Quarterly Bulletin

      A vocation of every Christian, especially for those who have chosen to devote their lives to being a religious, is to constantly follow Christ with greater freedom and to imitate Christ more closely through the practice of evangelical counsels (or religious vows).What does practice of these vows entail in real life situations of a religious person? Bernand Mallia, a Jesuit priest from Sudan currently working part-time at the JCTR, shares in this article his experiences of why religious women and men should be actively involved in social justice issues.

WHY SOCIAL JUSTICE?

            What are the reasons why religious with vows should be interested in social justice?  There are possibly two reasons for this, one positive and one negative.  The negative reason is that we need to overcome the understanding of religious life as a life set apart from the world, a life that is devoted almost exclusively to climbing the vertical ladder of the soul’s perfection without any thought given to the horizontal perfection of our humanity and of our world which is what social justice is all about.

The positive reason is that many more religious men and women today, as they were certainly already doing in the past, in one way or another, are truly engaged in the  social  apostolate,

like education, women promotion, child and health care, and so many other ways of sharing in the Church’s long-standing service of the human community.  

            Here we shall be elaborating a little on what really makes religious people become more interested in social justice.  We shall be seeing how Christian life and the practice of the evangelical counsels is understood in the Church, Vatican II understands religious life as a closer companionship with Jesus and sharing more closely in his mission. This would mean that it should be at the total service of the mystery of Christ’s love for our humanity and our world. This is how religious life would show the signs of the new humanity and the new earth already now because by their total self-giving through their religious vows they come to be engaged more fully to a more integral evangelical action.  Religious life that is fundamentally interested in social justice is truly a life of the Beatitudes and the Magnificat. 

PRACTICE OF RELIGIOUS VOWS

            Vatican II’s document on religious or consecrated life, “Perfectae Caritatis”, tells us that, “from the beginning of the Church men and women have set about following Christ with greater freedom and imitating Him more closely through the practice of the evangelical counsels” (PC #1). We all know that to be a Christian, whatever the walk of life may be, is to follow Christ, that is, to be His disciple by embracing the values of the Good News of the Kingdom. It is right within (and not outside) this basic and fundamental Christian call that we may find the essential meaning of religious life.  In the above statement we find what is particular to the religious way of life, and that is: to follow Christ “with greater freedom” and to imitate Him “more closely” and this is done through the practice of the evangelical counsels. 

            What is this greater freedom that the practice of the evangelical counsels gives to a person so that she or he may come to follow and imitate Christ more closely? The religious vows are here understood in what they are truly for, that is, as the way by or through which the person may answer Jesus’ call with an undivided and an always freer heart.  Thus, by the evangelical counsels the religious is called to give up (renounce) some basic inalienable rights and very good and ordinarily indispensable commitments in life. 

Through the vow of chastity the religious offers up married love, through the vow of poverty she or he renounces the personal ownership of property, and through the vow of obedience she or he surrenders the keenly cherished right to self-determination or the power to pursue her own right intentions in her personal and social life.  Any Christian in the world is certainly called to make good use of and enjoy these God-given gifts that may be the means to a good life.   

In so doing the Christian is always to be guided by the values of the Good News that, in and through her actions, brings her to salvation, to holiness in wholeness, that is, she or he becomes more human and consequently more divine.  This comes about when the she or he puts her or his “priorities” right by seeking first the Kingdom of God (Mt 6:33).  This is indeed how every Christian is called to imitate Christ by seeking Christ’s justice or righteousness in letting God reign in all their undertakings: “Thus says the Lord: do justice and righteousness and deliver from the hand of the oppressor the one who has been robbed.  And do no wrong and violence to the stranger, the orphan and the widow, nor shed innocent blood” (Jeremiah 22:1-40).

            But, then, what does it mean that a person in religious life has greater freedom in order to be able to follow and imitate Christ more closely?  It means that Jesus makes a particular call to those whom he wants to associate more closely with himself by calling them to be his closer companions and to send them to share more closely in  his

own mission of bringing about, in word and action, the Good News of the Kingdom (Mark 3:14).  This is certainly what lies behind what Vatican II (PC # 5, 6) says about how the religious are to “Join contemplation ... with apostolic love, by which they strive to be associated with the work of redemption and to spread the Kingdom. This love (of neighbour) quickens and directs the actual practice of the evangelical counsels.”

            A life of contemplation, a life spent in closer companionship with Jesus, is also to be, and at one and the same time, a life of apostolic love for God’s people.  This is what St. Ignatius of Loyola calls being “contemplative in action”, where the times dedicated to prayer are already imbued with apostolic love while the time spent in apostolic action is always prayerful, always in action with Jesus, in his company. 
The prayer-life and the practical apostolic life make for a truly integrated religious life that puts radically into practice the one integrated commandment of Jesus about the love of God and the love of the neighbour, especially the poor and the oppressed.  A good Pharisee once asked Jesus: who is my neighbour? And Jesus answered that we are to make ourselves neighbours, good Samaritans, to those in need (Luke 10:29-37).

