformation takes place.
'If one day our conscience really pushes you to join the revel, what will you do? Whom will you kill?' Jean asked Camillo. Jean told how he, as a Frenchman, had gone into the Second World War convinced that he would kill Hitler, or at least his co workers and generals of the invading army. But whom did Jean kill? Young boys and fathers of families. He didn’t kill Hitler or any other Nazi leader. It will be the same with you, Jean told Camillo. Whom will the government send against the guerrillas? They will send the Colombians who are poor, men who would not find work and who put on the uniform because their families had to eat. That’s how the system divides the poor. It sends in its army to shoot down the guerillas, the poor against the poor.
Camillo Torres finally did join the guerillas. After three or four weeks with the guerilla forces, he was killed. But he has followed his conscience and had been true to himself. He was not somebody who proclaims the revolution without being willing to give all he had to give. So he has become an aspiration to all Christians in Latin America who are choosing counter violence and the just war in their liberation struggle.
A few months later, in Rio de Janeiro, we met Dom Helder Camara. Previously, we had met young people who told us the church in Brazil was linked with the rich. Some of them would have left the church but one person: Helder Camara. So we went to see this auxiliary bishop who was working with poor in the favelas of Rio. He was appealing to the rich to give money to so that descent housing could be built for people living in make shift shacks. When we met him in one of the favelas, Jean said, ‘it’s wonderful what you are doing, Dom Helder, but it is not enough. For how many Centuries will you have to built descent houses for the poor, when there are three billion poor in the world without adequate shelter?’ Jean Asked.
Dom Helder threw up his hands. ‘Oh, you french!’ he exclaimed. ‘You always think you know all things better than we. But let’s talk about it. So we began to discuss what it means to live the Gospel in radical way, to identify with the poor and their cause and to help conditions in which the people themselves could begin to struggle by using the power that is within them – nonviolence, the real weapon of the poor- to bring about the changes.
At first, Dom Helder asked us not to use the word nonviolence. There’s enough passivity around us in Brazil, he said. If we speak of nonviolence the people will be even more passive. We talked for more hour and we prayed. Little by little we discovered together the nonviolence of Jesus Christ. In Rome, during the Vatican Council, Helder Camara came up to us and said: ‘You know, I am the first nonviolent bishop of the Catholic Church’.
He has come as a prophet again and again, with the message that Latin America cannot be liberated – especially by nonviolence means – until we in the first world remove the support we are giving to those in power in Latin America. We must stop sending arms and building up the national security states in the third world. We must change our policies and become countries committed to basic human rights and to justice in the economic exchanges in the north south relationship. Dom Helder has always one of those who challenge us to understand important role we in the industrialized countries play in the liberation process.
While it was important to bishops like Dom Helder Camara, Cardinal Arns, Dom Fragosa, Jose Maria Pires, the Chilean bishops and the others to join in this effort, something equally important, if not more important, happened in the early sixties
Christian begun to form grassroots communities. Of course, not all these hundreds of thousands of grassroots communities believe in nonviolence, but in quite number of them Christian have discovered that the way of liberation Jesus brought us in nonviolence way They would say you cannot be a Christian unless you commit yourself to the struggle of justice. They have committed themselves to work against expulsion from the lands and to struggles for schools and roads, for just wages and for representation within the enterprise. There have been numerous and very impressive example of nonviolence action carried out by the poor throughout Latin America and their struggle continuous to this day.
Hildegard Goss- Mayr is International FOR secretary for Latin America, where she and her husband, Jean Goss, traveled and worked for many years. They live in Vienna.
CHILE, one of the strangest shaped countries in the world, is a long strip of territory sandwich between the Pacific Ocean and the highest peaks of the Andes mountain range. This ribbon of lands is never more than 110 miles wide. Most of the population lives in the fertile central zone. To the north dry hills, the Atacama Desert, and mineral deposit which gave the country it’s main export-Copper. It is here, at giant workings like Chuquicamata (the largest open- cast mine in the world) that the copper is mined.
