News,
articles and documents from the Holy Land
Issue No. 189 - Monday, 27 January 2003
Dear Friends, Brothers and Sisters,
Excuse me for not sending you’re the Olive Branch last Saturday as
usual because I was very busy this last week, therefore, I decided from now on
to publish it each Monday evening, because at the weekend I began to have a lot
of pastoral activities which make it impossible to sleep very late in the
evening because I have to wake up early for the Sunday masses and program.
Yesterday, our Patriarch celebrated at the Latin Patriarchate
Concathedral the 150 anniversary of the foundation of our Seminary which was
founded by our first Patriarch Joseph Valerga. You can find his homily in
French and Arabic in the attached file.
I had yesterday the visit of the director of the French school biblical
and archeological studies in Jerusalem Fr. Boffet with other students.. It was
a great to have them with us in this very difficult time. We invite all our
friend to feel free and contact us and come to visit us in order to have a
daily life experience in a living Christian community, we invite especially all
the religious congregations living in Jerusalem, Bethlehmem and Nazareth around
the Holy Places to go our and visit the living stones of the Holy Land.
I also had the visit of a French friend from Toulouse, the deacon Alain
Duphil, who is a married permanent deacon working as a farmer but engaged for
the peace in the Holy Land and is supporting the Christians presence in this
difficult time through the association “Flower for Palestine” which was created
recently in Toulouse in order to support some students in our catholic schools.
The idea of this association is very interesting: in the center of the flower there
is the photo of the boy or girl from one of our schools, the papers of the
flower are the families or persons who are joining together to pay the school
tuition for this boy or girl. This flower has a leg which is the contact person
on the spot who will coordinate between this boy or girl with these people in
Toulouse. We are very grateful to Deacon Alain and to this association because
the have already paid the tuition of five of our students in Taybeh (300 Euros
each) and will pay fro some more students in Gifna, Birzeit and other parishes.
I am sure such signs of solidarity give us more strength to resist and stay in
the Holy Land and will encourage our people to survive.
Everybody is waiting three things in these days: First the results of
the Tomorrow’s Israeli election, and it seems that it will not change anything positively
because Mr. Sharon is leading against Mr. Miztna, which means that we will have
some more years to suffers. The second is the possible war against Iraq, there
is a general feeling among the people that it will happen soon or later and
many prefer that it happens as soon as possible if it should happen – God forbids
– because they are tired from waiting with anxiety and they hope that if it
happens something will change in the whole region. Third, everybody is waiting
for a miracle to happen in this region and dreaming to have a new wise generation
of leadership with a clear vision of peace because unfortunately nobody has a vision
in these days, we are walking in the darkness of this long tunnel. I hope that
such surprise or miracle will happen soon!!
You will find in today’s Olive Branch three documents only including
the Arabic and French text of the Homily of the Patriarch of yesterday in the attached
files:
1)
Toine van Teeffelen is trying to analyze the
effects of the curfew system used by the Israelis on the spirit and psyche of
the Palestinian people. It is a very interesting academic study.
2)
A two artiles report about Al-Mahed TV in
Bethlehem area which is the only Local Christian TV in the Palestinian Territories.
I send it because this TV is passing through a very difficult time because part
of it’s broadcasting equipment was damaged lately by the Israeli army,
therefore, it risks to close because of the lack of resources to keep it functioning
in this very difficult time. If anybody can help or is interested to help, we
would be more than grateful.
3)
Finally, you find Dr. Harry Hagopian’s article on
the “Week of Prayer for Christian Unity?”
Sometimes we dream and we have the right to dream and we hope that our
dreams will become true.
Best wishes from Taybeh the village of the hospitality Fr. Raed Abusahlia
CURFEWS AS A SYSTEM OF CONTROL
Toine van Teeffelen
Dear friends,
Inadvertently,
people living in Palestine become specialists in curfews and closures. I will
contribute to this new academic field by trying to map out the main elements of
curfew as a system of control. For those reading the Letter from Bethlehem or
other diaries from Palestine, there may be not much new, but this attempt at
systematization may help to get a brief, clear picture of life in a cage of
which the door is sometimes opened.
The present-day
curfews in Palestine, now becoming a kind of semi-permanent phenomenon, are an
extreme way of controlling people's life by psychological, social and economic
means. The following list is inspired by living under regular curfew in the
Bethlehem area.