BEING AT THE SERVICE OF ALL

            Every religious is called to be totally at the service of the mystery of Christ’s love for humankind and the world. This is exactly what makes consecrated life become a life of service to the pastoral charity that Jesus himself practiced so that through him all things may be made new.   As Peter tells us, “What we are waiting for, relying on his promises, is the new heavens and the new earth, where uprightness (integral justice) will be at home” (2 Peter 3:13; see also Revelation 21:5).

The Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church (#540) has this to say about how the religious need to be interested in social justice: “Placing themselves totally at the service of the mystery of Christ’s love for humankind and the world, the religious anticipate and show by their very lives some of the traits of the new humanity that this social doctrine seeks to encourage. In chastity, poverty and obedience, consecrated persons place themselves [in greater freedom] at the service of pastoral charity.”

            Here we find a short but very beautiful re-expression of Vatican II’s definition of religious life as a life of greater freedom for a closer imitation of Christ. Religious life is a total life of service to the mystery of Christ’s incarnate love for our humanity, for our world, that seeks to anticipate already now the fulfilment of the Kingdom of God at Christ’s coming in glory when he will make new our humanity and the whole of creation that God loved so much that for their sake He gave up his Only Beloved Son to become fully human like us that led to his death on the Cross (John 3:16).  

Pope Benedict XVI, in his inaugural discourse at the 5th General Conference of the Latin American Bishops (CELAM) held at Aparecida, in Mexico, from 13th-31st May, 2007, addressed the religious exhorting and encouraging them to give themselves totally in the service of the mystery of Christ’s love that necessarily translates into a service of social integral justice: “Continue working generously and even heroically so that in society there may reign love, justice, goodness, service and solidarity, according to the charism of your founders.  With profound joy embrace your consecration which is the means of holiness for you and of salvation for your brothers (and sisters).”

            Benedict XVI reminds the religious that their vocation is not simply for their own holiness and salvation but that it is necessarily also for that of their brothers and sisters.  They are to do this especially by living and working for God’s reign of love, justice, goodness, service and solidarity among them and in society.  These are the very signs that Jesus himself performed in bringing about, already now, the Kingdom of His Father.

SIGNS OF A NEW HEAVEN AND EARTH

            These are the signs of the new humanity that Jesus proclaimed right at the beginning of his Galilean ministry. When in the synagogue at Nazareth he was invited to read the Scripture, and selecting a passage from Isaiah, he proclaimed to them the programme of his mission saying: “The spirit of the Lord is upon me, for he has anointed me to bring the good news to the afflicted. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives, sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim a year of favour from the Lord” (Luke 4:18-19 quoting Isaiah 61:1-2).

            Later on in his ministry, after Jesus had been going “about all the towns doing good and curing all who had fallen into the power of the devil” (Acts 10:38), proclaiming by word and deed the nearness of the Kingdom in his own person, some disciples of John the Baptist were sent  to ask

him whether he was the Messiah who was to come or they were to wait for another.  Jesus answered: “Go back and tell John what you hear and see: “the blind see again, and the lame walk, those suffering from virulent skin diseases are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised to life and the good news is proclaimed to the poor...” (Matthew 11:3-5; Luke 7:22-25).

            In these two readings Jesus sets out the whole meaning and purpose of his Messianic ministry.  The expected Messiah was the one who was to come to restore Yahweh’s people, to establish his kingdom for ever: “For a son has been born to us, and this is the name he has been given; ‘Wonder-Counsellor, Mighty-God, Eternal-Father, Prince-of-Peace’, to extend his dominion in boundless peace, over the throne of David and over his kingdom, to make it secure and sustain it in fair judgement and integrity...” (Isaiah 9: 5-6).
Jesus sends us back to the Jubilee Year proclaimed as a Year of Restoration.  But the Jubilee Year he proclaims does not occur just every fiftieth year but it is the bringing about of the Reign of God that, by Him and through us NOW, is already at work among us here on earth. It will only be totally fulfilled in the fullness of time with the glorious coming of the Lord Jesus who will gather up the harvest of faith that does justice and he will present all to the Father.  

The Old Testament Jubilee Year was ordered so that no one among the people of God may remain permanently enslaved and reduced to a dehumanising poverty.  This is what we read in Leviticus 25:10 about the Jubilee year where the people of Israel were told: “During this year all property that has been sold shall be restored to their original owner or his descendants ....”

This law was to ensure that no one would continue to work on others’ land like a slave.  The Jubilee Year Jesus proclaims meant exactly an on-going preferential option for the poor, that is the liberation of all those who are afflicted and oppressed in any way and who are exemplified in the realistic images

of the healing of the blind, the lame, the deaf and even the raising of the dead to life.  This work of liberation is the task Jesus entrusted to his community of faith at whose core religious life is actively situated through their discipleship of greater freedom to be with him and to be more closely associated in his mission to sow already now the signs of that integral liberation that brought to its full and undiminished bloom by Christ to the glory of God the Father (Philipians 2:11).