Towards the South are wild forests, mountains, lakes, and glaciers. The Andes fall into the sea produces the scatter of Island leading to the Tierra del Fuego and Cape Horn. This is a country of breathtaking scenery, light, and color. The sea and mountain is present anywhere and this imagery has influenced the country’s great poets- like Pablo Neruda- and its artists and writers. Less romantically, Chile’s geography has made transport all- important –because of the shape of the country a strike by truck drivers can (and has) brought the economy to a standstill.
The truck drivers played their part in the toppling the Popular Unity government of President Salvador Allende in 1973. Allende, who has been described as the first Marxist to be voted into power, died during the US supported military coup that year. But he remains a powerful symbol in the country’s prolonged political struggle. Nowadays even the truck drivers have turned against Allende’s opponent and successors, general Augusto Pinochet, after 14 years of dictatorial rule. Like many one - time supporters, they have been alienated by the economic recession accentuated by the foreign debt crisis. Since 1983 there has been prolonged upsurge of popular protest demanding he return of democracy. Pinochet is an extreme anti communist, whose style of rule could be compared to the Franco dictatorship in Spain. Nevertheless he has innate political cunning, which he has help him keep hold of the reins of power.
Chile is today one of the most polarised societies in a continent known for its social inequalities. The elite lives a life of conspicuous consumption while as much as one-third of the labor force is unemployed. The mood in the shanty town is angry: during the protest barricades go up and stones are hurled at the police. But General Pinochet’s shadowy secret police still make people ‘disappear.’
Early 1986 saw the departure of dictators like Baby Doc of Hawaii and Marcos of Philippines. Maybe it won’t be long before Pinochet goes to.
By Fr Pat Sayles
Seventy – Five Years Ago Edward Galvin set out for China
It was a step into the unknown, a step taken in faith. God had called him, and he wanted so much to respond, to follow his Lord even to the ends of the earth. Yet he found it so hard to leave his loved ones, especially his mother. He loved her more than all the world and perhaps he was going to China never to see her again. Although heartbroken, he resolutely set his face towards China. So began one of the most exciting pages of modern mission history. His exploits inspired many talented young men to follow him along the trail to China that he had blazed.
Edward Galvin was born in 1882 on the feast of St Columban, at the Galvin homestead near Newcestown, a little village in Ireland four miles south of Clodah, Co Cork.
As a young boy he dreamt of becoming a missionary. He did feel at the time that it was just a boyish thought, but as he grew older the thought persisted. Finally his parents advised him to go to Maynooth, to become a priest for his home diocese of Cork. This he did, and as it turned out it was the right decision.
He was ordained in 1909, only to find that there was no room in Cork for the newly-ordained men that year. Along with the other newly-ordained he volunteered for Brooklyn in the States. He was assigned to Holy Rosary parish, and whilst there he twice asked to be accepted as missionary, first in Africa, then in Arizona. Strangely, no one seemed to want him. Yet still the missionary call within him would not die. Eventually his thoughts turned to China. He began to read every book on it that he could find. At that time there were only three English-speaking priests working in the whole of that vast land. He did not know one of them. Then out of the blue Father Fraser, a Canadian missionary working in China, came to visit the Holy Rosary parish.
There and then he made up his mind that he would go with him to China. ‘I may never get another chance,’ he thought to himself. ‘I will go to China with you, ‘he spoke out loud, ‘if you will have me.’ The offer was immediately accepted, but Father Fraser was leaving the China within three weeks. That did not deter Father Galvin. ‘I might change my mind if left behind,’ he in a few weeks he himself would be returning to Cork to work in the diocese. He had to hurry and ask his Bishop’s permission for this new venture.
The reply came promptly. The reports that the Bishop had received about him were ‘the very best.’ He could follow his dream.
So finally the missionary dream that would not go away was to become a reality. After a lifetime’s search he had found his way to follow the Lord. Now, at the age of 29, he was ready to face the rigors of the China missions.
Those last three weeks at Holy Rosary were topsy-turvy. A sad stream of friends called to say goodbye. The parish priest tried to persuade him to stay, saying that he had become like a son to him in his old age. Weeping parishioners thronged to Grand Central Station in New York to see him off.
‘I still remember the pain of parting on that grey, dreary morning,' he wrote many years later. ‘When the train got underway for Toronto, I crumpled up in the coach and cried as if my heart would break.'