Creating
uncertainty. Over the
course of almost a year, the uncertainty around the opening and closing times
of curfews has greatly increased. Some months ago, it was common to know the
opening hours the evening before, so that people could try to plan for the next
day. Nowadays, the announcements are often early in the morning, and regularly
changed during the day itself, while sometimes military jeeps on the streets
announce a different message than what the official army spokespersons say to
the Palestinian liaison office. To give an example, it happens that people
think early in the morning, after hearing the mamnu'ah tajaawel [forbidden
to go out] at five o'clock, that there will be curfew, but then a little later
opening hours are announced via the local TV, for instance from 9:00 until
17:00. Everybody who needs to go out, parents and workers especially, have to
re-organize their day, suddenly bring kids to school, phone the school to
enquire at what moment the school bus passes, and phone to work or colleagues
to find out when the working day starts. Then it may happen that at 14:00 the
military jeeps unexpectedly go out to announce that the opening hours will not
finish at 17:00 but at, for instance, 15:00. Everybody rushes home, meetings
have to be postponed, and last-minute shopping needs to be done. Uncertainty is
compounded because nobody knows what the reason is of either the curfews or the
choice of opening hours. The Israelis officially don't explain, yet rumours are
sometimes planted, and people of course start to speculate. The continuous
uncertainty has a couple of consequences:
-
All people,
nobody excepted, are talking about nothing else than the curfews, the reasons,
the changes.
-
If there is
time left to do some normal things, people are absorbed by the question how to
organize the normal requirements of life. Scheduling exams for school and
university students, for instance, has become an enormous undertaking requiring
long series of phone calls and impromptu decision-making.
-
When you
take away the normal predictabilities of daily life, people become restless and
nervous.
Humiliating
people. In a situation
of direct occupation and curfew, there are many soldier-civilian contacts.
Almost all such contacts have an element of humiliation, straightforward or
subtle. The mamnu'a tajaawel, tajaawel mamnu'ah phrase is very common.
Because it is grammatically incorrect, you feel that the soldiers are playing
with people's language. Soldiers often play cruel games which purposefully are
humiliating, like throwing a car key in bushes or another inhospitable place so
that one has to search for a long time. Lately it was observed in Bethlehem
that the drivers of cars who were caught during a curfew were forced to drive
in a long queue through the city, honking, as if in a wedding. Also the
constant changes in opening and closing hours create a feeling that somebody is
playing with you. As if one is an animal that is driven in and out of the
stable (the metaphor is used all the time by locals). Independently from
curfews, there are the countless humiliating moments at checkpoints where
passers by may face the strangest requests ranging from kissing each other,
singing a song, to crawling as an animal on the street, or simply standing or
sitting for an endless time, as if you don't exist. Of course, being forced to
show your ID card whenever you have the chance to cross the border of your town
or village, is a deeply humiliating experience by itself.
Throwing back
on survival strategies.
The curfews create a continuous emergency situation for many families. No work
and no money throw people back on questions of survival. Some people can take
their work home or have work close to their home. The large majority however
does not have work or cannot access it. Under curfew conditions, problems
treatable under normal circumstances suddenly get the proportions of a crisis,
like in the case of an accident: How to find a doctor, how to pay the
medicines, how to bring somebody to a suitable hospital? A relatively recent
addition to the survival problems is the increase in crime, in part as a result
of the increase in poverty. It is for criminals easier to break into abandoned
shops or storage rooms during curfew time, the more so as there is no police on
the street.
Instilling
fear: During curfews,
shooting or throwing teargas or sound bombs instills fear and is intended to
drive people off the streets (also and especially in the periods just before or
after the opening hours). Especially in the evening or night, people live in
fear for house searches or arrests. Young men are afraid to be arrested and
taken to prison. Going out by car to do a quick errand during curfew may lead
to one's car key being broken or confiscated. You may have to leave your car
alone until the key is back. (While I am writing this, the neighbour comes over
to tell me that he was asked by soldiers a couple of minutes ago to open the
gate for a car caught on the street during curfew. The woman was asked to park
the car in our entry, walk home to Beit Sahour for some kms, and come back to
pick up the car when there are opening hours again. An extremely lenient
punishment, the neighbour and I concluded). Shops caught open during curfew may be teargassed inside or
commodities may be thrown on the ground. IDs may be confiscated and one may
face troubles to get them back. When your name is on a black list, you may get
difficulties in getting that precious permit to travel abroad (many can't
anyway). The key word is "may." You're never sure what will happen to
you, your family and friends.
