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April and May 2013
“Our purpose is to bring the life of God to a world often submerged in death. With the guidance of the newly–elected pope, empowered by the Life–Giving Breath of God, let us sail!”
Kevin Maramakami met his wife Marikita when they both scratched out a living in Cebu. They would make ends meet by diving to the bottom of the bay in search of coins thrown over the side by arriving and departing passengers of ships. Known as Badjao, or sea gypsies, this couple came together after leaving their home in Mindanao.
The waves of the Pacific Ocean crash against the wall. The poles and the barbed wire fence seem to dip into the blueness of the sea and disappear but, in reality, they do not budge an inch, they remain firmly anchored to the ocean floor. And this is not where the three–meter high wall ends. This is just where it starts. It stretches right across the Mexico–U.S. border, covering a distance of two thousand kilometers. The hundreds of crosses along the wall give it a white tint, almost as if they were meant as decorations to liven up a miserable looking monument dedicated to the thousands of migrants who have lost their lives trying to cross the border. Some die of cold or hunger, others from snake bites or police gunfire. People have tried to climb over it, cross the mountains and make a dream come true: the American dream. Tijuana, Mexico is one of the most heavily trafficked borders in the world.
The research wing of the U.S. Congress is warning that three decades of “historically unprecedented” build–up in the number of prisoners incarcerated in the United States have led to a level of overcrowding that is now “taking a toll on the infrastructure” of the federal prison system. Over the past 30 years, according to a new report by the Congressional Research Service (CRS), the federal prison population – not counting with the states’ system – has jumped from 25,000 to 219,000 inmates, an increase of nearly 790%. Swollen by such figures for years, the United States has incarcerated far more people than any other country today, imprisoning some 716 people out of every 100,000.
The Australian Agency for International Development (AusAID) and UNICEF, the United Nations Children’s Fund, have launched a joint US$18 million project to help about four million poor children in six Philippine cities. Entitled “Early Learning for Life,” the project will operate in targeted areas of high need across the country.
Giovanna Chirri, the journalist who first sent out the news, through the ANSA agency, said that she just couldn’t believe her ears when she heard the first words of the declaration the Pope was making that Monday morning, 11 February, in front of a consistory of cardinals who were meeting to decide on the canonization of a new group of saints. Benedict XVI was reading it in Latin but she made it out immediately, got confirmation and sent it out. “I gave out the news and then just sat down and began to weep,” she told a fellow journalist.
The wage of sin is death, declares the Holy Bible (Romans 6:23). The innocents – most of them living in slums – are paying the sin of the chosen few rich in the past! In December 2011’s “Sendong,” vast sections of Northern Mindanao, an area previously thought to be away from the path of storms, were laid to waste. The typhoon killed more than 1,500 people. Also in December, “Pablo” left almost 400 people dead and hundreds more injured as it slowly exited the country. More than 300 are still unaccounted for. Most of the fatalities – some of them still unidentified – died from flash flood and mudslide. “The root cause is the denudation of our forests,” commented one environmentalist. “This is a sin of the past that we are paying now.” Harold R. Watson, a former American agriculturist who had been helping the locals in Mindanao, agreed. “When man sins against the earth, the wage of that sin is death or destruction,” he explained. “This seems to be a universal law of God and relates to all of God’s creation. We face the reality of what man’s sins against the earth have caused.”
“Come, Holy Spirit, renew the face of the earth.” Mission is a continual invocation of the Spirit, whose presence and action has to do with the creation of the world according to God’s plan. Mission is an ongoing Pentecost.
How would the rediscovery of the Spirit, as Protagonist of Mission, regenerate the missionary imagination, and so rekindle missionary fire and transform missionary praxis? How would the face of Christian mission in the world change? Here, we highlight a few aspects of a Spirit–shaped missionary imagination, as an invitation for further exploration.
The adjective ‘apostolic’ is one that we specifically use about the Church. It is, in fact, one of the four words (one, holy, catholic and apostolic) that Christians, down through the centuries, have always used to say what we basically believe about the identity, the life and the mission of the Church.
The social doctrine of the Church contains the main answers to the injustices that affect our world. However, few Catholics know or practice the teachings of the popes of the last two centuries. That’s why it is often called “the Church’s best kept secret.”
A Swiss missionary to Zimbabwe, recently deceased, Archbishop Henry Karlen (1922–2012) gained international fame for revealing to the world the Gukurahundi massacres of the Ntebele people under the government led by Robert Mugabe. Considered the father of Bulawayo Diocese, he had favored the struggle against white supremacy and supported the rule of the black majority. He was, therefore, disappointed by the atrocity of black people on black people. Yet, after his retirement, he decided to stay and die there. His coat of arms was In Nomine Domini, in English “In the Name of the Lord.” After more than thirty years, Robert Mugabe still clings to power in Zimbabwe to the contempt of the whole world.
A community is never perfect. After Ananias and Sapphira’s lie (see previous article), there appears an injustice: the Apostles seem to favor the widows from their own country and neglect the others. This ethno-cultural discrimination gives rise to conflict.
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