Father John Blowick, who together with Father Galvin was to found the Columbans, described that moment:
‘He supported his head in his hands, and for two hours his mind was a blank. He had of his own election become a wanderer for Christ’s sake. For all he knew he was going to China to die.’
Bishop Cleary, one of the early figures in Columban history, also recorded that moment:
‘It is no easy matter to part from home and friends under any circumstances: it was particularly trying in Father Galvin’s case. He was facing an unknown world; trials and hardship were before him – but these he regarded as nothing. The thought that almost unnerved him was the fact that never again, perhaps, would he see one of those faces he held so dear, never again get a glimpse of the land he loved. Was it any wonder then that as the train sped across the continent to Vancouver he flung himself into the corner of a carriage and wept like a child?’
As the train sped across Canada his thoughts turned to his mother. He had to write to her, but it was a letter he did not want to write. Mary Galvin was three thousand miles away across the Atlantic. She was looking forward to his next letter, which should have news of the date of his return to Cork.
When he arrived in Toronto he stayed up all that night to write the letter to his mother that it broke his heart to write. He did not have the heart to post it until much later, when they arrived in Honolulu. It was a letter that Mary Galvin would treasure until the day she died.
‘My dear Mother,
I am sorry, dear Mother, to have to write this letter, but God’s will be done. Everything is in His hands. Mother, don’t grieve, don’t cry. It is God’s will. God has called and I had to obey.
I am not going back to Ireland. I am going as a missionary to China. May God’s will be done. God knows my heart is broken, not for myself but for you whom I love above all the world.
Mother, you know how this has always been on my mind. But I thought it was a foolish thought – a boyish thought; that it would pass away as I grew older. But it never passed, never, never, never.
Why should God ask me to do this thing that is breaking my heart to do? I don’t know. God knows best. May His will be done. ‘If any man will come after me let him take up his cross and follow me.’ Oh yes, but oh my God I never thought that it was so hard to follow. I have tried to follow when you called. I ask you in return to console my poor mother, to comfort her, to help her to make the Sacrifice I am making and spare her until we meet again.’
It was a clear morning when Mary Galvin received her son’s long overdue letter. After she had read it she went out into the orchard and walked around in a daze.
On March 7th, 1912, they sailed from Vancouver on the Empress of India, a small steamer that carried only thirty passengers. It proved to be a very slow boat to China. They were hardly out of the harbor when a violent storm began to toss the ship about like a cork. They just managed to crawl back to the safety of the poor. When they finally sailed again it was to be the worst voyage that theEmpress has suffered in years. Father Galvin was sick throughout the month-long voyage.
They arrived in Shanghai in the middle of April. That night they stayed in the Lazarists’ house. The meal was Chinese macaroni, and Fr. Galvin fumbled with his chopsticks, to the amusement of the others. He lay awake that night, unable to sleep on the plank bed. The next day they traveled to the Hangshow, and the day after Fr. Fraser left him. Suddenly he felt very lonely. All the priest there were French, and with no one to talk with English he felt ‘as lonely a small boy in a new school.’ The Vicar Msgr. Faveau , was very understanding, and he help him to settle in.
Despite the initial culture shock, he began to study the language in earnest. He had a musical ear, and was a natural mimic, and he progressed easily. On October 12th 1912, he heard his first confession in Chinese, and just a week later he preached his first sermon.
In spite of the hardship he found an immense joy in serving his poor flock. Leaving his loved ones had been difficult, but he would do it a thousand times over. He thanked God from the bottom of his heart. For the great privilege of being a missionary.
In doing God’s will he had found himself and his joy is overflowing. He had put God’s will before all else in his life. When he became a Bishop he took his motto those word of the Father’- Thy Will be done. He lived his motto all through his life. Through famines, wars, imprisonment, and exile, he carried out God’s will with single - minded apostolic zeal. He faced all the dangers with courage, all the hardships with resilience. His spirit of endurance remained steadfast because the trail he blazed was opened not for his own but for the Lord’s glory.
By Sister Ann Rita Centeno
A poor mother in a Chilean barrio shares her grief with the author.
