'People of God' In the context of Transfers and Appointments - 25.05.2025

 'People of God'

In the context of Transfers and Appointments - 25.05.2025

Good morning friends!

Though the following is a post intended for our priest friends, it would certainly be of help to you too, as we are the 'people of God' indeed.

Today the new appointments after transfers take effect.

Prayerful best wishes for those to take up new parishes etc to exercise their ministry...

As for me, am taking up ministry at the Little Flower Church, Pushpagiri after my three years term at St. Jacob's Training College and Marian College of Arts and Science, Menamkulam.

It would be a new and promising start. As such, would like to share with you my thoughts, though, we people don't seem to read, reflect or respond to them!

All along, i was sharing with you my readings, reflections and experiences in our two WhatsApp groups besides my facebook account...

Though facebook friends comment etc, our WhatsApp group friends kept indifferent all along.

Indifference is not a good thing, i suppose, especially for the ones like us at the service of the Kingdom.

Our WhatsApp groups are seemingly impersonal other than for the birthday, feast day wishes that too are more a routine than really personal, it seems.

I would expect and prefer us to be involved, personal and sensitive, especially in our new pastures. That's a sign of being Christian and human.

How do we plan our life and ministry? Do we have enough time for prayer, reading and reflection? Companionship and friendship are good indeed, but not at the cost of losing our identity and individuality which would only be nourished and nurtured by the above personal prayer, reading and reflection.

Is the once in a bimonthly presbyterium reflection, adoration and confession enough for that?

We seem to be preoccupied with positions and status. And not quite a few of us seem to think of the parish ministry of any worth!

It was in this context, i invited your attention to Pope Francis' reflection on the *people* in his autobiography, 'Hope'. Kindly do read and reflect on this for a meaningful and satisfying ministry for us as well our people.

For me, the faces of my parents and my grandparents, of those who bring up children, of those who earn a living for their family, of the sick, of elderly priests who bear many wounds but keep the smile of those who have served the Lord, or the faces of nuns who toil away unseen - these are the holy face of the Church, of the people of God. The Church, a house for everyone, not a small chapel that can hold just a group of the select few. For the bosom of the Universal Church must not be reduced to a cozy nest for our mediocrities. (p. 169).

"The people" is not a logical category. Nor is it a mystical category, if we mean it in the sense that everything that the people say and do must inevitably be good and right, a kind of exalted category. No. If anything, "the people" is a mythical category. A mythical and historical category. The people are part of a process, created with commitment, with a view to an objective or a shared project. History is built from this slow process over successive generations.

There is a great difference between true myth, which is always a contemplative way of opening to a reality, and an *account*, which is a narrative - historical communication that expresses a reality, a life. There is also an imaginative *account*, namely the construction of stories that are mere justifications for something that has to be imposed, a narration created to pass off as true what is probably not true. The *account*, in this sense, is a justification. It is, for example, the method often used by power to justify itself, above all when it is illicit or unjust. The *account* becomes a disguise, and it disguises life.

Myth, on the other hand, is a way of knowing the truth, for reaching the truth. It is timeless because it is linked to human nature viscerally. It questions us, it stimulates us, it digs deep, it encourages dialogue and is ever changing, because it is sure in itself.

We need myth in order to understand the living reality of the people. (p. 170)... The people of Dostoyevsky and (Romano) Guardini are "mythical beings", free from idealization. However much they are sinners, however wretched, they represent authentic humanity, and they are strong and healthy despite their baseness because they are part of the fundamental structure of existence, in a shared vocation, in a sense that goes beyond it. In this respect, they are "close to God." And they are in profound contact with the created, in which "we feel the mystery of God's love for the world," the sense of a creative and redemptive action that is continually renewing itself. (p. 170).

In Dostoyevsky's religious world, the destiny of the characters is staked on belonging to the people or on being detached from them. And the fundamental trait that gives identity to the people is the Gospel. He states paradoxically in one of his letters that his belief is very simple. "It is the belief that there is nothing finer, profounder, more attractive, more reasonable, more courageous and more perfect than Christ, and not only is there not, but i tell myself with jealous love that there cannot be. Even if someone were to prove to me that the truth lay outside Christ, i should choose to remain with Christ rather than with the truth."

All of Dostoyevsky's characters experience the tensions of life, evil, pain, degradation, sin, and yet... (they)embody the sanctity of a population of sinners. Because, in the heart of the people, there is Christ. And transformation doesn't occur through force, the real force of transformation is the living and humble love that originates from God: "Loving humility is a terrible force: It is the strongest of all things, and there is nothing else like it." (p. 171).

Entering into harmony with the soul of the people is an antidote to every form of sectarian populism that reduces that soul to a narrow ideological element. It is a form of approach that doesn't have its origins in distance but stems from moving with the people. And the encounter offers another form of understanding, in which the people are no longer an object, but the subject. In a shared and fraternal project. In communion.

The people are the subject. And the Church is the people of God travelling in history, with their joys and sufferings... The image of the Church that i like is that of God's holy faithful people... (p. 171) Belonging to a people has a strong theological value: God in the story of salvation has saved a people. There is no full identity without belonging to a people.

As the English poet John Donne wrote: "No man is an island, entire in itself." God attracts us in consideration of the complex fabric of interpersonal relationships that are formed in the human community. He enters in this popular dynamic. (p. 172)

God is not ashamed of his people: He is not ashamed of walking in history. He sought to involve himself with ours, to mix himself up with our sins, with our failures. And man has been created to make history, not to survive in the jungle of life. Not wanting to make history, watching life and the world from the balcony, is a parasitic attitude.

To me, the phrase "each of us is born with our destiny already written" seems as unjust as it is intolerable. It is not true. Not at all. Life isn't handed to us like an opera libretto: It is an adventure into which we must throw ourselves. Failures cannot hold us back if we have fire in our hearts. We must allow ourselves to encounter life and God.

I dream of a Church that is more and more a mother and shepherdess, in which its ministers know how to be merciful, how to take care of others, how to look after them like the Good Samaritan. God is greater than the sinner, always. This is the Gospel. A Church that reflects in this way is anxious to make clear to women and men what is the center and fundamental core of the Gospel, namely "the beauty of the saving love of God made manifest in Jesus Christ who died and rose from the dead" (Evangelii gsudium n. 36).

Organizational and structural reforms come later. The first reform must be that of attitude. Bishops, in particular, must be men who can patiently support God's steps among his people in such a way that no one is left (p. 172) behind, but also to accompany those people, the flock, that is drawn toward finding new paths. Not just a Church, then, that welcomes and receives, keeping the door open, but also a Church that seeks and finds new roads, that is able to go beyond itself. (p. 173).

My roots are Italian, but I am Argentinian and Latin American... The Latin American continent is marked by two realities: poverty and Christianity... This means that faith in Jesus Christ assumes a special color in those lands. Processions followed by huge crowds, the fervent veneration of religious images, the profound love for the Virgin Mary, and many other manifestations of popular piety provide an eloquent testimony... It is called "popular spirituality."

... They are not the ones who do not understand, who do not know, whom "we need to educate." Aparecida (episcopal conference, 2007) reminds us that many of those men and women, "beaten, ignored, dispossessed, hold their alms aloft. With their characteristic religiosity, they firmly adhere to the immense (p. 173) love that God has for them and that continually reminds them of their own dignity."

Have a great day and stay blessed.

Thanks.

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