Let me invite you to reflect on three stories that show us the importance of the word being translated into action. The first two stories show how the word moved people into action, with one ending tragically and the other bearing fruit in one shining moment.
The third story is an unfinished story. It is the story that also invites us to a deeper reflection.
“Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?” This famous line uttered by King Henry II in 1170 led to the murder of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Becket. While his words did not mean “murder the priest,” his minions interpreted them as such. Thus we have the murder in the cathedral.
This line has gained attention of late, given the successive murders of three priests.
Call to action
The second word came from the Philippine bishops. At dusk on Feb. 13, 1986, at the end of the wake Mass at the Ateneo de Manila football field for slain hero Evelio Javier, Fr. Joe Cruz, S.J., read for the first time the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines’ Post-Election Statement on the Feb. 7, 1986 snap elections. It laid out very clearly the facts of the situation then, and issued a call to action.
“If such a government does not of itself freely correct the evil it has inflicted on the people, then it is our serious moral obligation as a people to make it do so. We are not going to effect the change we seek by doing nothing, by sheer apathy. If we did nothing we would be party to our own destruction as a people. We would be jointly guilty with the perpetrators of the wrong we want righted.
Time to speak up
“Now is the time to speak up. Now is the time to repair the wrong. The wrong was systematically organized. So must its correction be. But we insist: Our acting must always be according to the Gospel of Christ, that is, in a peaceful, nonviolent way.”
These words inspired a wave of action from the boycott movement of the crony corporations and the the peaceful protests to the behind-the-scenes negotiations to convince various sectors, to withdraw support from the government —action that culminated in the first People Power nonviolent revolution in the world.
The third story is the story of us, here and now.
This Sunday, the pastoral letter of the CBCP will be read in all Catholic churches. Like the 1986 statement, it lays down the facts of the situation: the extra-judicial killings, the poor slum-dwellers jailed for “loitering,” the displaced communities caught in the cross-fire between government troops and rebel forces, the fake news and accusations, etc.
Then they will issue the call to action: “On July 16… Feast of the Blessed Mother of Mt. Carmel… let us spend a day of prayer and penance, invoking God’s mercy and justice on those who have blasphemed God’s Holy Name, those who slander and bear false witness, and those who commit murder or justify murder as a means for fighting criminality in our country. We invite you to join us, your bishops, in three days of fasting, prayer and almsgiving on July 17-19.”
In one of my homilies the past week, I ended by saying, “The weary and disheartened are called to mission again.” I realized here lies the fault in the story, “called to mission again.”
Mission is a once and for all, forever call. It never stops. This Sunday—as in many of the Masses the past week—we have missioning Gospels. Christ sending out his disciples into the world to proclaim the good news, to heal, to cast out evil.
The “sin” of 1986 is we dropped the ball and did not continue the work of rebuilding our nation, not just freedom from dictatorship, but freedom from the greater injustice of inequality in so many aspects of life.
We pray that this time we will correct the story and be missionaries again and always, making a way of life to proclaim the good news with joy through action that will not just correct the evils of society but, more importantly, build toward a more positive vision of Philippine society. –CONTRIBUTED