I wish I could forget that evening of September 4, but how can I? Early that morning Manolito was in a good spirits. He wanted to watch a football match of his favorite team on television but since there was no electricity in our area he asked permission to watch it at his sister’s house, which was only a block away. He washed himself – my Manolito liked to be neat and clean always- combed his curly black hair and was just ready to leave the house when he asked me, Mommy could I used you jacket tonight? ‘ But you have your own jacket,’ I replied. But he insisted and so I let him have his way. ‘And Mommy,’ with a big smile, ‘Id liked to borrow your rubber shoes too,’ How could I refuse him?
And so off he went, my fine-looking boy, clean and well groomed and merry as a cricket. He was picking his best friend across the street and the two of them were going to watch the match.
I remember Manolito telling me, ‘I wont be long, Mommy, so don’t go to bed without waiting for me.’ You see, every night before going to bed, my little boy would put his arms around me and kiss me and tell me with great confidence,’ when I grow up I’ll look for a job and then you wont have to be selling candy in the marketplace every day, Mommy.’
There were some young boys at he street corner that evening and Manolito and his friend, Jorge, stopped to greet them, singing a song with them as they were went to do. But Manolito never finished his song. Suddenly, from nowhere, there were the sound of gunfire and Manolito, my lovely Manolito fell to the ground, dead. A bullet had gone to his left eye.
My treasure is gone. My son, my pride, my joy is dead. Why? Oh, why? Why he had to die? He was so young, so innocent, so full of life. He was so good-looking, and always well groom. No one saw my little boy go to school untidy. He would always get me to press his shirt and pants. For the Independence Day Celebration in September I always bought him new cloths and shoes. He always so smart my lovely son.
On the spot where he fell dead, the people have made an animita (a little shrine) for him. It is made of cement and blue tiles. People have come to that shrine to ask favors of my Manolito, and it seems that he has helped them. I find some money offering and letters of gratitude left in the box at the shrine. And look at the flowers, sister, aren’t they beautiful? And the lighted candles, so many of them. I don’t know who lights the candles but Manolito’s shrine is always aglow.
I have this constant pain in my heart. At night I see his face, and I hear him saying, ‘Mommy, Mommy when I finish my studies you won’t work so hard.’ My husband, you see, left me when Manolito was just a year old. He left me with nothing. I didn’t have bread to feed my children. Anna was five and Elsa was three when my husband fell in love with another woman and decided to live with her. When he left, all we had was a bed and a makeshift room. When it rained we were drenched to the bone. I remember feeding my children with toasted flour mixed with water and that was all we had for a days and days until a neighbor found me a job working with a family.
I had to put my children in an orphanage. The two girls stayed there all the time but I collected Manolito every night coming from work. I was four years working with this family when I decided to sell candy in the market. I have a little basket and I go around the market everyday selling sweets. Every morning before I leave the room, I fall on my knees and pray to God to help me sell all the candies so that I’ll have the money to buy bread for my children. I know that God listen to me because I always come home after selling everything in my basket.
Manolito is little my treasure, my love, my all, he is gone. The pain that is in my heart, how can I take it away? I couldn’t even help him when he was lying there all over covered with blood. The police wouldn’t come. Emergency clinics are forbidden to send out ambulances to rescue victims. My God, why did he have to die? He was innocent. He was singing and dancing, my lovely boy, and all he wanted was to watch a game on television. My heart is bleeding and I can’t stop it. He is gone forever; my Manolito, and I will never see him again.
‘Iris,’ I said your little boy lives in the heart of those who are unafraid to walk with the poor. Your manolito, your little pearl, your treasure, gives strength to all of us who are struggling here to give birth to the Risen Lord in the midst of violence.’
My hands, clasping hers, have become wet with the tears falling down in her cheeks.
Sr. Ann Rita Centeno, from the Philippine, is a Columban Missionary in Chile.
Fr. Arthur Price
We arrive in Manila on a beautiful tropical evening just before sunsets, four newly ordained priests, Father James McDevitt, Dermot Feeny, Martin Strong and Arthur Price. We made our way to Malate church, which we found in a festive mood as that annual novena in honor of Our Lady of Remedies was then in Progress. It was on November 15, 1936. A wonderful atmosphere of relaxed enjoyment. Religion was really seemed to be the center of the lives of these people in more ways than one.
