WOULD THAT EVERYONE PROPHESIED!
September 30, 2012
WOULD THAT EVERYONE PROPHESIED!
I am running a bit late with my usual Sunday reflections,
both in English and Tagalog. I have been busier over the past weeks on account
of class preparations, a series of seminars and talks, two retreats to preach,
and personality evaluation reports of seminarians to write, on top of the usual
tasks I am wont to do.
I write from Tagaytay in between talks to a big group of
highly motivated and enthusiastic volunteer Church pastoral workers. Leading
them to do small-group share-ins, does not take much on my part. They take to
it like fish to water. In fact, my problem is how to stop them and have me
process what they shared in their respective little groups.
We priests and preachers do not have the monopoly of the
Spirit. That much, seems to be clear in the first and third readings. Moses,
Spirit-led surely as he was, knew better than to prevent Eldad and Medad from
prophesying in the camp.
Nowadays, the world at large, and, a fortiori, the Church,
too, is in rapid flux. The Catholic journalist, John Allen, says a lot about
what he calls the “ten megatrends” in the Church. One of these is the rise of
what he calls “evangelical Catholicism.” Among other things, this refers to a
more lay-inspired and lay-led Church that will, on the surface, kind of
undermine the “kingly”role (traditionally understood) of the ordained ministers
like me. Parishes and traditional institutional Church structures will no
longer define the pastoral and spiritual life and nourishment of many people.
Social entrepreneurs, cum preachers will figure in prominently in the landscape
of the lived faith of many people.
I can understand the well-meaning “clerical envy” or
pastoral worry of the followers of Moses. Eldad and Medad were kind of “pulling
the rug from under the feet” of Moses. I
can understand, too, the solicitude of the disciples who came anxious to the
Lord saying: “We saw someone driving out demons in your name.”
But putting all this worry and clerical envy aside, it
cannot be denied that the world, at large, is a hungry world, an expecting
world, a world waiting for answers, for meaning, in the midst of so many
pressing and complex problems that have to do with equally “mega” trends such
as massive environmental collapse as seen now in the undeniable patterns of
climate change (despite the avowed denials of ultra rightists who are notorious
for sticking to the status quo of business-as-usual).
One thing that stands out clear from the readings today, at
least for me, is this. One cannot stifle the Spirit. One cannot put His
inspirations into a box, and hold Him hostage to structures and a stale system
characterized by a stunted, stilted, and stumped “pecking order” of sorts.
Whilst it is true that salvation comes only from God, mediated by a divine and
human institution all at one and the same time, the process of redemption of
each and everyone stands in need of all the help it can get, from ministers
other than the Eldads and Medads of our times, or the upstart disciple who came
across to the others as an eager-beaver who went a little overboard, by their
standards.
Would that everyone prophesied! Would that all in and
outside the institutional Church got stricken by the ministerial flu of zeal
for the Kingdom!
As a priest, I am overwhelmed at times. I cannot manage to
keep up with the many questions posed to me in Facebook and other means. People
who have been long-time members of the Church rely on me in order to answer the
same oft-repeated “questions” (they are actually more like accusations, or an
opportunity to pick a quarrel or engage in a fruitless debate!), that, you
would have hoped they could very well answer for themselves. But for the most
part, many lay Catholics are very well schooled in sacramental spirituality,
but not in “evangelical” spirituality. Many of us are very well sacramentalized
but poorly evangelized (or poorly catechized!), in such a way that just about
everyone bandies about the oft-abused statement: “My conscience is clear!” And
by that, what they really mean is, “my choice is clear” (clearer than Sprite!)
or “my preferences are clear.” It is nothing else but conscience as an “event”
– a judgement, and conscience as a “habit” and as a “process” has really gone
out the window of relativism and personal preferences.
I salute all the lay people (some of whom are former
students) and lay colleagues who take up the cudgels for God and His Church.
They do their part to defend the Church for both fair and (mostly) unfair
bashings that come her way on a daily basis. Sometimes, they put up a gallant
fight, as you and I know, that in the case of some clerics, their behavior and
behavior patterns, are downright indefensible.
I address myself to all lay people who still love the Church
despite us and despite our sometimes bad examples. The Church needs you. God’s
message of salvation needs all the help it can get. We need to all help God
save us. We need lay people like you to help us in the ministry of teaching all
women and men the Good News of salvation.
Would that everyone prophesied in God’s name!
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