FOR A PASTORAL PROGRAM OF COMMUNION

 

Aldo Giordano

 

Listen to and support humanity’s search

A famous page of Nietzsche begins like this: “You have heard of that foolish man who lit a lantern in broad daylight, ran to the market and started shouting: “I’m looking for God! I’m looking for God!” To light a lantern in the clear morning light would seem to be folly, but in reality humanity today is beginning to feel the need to rekindle a new light precisely when everything seems to be illuminated by reason, by the sciences, by the powers of the world. There are many signs that urge us to start searching again: September 11, 2001 , the tsunami of southeast Asia, the death of John Paul II…. It seems to me that a primary task in our pastoral work is to listen to and support this new searching.

People today are searching for the truth. We search for a truth that gives meaning to our life. Is there anyone capable of responding to my desire for happiness, affection and eternity? Are the great sufferings of individuals, peoples and death the final word for us? Why is there innocent suffering?

We search for beauty. We are attracted by the fascination of a face, a landscape, a work of art, by light. At the same time, however, we also experience the corruption of each thing.

Humanity searches for love, for what is good. When the space of the world was vast, the different cultures and nations existed but they were distant. Now the space is becoming smaller and smaller and the diversities live in the same house. Is there a good that is capable of making these diversities live together?

Who will be able to give us the truth, beauty, and love we are searching for? We know that Verum Pulchrum et Bonum convertuntur in Unum. They are the various faces of the same reality. The spirituality of the Focolare focuses on the Unum. On each level, it’s a matter of passing from fragmentation to unity in order to find truth, beauty and love. It is the hour of communion. This, in synthesis, is the challenge we have before us and inside our pastoral work.

 

The secret of God crucified and forsaken

During John Paul II’s funeral, a year ago, I was struck by the fact that the simple coffin was placed between the cross and the Easter candle: the Pope seemed to disappear and there remained only Christ crucified and risen. And on the coffin, the Gospel, its pages repeatedly turned by the wind.

The spirituality of unity indicates Easter as the source of a pastoral program capable of creating a communion that is the place of truth, beauty and love.

From Christ crucified and forsaken we can learn the mysterious secret, the deepest soul of pastoral work.

The first step is to have the courage to follow Jesus there, outside of the walls, all the way to the point of his cry of abandonment, where even heaven and earth seem to be separated. We cannot just look on as spectators and arbiters at the sufferings and wounds. We need to enter into the divisions, the failures, in order to “comprehend them” completely.

God entered the wounds and became wounded. When conflicts break out, normally, one transmits the conflict to the other and also unloads the responsibility onto the other. On the cross Christ did not look for the guilty one; rather, he took the division on himself.

The wound creates a new space that didn’t exist before. The crucified Lord becomes an immense, open space capable of gathering everyone, especially those who carry the cross in life and also those distant from God. Each person, inasmuch as he or she is touched by suffering and evil, always belongs to the crucified Lord. In following Christ, pastors and communities are called to become this welcoming dwelling-place without borders.

If the grain of wheat does not die it does not bear fruit. From John Paul II we learned the great lesson of a “sermon” given through the mystery of suffering. Suffering transformed into love is perhaps the most “intimate” secret of every pastoral endeavor.

 

The risen Lord and trinitarian life

The crucified Lord is the hidden side of the splendid face of the risen Lord. The most revolutionary perspective of our pastoral work is to create a dwelling-place where the risen Lord himself lives. This is possible if we love one another as Christ taught us. Mutual charity, communion, is the home of the risen Lord (“Where two or three are united in my name, I am there in their midst”). The risen Lord who “remains among his own until the end of time,” brings on earth the very life of God, the relationship of trinitarian love lived by the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. This is the life that our pastoral work should spread ever more widely among people.

Reciprocal love brings the presence of the risen Lord and also furthers the ecumenical journey. The Churches and ecclesial communities do not yet share enough faith to celebrate the Eucharist together, but nothing prevents us from living together the Gospel, charity, collaboration, solidarity. This will create a space for the presence of the risen Lord among us and he will lead us to full communion.

The risen Lord among us is also able to put the various religions in contact with one another. If people of various religions deepen their knowledge and esteem for one another and collaborate, the risen Lord can act, he can do everything.

The risen Lord present in mutual love can make us experience that eternity exists and consequently that life should be considered in the light of heaven and not only in the years we spend on this earth. This is the great news.

 

The pastoral method of Jesus of Nazareth

To concretize this new pastoral method, we can look at the evangelizing work of Jesus himself.

First of all, more than preaching the Gospel, Jesus himself was the living Gospel, both in the thirty years of his hidden life in Nazareth and in his public life. Evangelizers are “transparency” of the Gospel if they have a harmonious life: pastoral method is our prayer life, updating, the way we handle money, care for our home and clothes; the attention we give to health; the ability to communicate. Mutual charity, in particular, is our first pastoral ”tool”: “by this they will know that you are my disciples: by the love you have for one another.”

Jesus evangelized individual persons taking advantage of every encounter, even casual ones: Zacchaeus, the “good thief” on the cross…. Pastoral method means giving value to every encounter and to each person: spiritual direction, correspondence, dialogues, confession…. People need us to “take time” for them.

Jesus devoted most of his time during his public life to building up the small community of the twelve, through their life together, systematic catechesis, prayer…. It is of fundamental importance to give life to a group capable of living with Christ and then of radiating this way of life.

Another circle of people was “evangelized” by Jesus, the 72. They too become evangelizers. Evangelization goes forward as in concentric circles.

When Jesus found himself in front of the crowds, he evangelized the crowds as well.

Jesus did not oppose the forms or methods of evangelization in a sterile way, nor did he count too much on theories and programs; he evangelized by loving whoever he had in front of him.

There is an Arabic proverb that I especially like: “If you want to cut a straight path, attach your plow to a star.” Also for evangelization we urgently need to find a new star, a new light. Jesus forsaken and risen is the star that allows us to cut straight paths in our pastoral work and to give a contribution to the history of the world.