Within the next few hours we met the priest of the parish: Father Patrick Kelly, the genial priest who was well known to most people in Manila as he was also the parish priest of the English- speaking community; Fr, John Henaghan, famed as a special preacher and the spiritual director counselor and friend; Fr. Joseph Monaghan, the tireless propagator of the Legion of Mary; Fr. John Lalor, a veteran from China who had been left dead along the roadside after an encounter with the bandits, but who had survived to begin the new missionary career in the new entirely environment of the Philippines. Fr. Ned McCarthy, founder of Student Catholic Action and a tireless worker for youth, especially in the University of the Philippines and non-sectarian colleges
We four are graciously welcomed by the Malate priest and we soon received our assignments. Mine was to go to Silang where Fr. Peter Fallon was industrially trying to restore an old Spanish church, as well as the faith in the area. My assignment was to learn the language. Fr. Fallon got the local boy for me; we studied together in the morning and went out in the afternoon for practice our simple words and sentences on the people - poor people!
The even tenor of our way received the rude interruption with the outbreak war on December 8, 1941. At the time I was parish priest of Cardona, a new parish we had taken on some time previously, where I was to spend the next two years trying to keep an even keel between the Japanese Imperial Army, the patriotic guerillas and the opportunistic collaborators. I still used to make an occasional sortie into Manila, but every journey was a risk both for me and for those I visited, especially as I was supposed to wear a Japanese- inscribed red armband telling the people that I was definitely non grata, and was to be avoided at all costs.
As time moved on and the war turned more and more against Japan, the crew’s tightening was felt more keenly. Hunger everywhere; fear of such an intensity that the people where afraid to talk to their closest friends except about vague generalities; torture, death, uncertainty, inability to communicate - these were some of the thing most felt. In some ways people in the provinces had more resources, and local supervision was less intense but you could see the physical condition of the people deteriorating day by day. The great phrase of hope at the time ‘Pagdating ni Cano’ (When the Americans come back things will be better).
I remember seeing Fr. Henaghan making the station of the Cross in Malate Church after Fr. Frank Douglas was taken in Palilla in 1943. I never realized the meaning of ‘vicarious suffering’ till then. It was an atmosphere of the Legion of Mary thrived greatly, and indeed all-church organization gave hope to the people in their long torturous road to Calvary.
Fr. Kelly being the parish priest of the English people in Manila, was able to wangle a pass from Japanese Headquarter early in the war when enemy national were intended at the University of Sto. Thomas, and he use the pass to the full. Although there were a number of priests in the UST camp, he insisted on his rights to maintain the contact with his parishioners, and he took tremendous risk in so doing, as he was one of the few sources of the contact between the internees and the outside world. His finest hour was when caring for the sick and wounded war victims during the liberation of Manila he was killed by an American shell.
On July 4, 1944, the Japanese made a sudden swoop to pick up all enemy aliens not previously interned. I was missed in the round – up, but realizing the difficulty I would have to face later if found, and the punishment liable to be inflicted on the people who had harbored me - as they wanted to do – I sent a message to Manila to say I was still in Cardona. A reply came back to come to Manila and report to Fort Santiago. This I decided to skip, but I made a contact with the Apostolic Nuncio and was finally told to stay in the Malate Church until picked up.
Fr. Martin Strong and myself were there for several weeks and we began to think we have been forgotten, when, one fine afternoon, a military truck came, loaded us on board with the secretary of he Apostolic Nuncio, picked up a lone American Maryknoll Sister, who was actually taken from her sick- bed, and a totally blind Jesuit priest, Fr. McCafrey.
They took us to the UST gymnasium and from there we were taken to new concentration camp in Los Baños, which held some 1,500 people including about 500 priests, religious and missionaries. Truly they ‘ had a little list’ and if you were on it there was no place for dialogue.
The four Malate priest were there to see us off, Fr. Henaghan, Lalor, Monaghan and Kelly. Not much was said but they probably thought they would not see us again. They worried for us. Little did we know that it was we who should have worrying for them. Because, strangely enough, we were the ones who survived…
Shortly after our dramatic liberation from Los Baños, by the 11th U.S. Airforce Division, Arch-bishop O’Doherty of Manila came to visit us. He was the first to tell us about the tragedy that had happened in Malate. He told us that the whole area had been devastated and that thousand of parishioners were unaccounted for, and that the four Malate priest were missing…missing forever.
