LEST
WE FORGET … LET US FORGET, FOR A WHILE …
Let us forget, for a
while, that we form part of the Church. Let us forget, for a while, our
Christian duties; participating in the sacrifice of the Mass, receiving the
Sacraments, praying … and the rest.
Let us, for a while,
concentrate on one thing; God created man. So we have every right to ask: For
what end ? For what reason has God
created me, created you, and the rest of humanity? The reason is found in this quotation by
Fulton Sheen:
“Open
Genesis and you will find that God’s first thought about Himself is, ‘Let us
make man.’ Think of it: as if God could not exist without man. Now, God does
not need man to complete Himself, to fulfill a need, but He needs man as a kind
of a gift. That is to say, He must have someone to whom He can show His love.
In fact the first monologue we find in sacred Scripture is that of God thinking
about man.”
God wanted to show His
love to man. He is always in search of man … and not the man in search of God.
Man does seek God but not with the same intensity with which God seeks man. He
is madly in love with man. God IS the ‘Hound of Heaven’, as Francis Thompson ably
puts it.
Notice God’s first and
second recorded questions; firstly to Adam: ‘Where are you, why are you hiding
?’, Later on to Cain; ‘Where is your brother Abel ?’ God
is interested in man, in his welfare, in his health and well-being. So God’s
plan for humanity is built on the key-stone called ‘LOVE’.
From this follows that
if we practice ‘love’ towards each other in life we will be pleasing God, we
would be reaching our aim in being created. Our Mission Satement should be: ‘Love
every person on earth’…that includes your near and distant neighbours,
those close to you and those in far-off lands, your friends and your enemies. I
was created for one single reason: To show and practice love towards each and
every one; love is the only rail, track that takes our train, our wagon, our
cabin to the Station, to our destination called Heaven.
God created us to be His
channels of Love towards each other, to fill, to flood the whole world with
love. If I fail in this mission, others are going to suffer because I have
failed in my duty.
For this reason the Lord
Jesus, established, as He called it, ‘my
qahul’, which means, ‘my people’,
that is , ‘my Church’. This was established
not on a bond of ‘law’, but on a bond of ‘love’. Now, according to Jewish
Culture, for Jesus was born a Jew, new bonds, new contracts, new testaments,
new orders or new contracts, were always established during a meal, during a
banquet, and sealed by
the shedding of a victim's blood.
This was done during a banquet
organized by Christ and His beloved friends. During this meal, He declared
that this was His New Testament, His new
pact, to unite all His people together. From this follows that the Church is
the bond, the new pact, the New Testament established by Christ and sealed by the shedding of a
victim's blood. In this case by the blood of Jesus Himself. So the
Church is not simply an institution.
We have to understand
the Church as the Body of Christ, the new people, united in Him, the example He
Himself gave of the vine and the branches. “I am the vine, you are the branches,”
Jesus said. From the main branch comes the sap, the juice, the vitamins, the life
to the branches. Likewise, we receive the same life … and the truth if we are
part of Him: “My truth I give to you.”
He also prophesied and
promised that at first the body, the nucleus is going to be small, just a
handful, twelve fishermen … small, like a mustard seed, but eventually the tree
would grow from that seed, it would be a huge tree that gives shelter to great
numbers, it will spread throughout the world.
Now, my body, like any
other’s, is made up of millions of cells, yet it is one body, and it is
vivified by one soul. Similarly, the ‘Body of Christ’ is likewise vivified by
one soul … by the Holy Spirit. Thus it is called the ‘Mystical Body of Christ.’
Now, we can go back to
the introduction and say, rather declare with pride: “I am part of the Church,”
and I understand the value of the Holy
Mass, the need of the Sacraments, Prayers, Alms giving, and the rest. These are
the rails on which my wagon has to move along to arrive at the Station. But the
rails, the engines all that maze of cogwheels, chains, nuts and bolts, and what
not, have to be oiled regularly. The only oil available on the market, for us,
is called “LOVE THY NEIGHBOUR”.
