|
|
|
ANDREW'S
TAKE...
|
|||||||||
|
Witnessing to Jesus Christ...  Last week Dr Kania focused on conscience. His commentary today is related to all of that in that he endeavours to focus on the positive and affirming ways in which we ought be witnesses to Jesus Christ and the Gospel values the Church upholds and is supposed to witness to.
Paulie and Patsy are to say the least two quite 'shady' characters. Their 'negotiations' for the Feast hit an impasse when Fr. José requests from the two underworld figures an increase in the fee that they will provide the parish. Fr. José informs Paulie and Patsy that if the fee is not met, then for the first time in over a century the golden hat, traditionally worn by the statue of the Saint, will not be able to be used on the Feast Day. Fr. José appeals to the pair's sense of shame; needless to say the Saint appears bare-headed in the parade, and a number of accidents occur on the festival rides, blamed by other members of the mafia on Paulie and Patsy's cost-cutting measures. One cannot but smirk at the never-ending stream of black humour that pervades The Sopranos. We see at one point a group of people interested in creating and funding a religious celebration, but at the same time, sponsoring prostitution, rolling decapitated heads into storm water drains, being involved in extortion, as well as adulterous affairs, underhand dealings, theft, stand-over tactics, and the like. There exists an enormous void between religious affiliation and religious practice in The Sopranos; a void that is commensurate in distance to those voids that exist between belief and non-belief, theory and practice, good and evil and love and hate. The dangers of faith becoming superstition...
A number of centuries later, the Dutch Reformer, Desiderius of Erasmus (1466-1536), would in his classic text, The Praise of Folly, point his most vitriolic barbs at the religious hypocrite who kills true Christian faith, by sculpturing a religion in the image of their personality, rather than the serving Faith, handed down to us by the Apostles from Christ. As Erasmus wrote: "What a crowd of them can be seen lighting candles to the Virgin Mary, and in broad daylight, when there's no need for them! Yet how few of the same crowd try to imitate her in the chastity and modesty of her life, in her love for celestial things! For that after all is true worship and by all odds most welcome in heaven". (Erasmus, 1989, p. 48) Erasmus supports the veneration of the Saints, but he denounces their veneration if not combined with a resolution that the individual will in some way see in the Saint a role model to be emulated and followed, leading to a more intimate relationship with God. Similarly Erasmus lashes out at the individual who seeks to do 'religious things' in order to win for themselves salvation, and in the process neglect Christ's teaching of loving one's neighbour: "This man dreams of the revolution to come, and that one cherishes a vast, vague project. The pilgrim departs for Jerusalem, Rome, or Compostela, where he has no business being — meanwhile leaving his wife and children to shift for themselves". (Erasmus, 1989, p. 50)
The "Way"... It has often been used as an argument for Buddhism, that Buddhism is not a religion, but a way of life. This phrase is often used now by many disenchanted Christians who, pointing at the institution of the Church, have made their 'way' toward something which they feel is a living faith. What is deeply ironical is that the earliest term used for Christianity, handed down to us by the Apostles, is The Way. This expression comes from the text Didache or Teaching of the Twelve Apostles, and is found in the first chapter of the work: "There are two ways, one of life and one of death: and great is the difference between the two ways. The way of life is this: first, you shall love God, who created you; second, your neighbour as yourself". (Jurgens, 1970, Vol. I, p. 1) It is an indictment to many of us who comprise the Church, both laity and clergy, that the very phrase which was originally ascribed to define us, has now become a noose by which to reject us. Yet what must be remembered is that the message of Christianity itself is not any the less Divine, despite the multitude who bear the title Christian and despoil the name of Christ, by deliberately rejecting the core teachings of Christ in the way in which they lead their lives. Christ does not become a sinner no matter how many Christians sin, nor does His Church become less His Bride, no matter how many evils are perpetrated in Her name. The guilt is upon us, rather than Christ; in the same manner, as that man becomes a murderer, rather than a hunter, who uses the gun given to him by his father to kill his brother, rather than to provide food for his children. It is the task of all of us, to give the Church a living, breathing Gospel, one in which those of us who are non-believers will come to believe, not because we have coerced them, or that there is financial or power gain in doing so, but because, in the love which they see we exude, they can but nought else understand that we have indeed been touched by the Hand of God, and supported in our lives by some Divine Grace given to us through the Church in the Sacraments. It is for this reason that the Church has in recent years begun to have
its pews emptied, not for the want of something to say, for she bears
the Absolute fullness of the Gospel; but for want of the Gospel being
witnessed and lived by many who comprise the Church. The Church has an
important material façade which covers an inner spiritual core;
yet if we, the Church, let the inner core die, for want of living the
Gospel, we will in effect be left with a beautiful outer shell, that is
but a death-mask of something which should be the most exquisite form
of human society on the face of the Earth.  IMAGE SOURCES: The image of the baseball cap using in the main header for this article comes from: www.amenmusic.com/catalog/images/Jesus%20Christ.jpg.
©2007 Dr Andrew Thomas Kania |
|||||||||
 |
|
Email
this article to a friend
Post
your feedback in our forum
In
an episode entitled, "The Ride"
of the multi-Emmy Award winning television series, The
Sopranos, two mafia figures, Paulie and Patsy, are preparing
with the new priest the annual Feast of St. Elzear, a celebration that
has been supported by the Italian community in that parish for over a
hundred years.
St.
Thomas Aquinas in Summa Theologiae, warned his students
about the dangers of faith becoming superstition. The Dumb Ox defined
superstition as "a vice contrary to religion
by excess, not that it offers more to the divine worship than true religion,
but because it offers divine worship either to whom it ought not, or in
a manner it ought not". 
Centuries
before Erasmus attempted his Reformation of the Church, another outspoken
leader of the Church, St. John Chrysostom,
observed in his own Age a growing disparity between what was preached
from the pulpit and what was lived in the cloister and in the family home.
Minus Erasmus' sardonic humour, Chrysostom taught his listeners a means
by which to keep the Gospel message alive. According to Chrysostom: "Since
each of us would have wanted nothing more than to have been witnesses
of Christ's earthly ministry, we naturally feel deep regret at the lack.
Yet God has deprived us for a purpose. He does not want us constantly
to look back at those events hundred of years ago. Those events are signs
of what we should seek and discover here and now. Since Jesus healed people
of their sicknesses, we should evoke that same miraculous power today.
Since Jesus revealed himself in glory on the mountaintop, we should look
for all the reflections of God's glory in the people around us. Since
Jesus transformed people's souls, turned hatred into love and bitterness
into sweetness, we should strive for that same transformation in our own
lives. When God reveals his glory here and now, we, too, are at a loss
for words; but in our dumbness we understand better events described in
Scripture". 
Andrew
Thomas Kania is Director of Spirituality of Aquinas College,
Manning. Prior to this appointment Dr. Kania was a lecturer for
the School of Religious Education at the University of Notre Dame
Australia as well as for the Catholic Institute of Western Australia
at Edith Cowan and Curtin Universities. Dr. Kania belongs to the
Ukrainian Church and is interested in ecumenical issues as well
as contemporary problems facing religious educators.