Two of the most quoted verses in the New Testament are from the meeting between Jesus and Nicodemus in Chapter 3 of St John's Gospel after Nicodemus had come at night to speak with Jesus.
Verse 16-17 of Chapter 3 reads,
For this is how God loved the world: he gave his only Son...
For God sent his Son into the world not to judge the world, but so that through Him the world might be saved.
'God sent his Son'.
The initiative for this action came from God the Father. Jesus is sent. Jesus in turn sends his apostles to preach the Good News. The apostles send other disciples through the centuries. The dynamic of 'sending' which started with God, continues to this day.
The Holy Spirit is always on the move and is present in the great movements of people around the world. People in their millions are on the move. Columbans in Peru for example work with tens of thousands of country people who have left the Andes mountain area for a new life in Lima. Everywhere in the world, people are moving into urban areas. This presents the Church with great pastoral challenges.
Today we are familiar with people leaving impoverished homelands wracked by wars and dislocation in their own countries for a new life anywhere else. They are on the move, from Africa to Italy, from Iraq to Australia, or from Mexico and Central America to the United States of America - by any means legal or illegal. They live on the borders of countries, refugees and asylum seekers in tent cities without a future anywhere.
What is the Holy Spirit asking of the Church for those in dire situations? As the Holy Spirit lives among all of us, we as Christians have to respond to their needs through the bond of our humanity.
Something significant and new is also happening within the Church in recent times. Missionaries are on the move. Continents like Africa and the subcontinent of India used to receive missionaries. Now they are sending missionaries to countries like Australia, New Zealand and other western countries.
This is a dramatic change in the Church. Did Korean or Chinese people complain about Columban Missionary Priests who went to their countries nearly 100 years ago, when they spoke Korean and Chinese poorly and badly with thick foreign accents?
Now the shoe is on the other foot. African priests from Nigeria and Indian priests from the Indian State of Kerala, to name just two places that send missionaries, are now working in our parishes in the West, including Australia and New Zealand. They struggle with the same issues as Columban Missionary Priests have across the world in many countries. African and Indian priests see themselves as missionaries to our countries - and they are.
The Holy Spirit is taking our Catholic Church at home into a new phase of identity. Our Churches in Australia and New Zealand are now very much a part of the world Church. African and Indian missionaries are now serving in parishes all over world. Latin Americans missionaries work in Korea and Korean missionaries work in Latin America.
That great action of sending which began with God the Father sending God the Son to our world, still continues today in the name of the Son across the world.
Fr Gary Walker
director@columban.org.au
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LISTEN TO: From the Director - The dynamic of sending (Duration: 4.20mins, MP3, 1.98MB) |