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» In Light of Faith

Fifth Sunday of Easter, Year B, May 10, 2009

by Father Anthony Marques

Words have gender: male, female, or neuter.

By tradition, the term Church is female. This finds expression in Catholic theology, where the Church is referred to as virgin, bride, and mother. On Mother’s Day, we have occasion to reflect more deeply on the Church’s maternity.

The readings highlight the connection between the individual believer and the larger community of faith. This is ultimately based on the greatest commandment: “And his commandment is this: we should believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and love one another just as he commanded us” (1 John 3:23).

Love of God and love of neighbor must go together; it can never be just “me and God.”

In the Acts of the Apostles, we are told that Barnabas brings Saul to the disciples in Jerusalem. When trouble arises, it is the Church that comes to the rescue and takes Saint Paul to safety in Tarsus (Acts 9:26–30).

Saint Paul’s experience of the risen Jesus, and his preaching, is now connected to the group of believers. This apostle becomes an itinerant missionary, but he is no ecclesiastical freelancer.

Often enough a different sensibility prevails today. Perhaps we’ve heard statements like this: “I’m spiritual but not religious.”

While this approach avoids the messiness of human dynamics, it also diminishes the power of Christ’s saving mission.

Easter means that Christ’s human body can no longer be destroyed; the resurrection assures us that Christ can never be separated from his body, the Church.

Indeed, the Lord’s dying and rising has established a sacred closeness: “Remain in me, as I remain in you” (John 15:4). After all, Christ has given His life not only for the Church, but also to the Church.

With the Easter Vigil still fresh in our minds, we might recall how the water for Baptism is blessed. When the Easter candle is plunged into the baptismal font, the Church is “impregnated” by the Holy Spirit: the fountain is now the “womb” from which the Church brings forth new life.

And the Church continues to act as Mother throughout life, guiding us with the Word of God and nourishing us with the sacraments. Far from being a cold or heartless institution, “holy Mother Church” is a loving and caring parent.

As with any family, belonging to the Church is a blessing, even if it isn’t always easy. The family of faith draws us closer to God.

With that we can thank our Mother for the gift of eternal life.

(With this column, The Catholic Virginian welcomes Father Anthony Marques, pastor of St. Timothy Church in Tappahannock, as one of the three writers of Believe as You Pray.)

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Swine flu virus should give us pause

by Mary Hood Hart

As I write this, we are still unsure about how widespread and deadly the swine flu virus will be.

Every day, headlines report new cases from many parts of the world. Health officials are taking the threat seriously, yet are careful not to create undue panic.

Whenever society is faced with a threat of this nature, we are prone to extremes.

On the one hand, because of the natural sluggishness of institutions and expenses involved, we run the risk of being too slow to respond, risking lives by inattention.

On the other hand, we may over-react to the threat, responding too soon, ostracizing and quarantining unnecessarily, and creating more damage to an already struggling economy.

While it’s too soon to tell where we are heading with the swine flu, one thing that seems apparent is we are all, rightly, taking the threat seriously.

What can’t be ignored in the most recent outbreak of flu and in the economic crisis is our global interdependence. In crises like these, we realize how connected we truly are. In the 21st century, isolationism no longer applies.

For us Christians, this interdependence is a manifestation of our shared brother and sisterhood. Our faith calls us to an awareness of our global relationships with all God’s people, and, fortunately for us, our current technology provides us with the best means ever to stay connected.

Comfortably at home, at work, or going about our routines, we are immediately alerted when an earthquake devastates a town in Italy, Somali pirates attack a ship, a suicide bomber infiltrates a police station in Iraq, thousands die from hunger and disease in the Sudan, a flu outbreak kills in Mexico.

No other time in history has the world been so close, and, as Christians, we are called to respond to that closeness as Christ would.

When it comes to something like the flu, our human nature prompts us to protect ourselves from infection. That instinct is a good one — our health is precious — yet that instinct must always be weighed and balanced against the human tendency, when seeking self-preservation, to ostracize or dehumanize others.

This happened when we first became aware of the AIDS virus, and it continues to happen to this day. Already, early into the outbreak, some have become wary of Mexicans, because Mexico is apparently where the virus originated.

This greatly concerns me because undocumented workers in this country already face marginalization and rampant discrimination. Add to that an association with contagious disease and who knows what sort of discrimination and maltreatment may result.

This tendency to ostracize and marginalize others as a way to protect against disease is not far removed from the social treatment of lepers in Jesus’ time. Yet Jesus broke the established taboos of associating with those whom society rejected. He did this at great personal risk.

