Mission and Charity

Last Sunday we visited the Missionaries of Charity house in Southall and spend the morning with the sisters over there. Although we had planned to arrive in time to join the sisters for the Holy Mass, as is our wont we were late in the morning and eventually reached there by about 10:15am. By that time most of the cooking was done and many of our guests had already come. We helped with the rest of the cooking, and by about 11, the sisters started off the Soup Kitchen with a short prayer, beginning with a hymn, followed by the Gospel reading for the Sunday and a short reflection on it and finally praying for our Lady's intercession. We helped with serving the lunch and once the meal finished, with the cleaning and also joined the sisters for their prayer after the Soup Kitchen.

Everything we did over there in the soup kitchen, eventually made sense to me because of what we did before that and after that in the chapel. Only in the context of the person of Christ could I see the meaning of all this. It is hard to do what the sisters are doing, day in day out. They don't take holidays, don't get appreciated for what they are doing, does the same chores day after day; washes the same dishes, mops the same floors and above all, the people they serve, more often than not, take them for granted. Yet, these same sisters made our day by the smile of their faces, the joy of their hearts and the warmth of their welcome. I read the Gospel, they, they live the Gospel. I search for Christ; and Christ lives in them.

Charity that doesn't have its root in faith, is mostly, unsustainable. Yes, we have hundreds of charities across the country doing some wonderful work. The difference is that Christian charities work with and for people who do not appreciate, most times hate, those who so selflessly serve them. "Mother Teresa left home at age 18 to join the Sisters of Loreto as a missionary. She never again saw her mother or sister"(reference wiki). All through the rest of her life, struggling as a young nun in a foreign land, taking care of the needy, the hungry, the naked, the homeless, the crippled, the blind, the lepers, the unwanted, the unloved, the uncared; she saw the face of Jesus in each and every person. And so she loved, loved every poor, injured and dying; because she was convinced she was doing what her Lord asked her to do. (John 13:34) She loved, because she knew the worth of a human being, the beauty of a human being, the dignity of a human being.

As St James rightly says, faith without work is useless. When God becomes the centre of my universe, the love of Christ emanates from the Spirit through me and Caritas becomes part of my character, just like the sisters we met. Every single day, the word is being made flesh through them, and all who have eyes to see, witness the miracle of the splendor of truth and yet I ask, what is truth...

Priestly Celibacy

Watching and listening to Kate Flanagan talking about her husband (watch it here), Fr Ted Flanagan, a former Catholic priest, having had to chose between the 'two love of his life', and thereby, asserting that Priestly Celibacy is an outdated and outright foolish concept, made me a bit sad. She went on to quote a study done among British Catholics about Priestly Celibacy, which it seems said that 60% doesn't support it. I can only imagine the intensity of the psychological, social and emotional struggle that a young priest, Fr Ted Flanagen, might have had to undergo 49 years back, while he was contemplating that decision. And it wouldn't be a surprise if the young priest did not find too many sympathetic ears around him at this most crucial time of his life. Even those who might have listened may not have been too helpful. The Church has this uncanny ability to disappear when you need her the most.

Yet none of what she said, could explain to me why she told this at the start of her address, "My message to the Pope would be simple, Benedict get your act together; abolish compulsory celibacy". Ahem, I was not aware that PB16 was the one who introduced celibacy. But good that you mentioned Pope Benedict. In his lecture on the topic "Ecclesial Movements and Their place in Theology", as the then Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctorine of the Faith, Cardinal Ratzinger says this, "The Church explicitly emphazised the strictly charismatic character of the priestly ministry by linking priesthood with celibacy - which quite simply can only be understood as a personal charism and never simply as a quality of the office....The church cannot dispose of it as she wishes; it is not just there and cannot be set up or arranged by the church out of her own resources. It comes into being only secondarily through the Church's call; primarily it is through God's call to this particular person." Yes, it is primarily Gods call; realised in the charism provided by and through the spirit, renewing the priest himself and those around him, every single moment. As St Paul says, "Those whom he predestined, he also called; and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified." This call from above is the reason why JP2 said, Once a priest, a priest forever. Yes, Kate is right when she says God was or even is Fr.Teds love.

In this age of instant gratification, at times we overlook the fact that love demands sacrifice. Even the most pure form of love we humans know, a mothers love for her child, requires nine months of anxious wait where the mother's love lets her child take control of her womb; the love which gives strength to the mother through the many sleepless nights of care and protection; the many years of growing up and finally when he is ready to fly on his own, the love that manifests itself by letting go. John says Gods love is far deeper and harder to comprehend. If I love him, there are many things that I love otherwise, that I need to let go. But I reject all of them, not out of frustration and not at all, because the Pope and the church demands me to, but because I love him. In my teenage, I mistook passion for love and in my youth, ideology for love. As St Paul says, for now you see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. As I advance in age, love is slowly unraveling itself before me more and more clearly. And I understand now, I need grace, divine grace, to love; love as it is defined by God through Paul.

It was never my intention to make a critical judgment of Fr Ted. I do not know the circumstances or the realities of the time and situation; but I also think, it was a bit unfair of Fr Ted and Mrs Kate to make a judgment about priestly celibacy based their experience alone. That is not doing justice to the hundreds of thousands of priests, nuns and religious who have marched and are marching along this journey, faithfully, trusting in the providence of Jesus alone. Yes, they also feel tempted, they also feel at times that it is not worth it, yet, they walk in faith, in hope and in trust. From His passover meal to His last breath, all along the streets of Jerusalem carrying the heavy cross on his shoulders, He looked to the right, yet found no one who knew him, not even a trace of the Father he passionately talked about and in whose name he worked wonders. It was not the flogging that broke him, it was that feeling of being abandoned, whence he cried out, My God, My God, why have you forsaken me. All who have the courage to follow him, would at some point have to go through this abandonment. The above mentioned Church's ability to disappear seems less strange now.

At the end of it, it seemed a bit strange that Fr Ted did not talk even a single word. May be he was too frail. But as Kazantzakis's Francis said to Leo, "had it not been for grace, how far worse would I have been". The Mother Theresa's and the Francis's did what they did out of love for God, but also through grace that strengthened them. It is that grace that would lead every priest and nun and all those who are called to family life also, in their journey home. No, none of the vocations are easy. Harder still is the vocation to Love.