What had happen to Malate? All the priests had stayed at their posts serving the people in every possible way for as long as they could. One February day, while the siege of Manila was in progress, they were rounded up in Malate, together with a group of parishioners who happened to be around, and march off to the Syquia Apartments, a large building near the church. They were never heard of or seen again, their bodies have never been found- they lie somewhere under he soil of Manila in a nameless grave.
All cultures have in one way or another deviated from justice. Human society, left to its own dynamics, has an apparently ineluctable tendency to structures of inequality and absolutize them. With the establishment of structures of inequality come the theories of legitimation, defending them, putting them beyond question or challenge, proposing them as the way things should be. Thus, we have a well - nigh interminable list of divisions, and polarities between the haves and the have-nots, the powerful and the powerless, the educated and the unlettered, masters and slaves, lords and vassals, kings and subjects, capitalists and the laborers, party members and the outsiders, citizens and foreigners, West and East, North and South, First World and Third World and so on. Structures of inequality and their absolutization continually produce marginalized groups in the society.
In most radical way in which Christian faith can be inculturated in human society, Asian or otherwise, is not a simple return to communal traditions but, rather by embracing what has come to be called the preferential option for the poor. Every society breeds its sufferer; to be in solidarity with victims is the perennial mission of the church. Never more deeply do the people make the Gospel their own, than when they learn to look upon the society from the perspective of the marginalized to give public witness of solidarity with them.
In the industrialized and more economically developed countries of Asia, oppression may come in different forms due to the culture brought about the technology. The growing reliance of technology can lead to the situation where it is allowed to create a dominant metaphors for understanding human existence. This would be the prelude to thinking that all human problems can be solved by value - free scientific procedures. The impact consumerism on peoples perception of reality can easily give rise to a culture where individualism and utilitarianism hold sway. Much of disorientation results when people lose the sense of belonging together, of having inherited a common good and of being responsible for cherishing and protecting it. Here again, it is the mission of the church to be in solidarity with the victims of a self-centered society.
When religious forms and symbols are pre - empted by the elite, inculturation comes to be understood largely in terms of the impact of Christian religion on that type of culture which is founded on leisure. The scope of inculturation is then limited to the belief and value system of the human community, outside their interaction with the livelihood and power system, where injustice and oppression may be at the basis of he leisure that is enjoyed by the few and the alienation suffered by many. The culture of leisure owes its existence to the culture of work and has the mission and responsibility, in solidarity with working people, to oppose all structures of injustice in the world of labor and to promote equality and participation of socio –economic and political life of the community. When ‘high’ culture –the culture of literature, art and liturgy-becomes an end in itself and is cut off from the culture of the poor, it quickly becomes insipid.
Where, then, is inculturation happening in Asia? It is happening most effectively at those critical points where the church is responding to its mission to be in solidarity with victims; it is happening where the church is giving public witness to its preferential option for the poor.
(To continued)
Sr. Rosita Mazon
I heard somebody open the door slowly. A man with a lighted flashlight was walking towards my bed. I got scared, but had a courage to say gently, ‘who are you? What are you looking for? What do you want?’ there was no response from the man, so I got all the more scared. Then I composed myself and prayed to God for help. When the man was about to grab me I gave him a very forceful kick, which knocked him down. I’m sure he was hurt. He then pulled me from the bed and started hitting me with his strong fist. My face and neck swelled up like a balloon. He punch my mouth and a number of my teeth fell out. Later I discovered that he had fractured my left jaw. He then stabbed me with a knife and wounded me at the side of my face and slightly at the back. I cried and shouted out for help and it was only then the intruder left me, soaked in blood and struggling in pain.
While we were on our way to the hospital, I struggled so much not only because of the pain, but because I wanted to live. I was holding on to my life. Then graced moment came to me. I remembered the Crucified Lord, then I prayed ‘ life is in your hands, O Lord. You have given it to me, you may take it anytime.’ Suddenly it dawned on me what it means to be a missionary. A missionary is one who is sent not only to work with or for the people. Being a missionary also means experiencing, or being victimized by the evil thing that is going on in the country, which you are sent. It means being ready to give up one’s life.