LIFE OF BEATITUDES AND THE MAGNIFICAT

            This liberation that Jesus preached and put into practice is all too often just spiritualised. It came to mean only the liberation of the soul from sin described as spiritual blindness, deafness, lameness and death itself.  Jesus came to proclaim the Good News of the integral liberation, setting free the whole person and society. This is how the 1971 Synod of Bishops statement, “Justice in the World,” understood it: “Action on behalf of justice and participation in the transformation of the world fully appears to us as a constitutive dimension of the preaching of the Gospel, or in other words, of the Church’s mission for the redemption of the human race and its liberation from every oppressive situation”.

            If action on behalf of justice and participation in the transformation of the world is indeed a constitutive dimension of the Gospel then, most surely, not only are people with religious vows not exempted from preaching the full, integral Gospel by their very way of life and action, but it is actually a constitutive dimension of their life.  Their vows are meant to make them freer to engage themselves ever more seriously in such full and integral evangelical action by word and deed.

            How will that come about?  The vows are the means by which the religious become always more finely attuned to God’s interests as they are expressed in Micah 6:8: “to act justly, to love tenderly and to walk humbly with your God.” 

            To interpret Yahweh’s injunction in terms of the vows, let me say briefly that by the vow of poverty they become more attentive spiritually and actively to God’s call to act justly by being more like the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, ready to hear the cry of the poor for justice. By their vow of chastity, they keep actively loving more tenderly both God and our brothers and sisters, especially those in greater need.

Through obedience, they may truly continue to walk humbly with the Lord and thus continue to be with and stand up for those who are crushed and exploited by the proud and the powerful of the world, the way Jesus did in associating with the despised and in being eminently compassionate to and acting for those who suffer in body and spirit. 

CONCERN FOR THE POOR

            As St. Ignatius, in the Spiritual Exercises, put it, the challenge of the “magis”, that is to become freer in order to follow and work more closely with Jesus under the banner of his Kingdom, is actually to become “poor with Christ poor.”  

            This means that we take up the special call of Christ our King to leave all – family, property, and worldly power – in order to associate ourselves more closely with him and with those with whom he associated in word and action.  In thus associating ourselves so closely with Christ it would become impossible for us to distinguish between spiritual and being on the side of and being with the actually poor. 

Who are these poor?  They are all those who are impoverished – made poor – because they are denied their rights to live up to their full human dignity when they are discriminated against, they are looked down upon and who in so many ways end up being dumped on the margins of society and who thus become purposely forgotten.  What could the reasons be?  It could be because they might belong to the “wrong” gender, or because they are underprivileged children and youth, or the illiterate and people of doubtful moral status, or simply because they are old people who do not enjoy any life security. 

            Actually, spiritual poverty cannot even exist unless it becomes incarnate the way Jesus was the incarnate compassion of the Father like whom we are invited by  Jesus  to

be ourselves compassionate (Luke 6:36).  In fact the only way to become perfect as the heavenly Father is perfect is to become compassionate together with him by imitating Jesus’ own compassion.  In reading the Beatitudes we must not forget that in Luke there are not only blessings but there are also curses. 

LEARN FROM MARY’S EXEMPLARY LIFE

These recall the blessings and curses to be uttered by Jesus Christ when he appears in glory.  He will sit in judgement on that day and he will separate sheep from goats (Matthew 25:31-46); he will gather in the harvest and he will put the wheat into his barn while the darnel will be burnt (Matthew 13:24-30). The criteria for the selection are those of the Beatitudes:  what have they done to the little ones (the poor, the “anawim”), for “what you do to these little ones you do it to me” (Matthew 9:41 and Mark 9:37).

            In the end, when we pray the Magnificat we must surely notice that Mary is rejoicing because the event of the Annunciation was absolutely shattering:  the world of the powerful and the rich is to be turned around for they shall be put down and, instead, those whom they crush, exploit and disregard are now going to be exalted! 

            As we know, the Magnificat is a patchwork of quotations from the Old Testament as that was what “the poor of Yahweh” believed and hoped that He will do for His People as they cried out to Him.  This was the Restoration of Israel that was foreseen by his prophets but which the religious or civil authorities turned into an expectation of an earthly restoration of Israel’s crumbled national status and fortunes.

In Psalms 118:22-24 those who are distressed and heard by Yahweh rejoice and say: “Indeed, this is the day that the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad!” Israel was like a stone that the builders rejected but which became the cornerstone.   We who together with Jesus stand by the downtrodden of society will rejoice like Mary with His people, the true “Israel of God”. 

This is the new humanity, the new integral world order that the Incarnate Son of God had come to accomplish.  Mary was a simple handmaid who was espoused to a man, a poor carpenter from Nazareth, a village from which nothing much could be expected to come out (John 1:46).  Mary, like Jesus, was in full solidarity with the poor of the land.  Does not this clearly tell us religious that we too, together with Jesus and his mother Mary, are to enter into a closer solidarity with all those who cry for justice?

Bernard Mallia, S.J.
JCTR