God embraces every cultural group
19.01.2009
A thought provoking article for urban dwellers everywhere.
When a pilgrim, tourist or scholar approaches the cultural and spiritual domain of indigenous people, the experience invariably evokes a sense of interest, respect and wonder. In New Zealand the encounter with Maori culture and spirituality opens me to a remarkable sacred world often neglected or avoided in the modern urban world. I am encouraged to live with a deep sense of the sacred, shaped by a sensitive awareness of a spirit-filled world.
For decades, my Columban vocation took me from China to Chile, from Brazil to Burma (now called Myanmar). I journeyed overseas as if mission was elsewhere. But I often missed the indigenous perspectives unfolding in my homeland. These days, however, I am more at home in the familiar domain of Wellington hills and harbour. My Maori friends are helping me acknowledge the creating and sustaining Creator-Spirit.
At the 1998 Synod for Oceania, Bishop Takuira Mariu spoke on behalf of the Maori people, "If the Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand, is to be truly Catholic, we need to be given the freedom to express our Catholicity in the language and the idiom that is ours. Christ must be given the freedom to come alive in us, with us and among us, using our language, painting our images, using idioms that are ours and which speak profoundly to our hearts."
The challenge is to discover fresh ways of being Catholic and to make the Gospel message come alive. We know that faith which is not part of the culture of the land remains alien. In missionary circles the code word is "inculturation." For the Maori, the late Pope John Paul II summed it up during his 1986 visit to the South Pacific, "It is as Maori that the Lord calls you. It is as Maori that you belong to the Church." The challenge amid a multicultural Church reality is to encourage indigenous and ethnic minorities to retain and express their unique identities.
In New Zealand we search for fresh ways to express insights from scripture and Church tradition. It involves a lot of pondering, listening and discussion focused on Gospel, Church, culture and daily life.
We speak of encountering the cultural soul of the indigenous people. Traditional wisdom, rituals and protocols help us interpret the way things are, and how they make sense. Active and busy folk are called to expand their imagination about how we live in a Spirit-filled space on the planet, and how we are to transform the world.
My strongest growing conviction is that we affirm ethnic and cultural identity and respect every diverse response. My God embraces every cultural group in their stories. My mission task is to be comfortable in a spirit-filled sacred world and allow stories and images to shape my future. My hope is a credible and attractive Church where people are at home in celebrating every God given cultural experience.
Fr Michael Gormly is presently at St Columban’s, Lower Hutt, New Zealand.
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