When it comes to contagious disease we have only to look to saints — Father Damien of Molokai comes immediately to mind — who, as Christ’s disciples, risked their own lives because of their compassion for the afflicted.

Such selfless compassion is evident today in those unidentified saints who care for the sick and dying across the globe.

While we are not all called to ministry to the sick, we are all called to compassionate love.

If we find ourselves tempted to ostracize others, from the old man sitting next to us on the bus to the child sitting next to us in the pew, we need only call to mind the work and life of the One whom we claim to follow.

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Making a difference

by Barbara Hughes

“It’s not about you.”

The words seem to come from somewhere deep within as I made my way from the arena at the Convention Center in Anaheim, California to the ballroom in the adjacent Hilton Hotel where I was scheduled to be the next speaker.

Immaculee Ilibagiza, a survivor of the Rwandan holocaust and author of the book “Left to Tell,” had just finished speaking.

The audience of more than 7,000 people had been captivated by her story, her witness about the power of prayer and the importance of the rosary.

I had read her book several times in preparation for the Day of Spiritual Deepening at which I had been asked to speak, but to hear her in person was an altogether different experience. All I could wonder was “How can I follow that?”

That question, plus the fact that I was still recuperating from a 10-day bout with the flu, left me feeling grossly inadequate.

How could I presume to unpack Immaculee’s message, which was the task that I had been assigned?

During her talk, Immaculee shared that during the 91 days when she and seven other women had been hidden by a pastor in a tiny bathroom in the village where she grew up, she experienced what she described as a voice on her right shoulder and one on her left.

The one voice devalued her; told her she was less than human because she was a member of the Tutsi tribe and that she had no right to live. (During the three months when Immaculee was hiding, one million Tutsis were hunted down and slaughtered.)

The other voice told her that she was a child of God who was loved and precious in his sight and that she was called to love in return.

The voice that made her feel loved also told her she was to forgive those who killed her family and friends and were seeking to kill her.

Clearly, the voice of assurance that we are loved by God carries with it a mandate. Knowing we are loved by God is not an escape from life’s trials; if anything, it poses even greater challenges.

To know we are loved is to respond with a heartfelt “yes” to whatever God is asking of us - even when every fiber of our being tells us this is impossible because saying “yes” is not about us.

To say “yes” requires us to live out of our truest identity as a child of God.

It was that kind of knowing that gave Mary the courage as a young teenager to say, “Behold the handmaid of the Lord, may it be done unto me according to Your word,” despite the cultural repercussions of being pregnant and unmarried.

To live out our identity as a beloved child of God is to be empowered to do the seemingly unimaginable.

When the heavens opened after Jesus’ Baptism and God proclaimed, “This is my beloved Son,” Jesus knew the Father loved him.

That same knowing was with him during his agony when he surrendered and said, “Thy will be done” even though he knew that submitting to His Father’s will would lead to his passion and death.

Every person is called to live out their identity as a child of God, but to do so carries a price, a price not so different from what others have paid on a far grander scale.

Sometimes it means taking a path we feel totally unprepared to take. But when we remember that it’s not about us, we discover the grace that has been there all along. And that’s all that God asks of us.

Few of us will have to endure the kind of suffering that Immaculee was asked to endure. And yet her story, like the stories of so many others who have surrendered their will to the will of God, is relevant for all the baptized. It is relevant because it’s a story about God’s transforming love in the midst of human frailty.

The tendency to compare ourselves with others is a natural inclination, but it can also be a temptation to diminish our resolve when we are asked to do things which take us out of our comfort zone for the sake of the Kingdom.

Then, rather than being a source of inspiration, comparisons are like the voice that told Immaculee she was worthless.

It is during those times that we need to remember that it’s not about us.

We have a higher purpose; we have been given a new identity as a child of God. Whatever the case, whatever the circumstances, if we remain God-centered, we have every reason to believe that our efforts will bear fruit, regardless of whether or not we see the harvest.

When feelings of my own inadequacy threatened to overtake me, the words, “It’s not about you” put things in right perspective.

I had prepared the talk and now it was about allowing God to use me in whatever way God chose.

It wasn’t my responsibility to transform the hearts of those who were listening. That’s God’s work.

All I had to do was not get in the way of God’s grace. Feelings of vulnerability and being aware of personal limitations make us humble when we place ourselves in God’s hands.

And each time we do, a voice within us seems to say, “It’s really not about you.”

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