While I was in the hospital, religious and lay missionaries as well as Filipino workers in the country came for a visit. Some of them consoled me and others discouraged me - suggesting that I leave the country for good. I know it was out of concern for me, but I said to them ‘Give me time to reflect on this, and let us all hope that the Lord’s will may be done.’
All through my stay in the hospital (about two months) the two national nurses, Mary and Cathy would come and visit me after their duties. One afternoon, while both of them were sitting by my bed, Mary said, ‘Sorry sister for what our “wantok” (kababayan) did to you. Violence is really getting worse in our country. I hope you will not give up. Papua New Guinea needs daring missionaries.’ Cathy said, ‘ that’s true, sister’. Then both of them held my hands tightly and said again, ’Sorry, Sister’. I was touched by their compassion and smiled at them before they released my hands. That smile was an expression of my Yes.
Yes, I felt that the Lord wanted me to stay in Papua New Guinea as a missionary. More than that, the Lord wanted me to forgive and to bring peace even if it hurt.
I thanked God for Mary and Cathy who paved the way for me to remain faithful to my missionary call. So here I am, still in Papua New Guinea, teaching a catholic agency high school. Deep in my heart I say, ‘come what may, my life is in your hands, O Lord. May my being here bear fruit in plenty’.
Sr. Rosita Mazon is a Holy Spirit Sister from the Philippines working in Papua New Guinea.
By Fr. Frank Connon, C.SS.R.
At Sunday Mass Fr. Pat Kelly, is a Canadian Scarboro Missionary, asked the question: ‘when the Rain Forest of San Fernando is cut down, will there still be any future for the children there? The word ‘any future for the children’ struck a sensitive chord in the heart of the small farmers. After all, it was for the sake of the children that they have uprooted themselves from their families and friends in the Island and settled here in San Fernando.
Only July 20th, 1987, then, the farmers put a barricade across the roads and led to the loggers’ campsite to the rain forest. The trucks coming down with logs and the empty trucks and oil tankers taking supplies to the campsite stopped on each side of the PEOPLE POWER PICKET.
On August 1st, the news came that the Department of Natural Resources had suspended the operation of the logging company in their 39,500-hectare concession in San Fernando.
So… the small farmer will be called on time and time again to defend their rain forest and water sources. These are their life systems. For the sake of their children, we hope that they succeed.
Fr. Frank Connon, C.SS.R.
In Guatemala poverty and homelessness are the direct results of concentration of land in a few hands; 65% of the land belongs to a small minority who are growing richer all the time because of this situation. Three out of four Guatemalans are very poor and live in very ineadequate housing, with the direct result that infant mortality is 170 for every 1000. There is no sharing, not even a little, by those few who own thousands of acres -some properties extending from the volcanos to the sea --with the majority who spend sleepless nights in vercrowed shacks worrying about how to earn a few centavos the next day for their families.
FATHER ROMEO G. NIMEZ, CICM, from the Philippines, who writes this article, has been a missionary in Guatemala for five years. While working in the parish of Santa Lucia Cotzumalguapa in the department of Escuintla along the Pacific Ocean, Father Nimez is also the CICM Vocation Director in Guatemala.
The feast of the Candelaria (Candle mass or the presentation of the Lord) on Feb. 2, 1986 was the liturgy I celebrated with Colonos of the hacienda San Gregorio in our parish. Colonos are the resident workers of the hacienda who enjoy a few privileges and benefits from the owner. With their families they lived in the houses provided by the hacienda. There is a school and also a chapel where the farmers gathered together regularly for celebration of the word. There are catechist who is responsible for the Christian growth of the community. At least once a month the Eucharist is celebrated with these Colonos. In contrast, the jornaleros are seasonal migrant workers who come from all over to plant and to cut the sugar cane and who lived outside the hacienda.
