The Ruinous Divide Between the Lived Faith and the Pulpit Faith

by ofmcomms | Sep 16, 2022 | Custody

Psalm 100 serves as a solid basis for preaching the Gospel. The joy of the Good News is becoming aware of our relationship with God. If this is not the foundation of the desire to share our faith with others, then inevitably, we are going to push our own agendas. Our own limited versions of spirituality become unstable ground for others, leading to their inability to attain the relationship with God celebrated in Psalm 100.

When “gaining souls” is about checking boxes, making sure that people know how to recite the right prayers properly, this can lead to a shallow faith that does not support living in a world that is confusing and frightening. The faith is reduced to a series of performative actions rather than an expression of joy— joy that we belong to God.

Regretfully, homilies can often be about pushing the preacher’s spirituality onto captive congregations. The preacher’s political stance or his own religious propaganda can hijack the message of the Gospel completely. Or, just as unfortunate, pulpits can become platforms for theatrical displays that distract the people from the mystery of the Gospel, a mystery that requires careful attention and resolute belief in action. Perhaps “the agenda- driven” homilies stem from a fear that the faithful will walk away otherwise.

As Pope Francis made his penitential pilgrimage to Canada to apologise for the harm inflicted by Catholic institutions on indigenous people and their children, a religious scholar, Sister Nuala Kenny, raised some deeply troubling questions in an article* published in La Croix International:

• Why were the schools such a profound contradiction to Jesus’ teaching and revelations of a loving God for all persons, lands, and times?
• How did evangelisation and colonialism become so maliciously intertwined as early as Pope Nicholas V’s 1455 Doctrine of Discovery, establishing undiscovered lands as terra nullius or nothing until discovered and occupied by Christians?
• Can we accept that this established white Western privilege and racism at the heart of the Church in Rome?

Sr Nuala added.“In the schools, there was a forced Christianisation to ‘civilise’ the Indians and formal baptisms, but no true catechesis where students were led to know Jesus and Gospel values.”

How did some preachers of the Gospel get it so wrong? In preaching the word of God today, is there a sincere intention for true catechesis where children,catechumens and even baptised Catholics are “led to know Jesus and the Gospel values”? Do Christians, especially preachers, know and espouse the Gospel values?

In another La Croix International article**, Michael Dyer added to Sister Nuala’s questions:

• How did the bishops,superiors of religious orders, government officials and police manage to turn a blind eye to such abuse?
• What factors contributed to a toxic culture where human beings did evil things, but thought they were doing good?
• How do I personally, and as a member of the Mystical body of Christ, the people of God, make reparation for what is not only individual, but social sin?

The third question is personally troubling. Was it solely the Pope’s responsibility to make the reparation? What about the Mystical body of Christ that is living the Gospel in this part of the world? This surely cannot just be someone else’s issue.

Many people attend church services seeking to hear a message that will give them the will or the strength to live courageously through their difficulties and challenges. If only they are able to depart from church services with hearts made joyful by authentic preaching. If only the truth that we unconditionally belong to and are loved by the Divine anchors them in their actions. Then they will meet each day with the heart of Psalm 100.

When the friars from Malaysia and Singapore gathered for our assembly in July, we were encouraged to restore the Gospel within us. The message was simple: we cannot preach what we do not have. We cannot bring the joy of the Gospel to others when we ourselves do not know what this joy is. We may have the ability to preach or perhaps a reasonable knowledge of the scriptures, but these can distort the message of the Gospel when there is a great divide between the lived faith and preached faith.

By God’s grace, let history be our teacher.

Friar Clifford Augustine OFM

* Canada’s wounded elders, La Croix International, 25 July 2022

** A disastrous error, incompatible with the gospel of Jesus Christ, La Croix International, 9 August 2022

Committing Ourselves to Our Soul’s Journey into God

by ofmcomms | Sep 15, 2022 | Custody

Dearest family and friends, 

May the Lord give you peace!

Finally! All the friars in Malaysia and Singapore could meet face-to-face as an entire entity.

We had a chain of celebrations starting with the Priestly Ordination of Friar Robin Toha in Singapore on 21 June, followed by the Ordination of Friars Cosmas Francis, Crispus Mosinoh, Gerald Terence and Sixtus Pitah in Kota Kinabalu (KK) on 2 July, and the Solemn Profession of Friar Nelson Evarinus on 9 July, also in KK.

We also gathered for an Assembly to review where we are now, individually and communally, and where the Lord is inviting and challenging us to venture into. We shared stories, listened with purpose and named what affected us. I could feel our brothers’ audacity in being vulnerable and honest with one another. And because of this, we can listen to the Lord together, with a space in our hearts for God, brother and neighbour.

This sharing and listening will be the springboard for more concrete decision-making at the Custody Chapter to be held on our Bukit Batok property from 17 to 21 October.

The current “battle-cry” of the Franciscan Friars worldwide is Contemplative Fraternity-in-Mission, and my personal prayer and dream as Custos is that each friar will continue to be intentional and intensify his own interior spiritual journey. Knowing that we cannot give what we do not have, it is only by committing ourselves to our “soul’s journey into God” (quoting St Bonaventure), that each friar can be more and more in touch with the Spirit’s prompting for himself and for others.

As we celebrate St Francis’ Feast Day on 4 October, we allow his lived wisdom on fraternity to impact our lives. When others hurt us, we need to be ready to offer mercy to them, to not focus on the hurt to ourselves but rather to be “disturbed by the sin that he is inflicting on himself”. If someone causes us some hurt due to some toxic pattern of behaviour, this same toxicity is eating him or her up all the more intensely, and hence deserves our empathy and compassion.

St Francis teaches all of us to move the spotlight away from ourselves and put it on someone God wants us to focus on. If we keep dwelling on the faults of others and the hurts they have caused us, the spotlight is certainly on us. This sort of victim mentality does not help build bridges; it burns these bridges instead. And Pope Francis, in his encyclical ‘Fratelli Tutti’ which is on Social Friendship, exhorts us all to build bridges and not walls.

I am working on this interior journey myself and more importantly, allowing God to work in and through me. I know many of my brothers are of the same mind, and for this, I am grateful and edified. Together, we continue the God- inspired mission of St Francis to go out to all people and all creation, and connect with those who do not feel loved, who do not feel they are good enough and who do not feel they belong. And we friars invite you to not only pray for us, but to also join us in this beautiful mission!

Peace and all good,

OFM Custos,

Custody of St Anthony

(Malaysia-Singapore-Brunei)