San Gregorio hacienda is a sugar cane plantation where whose Colonos have lived and work together for generations, and which today is changing over to cattle rising. Just before Mass, Maximo, our catechist in San Gregorio, approached me with the tear- filled eyes asked me: “Father Romy, during Mass please for us and our families. Tomorrow we are leaving this land where we were born, this land which we were cherished very much for it has given us life and pleasant memories. The owner of the land has told us that he does not need us anymore and we have no place to go.” At once Jesus’ word came to mind: ”The foxes have Lairs, the bird of the sky have nests, but the son of Man has no where to lay his head.” (Mt. 8:20)
Today the hacienda is a deserted place; the houses of the Colonos are abandoned and the people having the hard time finding the place to lay their heads. Their dreams and for their children are shattered. Uprooted from the land of their birth, from the familiar sound and scenery, from everything they could call their “own”, these hundred of Colonos were forced to seek temporary shelter with friends and relatives.
The fate of Maximo and the colonist of San Gregorio is the same of that of the hundred Colonos in many sugar plantation within the parish of Santa Lucia who were ejected from the land because they were no longer needed, as the owner turn their land over to the more over profitable cattle raising business which does not need so many worker.
There were serious attempts on the part of these ejected farmers to occupy vacant plantation and government lands. Very few have succeeded; the great majority had to abandon their desperate attempts because the military intervention and of fear of losing their lives. So most of them are flocked together into the town of Santa Lucia hoping to rebuild their future. Groups of three or four families pooled their meager together to rent a piece of land where they could build a small house they huddle together.
The horrible living conditions in these houses are appalling. These one-room houses are made of flimsy wood, bamboo and cardboard. When it rains everything gets wet inside. These poor living conditions plus the scarcity of job opportunities often drives the heads of this family to frustration. Some resort to robbery. Statistics indicate that violence has gone down in Guatemala the last few months but still is not safe to walk around at night.
Drunkenness has also risen in Santa Lucia as many resort to liquor to forget their problems at home. After some drinking spree some just lie down to the street to sleep it off. Often beggars and drunk alike seek the church ground for safety. The church open its doors to these unfortunates, abandoned and condemned by most. Despite the negative reaction of some “good Catholics” we must proclaim that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is for all.
And, therefore, in spite of this seemingly hopeless the voice of the apostle resounds with hope: “ I saw new heaven and new earth. The former heavens and the former earth had passed away… God will dwell among His people …He shall wipe every tear in their eyes, and their shall be no more death or mourning, crying out or pain, for the former world has passed away.”(Rv. 21:1-4)
Yes, I like to believe that that God is faithful to His promises and that some day the Guatemalans will repossess enough of the land of their ancestors to be able to lay down their heads in the serenity and with joy.
Dom Helder:
Because this man changed history. He is alive in history. At every step I meet him everyday. And I meet him in the flesh. He said, whoever suffering humiliated, crushed is he. In our own times when more the two-thirds of the human race are living in the sub- human conditions, it’s easy enough to meet him in the flesh.
Was Jesus exactly the evangelists say he was? I’m no biblical critic. I’m not against biblical criticism, but I prefer to let the critics get on their own discussions. On my part I am as sure of Christ’s existence as I am of my own hand with it’s five fingers. I can touch and see. I meet Jesus every day. And we are one. No doubt about it.
Like the child discovering it has feet. It has always known it’s got feet, but one day it discovers them.
Like at the given moment, certainly, I became aware of Christ’s presence in those who suffer, and of his presence inside of myself. When? I don’t know.
I was brought up in a family that was Christian not so much by labels as in actions. My mother and father didn’t practice their religion very regularly. Who gave me the idea of becoming a priest when I was still a little boy? What did this desire amount to in my childish mind?
Anyhow, one day my father asked me this question: ‘you keep saying you want to be a priest? But do you really understand what being a priest involves?' He then sketched the ideal priest in terms exactly corresponding what I felt with out understanding, to what I dreamed though unable to put in to words: "My boy, priest and self –centeredness don’t go together. That’s impossible. Priest isn’t his own master. He has only one reason for living: to live for others’.
This corresponded precisely to what he Lord had already sown in my heart. All my life I’ve lived the dream of being one with Christ to help my fellow beings conquer their self - centeredness.
Whenever you listen to someone who is suffering, you hear Christ voice. And whenever you meet someone suffering, you meet Him in person.