Creating
dependency: During
curfews, the needs are greater, and one therefore also feels more dependent. It
seems that the army regularly wants you to feel dependent, by for instance
delaying some shop supplies for a couple of weeks, or the fuel (gas) for a
couple of days, or by creating periods that it is easier to get a special
traveling or transport permit. Also the uncertainty about opening hours creates
a subjective feeling of dependency – upon the information the army has and you
don't have.
Creating
divisons in the community:
In the Bethlehem area, curfew opening hours may be designed to create or
"play upon" religious sensitivities in the community. For instance,
the Moslem feast of Eid al-Adha in December was curfewed while the (25
December) Christmas was not. Overall, however, the present curfews target
Christians and Moslems together without much "favouritism" to the one
or the other.
Chaos: Especially when the curfew is prolonged
and the opening hours become more precious, it is common to observe chaotic
queueing everywhere: in shops, on the street, at offices. After living long
under curfew conditions, people may become uncontrolled, and quarrels or car
accidents happen more. In organizations, planning may reach chaotic levels when
employers, staff and clients, or teachers and students, cannot access their
offices, shops or schools, or cannot access them at the same time, due to
curfews and closures that differ from one area to another. Phones may become
inaccessible.
Eliminating
public life: During
curfew the streets are (almost) empty and silent. Public life is reduced to
neighbourly talk, telephone calls and meetings among the rare people who
trespass the curfews, or who buy and talk in a shop that is secretly open.
Without normal meetings, the community becomes fragmented even though there is
also much sympathy and solidarity among people who share the same conditions.
Instilling
paralysis, inactivity. In
the course of all the curfews, people are loosing a sense of time and meaning.
It is common to see people just watching TV or doing nothing. They lack energy,
movement, focused talk. At schools, students lack rhythm and concentration.
Suffocating
people. While the
closures already create a sense of suffocation among the people, curfews
further delimit the area in which people can move. The home becomes a prison.
Moreover, people face not only a physical but also a psychological closure:
when you are closed up it is more difficult to see horizons of hope and
opportunities. Aspirations shrink ("Let them allow us at least a few more
opening hours").
Imposing
isolation. Curfews usually
also mean that few people, including foreigners or journalists, are entering
the curfewed zone as it is often at the same time a closed military zone. So
you live out of time as well as out of place, in Nothingland.
Nonetheless, any
system, and also a system of control, leaks. Next week, I will write about the
cracks and the leaks in the system.
Al-Mahed “Nativity” TV. Station
Location and Address:
Al-Mahed “Nativity”
TV. Station is located in the City of Bethlehem where Jesus Christ was born, on
a high cliff 350 meters far from the Church of Nativity.
|
P.O. Box |
: 642- Bethlehem, Palestine. |
|
Tel. |
: 972-2-274 7012 |
|
|
: 972-2-274 1702 |
|
Fax |
: 972-2-274 1701 |
|
E-mail |
|
|
Web. site |
: www.almahed-tv.com |
Ownership:
The Station is owned and run by Samir Qumsieh who is also the Elected President of Radio & Tv. Private Stations General Union in Palestine which consists of 31 Tv. Stations & 14 Radio Stations, and the Counselor for Interreligious Affairs for H.B Msgr. Michel Sabbah the Latin Patriarch in Jerusalem and the Holy Land.
Employees:
33 employees dedicated and
qualified in the press, programs and technical fields.
Channels
We broadcast at the following:-
VHF 12.3
UHF 21.8
Programs:
Al-Mahed
Tv. Station is famous of
it’s assorted programs which cover various activities and fields i.e. Children,
Environmental, Economical, Political, Musical, Social, Educational, Health, and
Religious (Christian and Muslim) Programs, plus a Daily News Bulletin, Current
Affairs Debates, and all Christian Celebrations and Festivals.
It is worthy to mention that
our station is the only station in Palestine and the Arab World, which
broadcasts Christian masses, services, and a weekly Christian program called “The
Gospel and Life”.
Viewers and Coverage:
As per the latest polls we have
about 1,000,000 spectators.
We cover the following
Governorates in Palestine: Bethlehem, Jerusalem, Ramallah, Hebron and Jericho,
plus many cities in Jordan and many parts of Israel.
Mission
Statement and Targets
We at Al-Mahed Tv. Station are
committed to help in building a Palestinian civil society, based on the
principles of freedom, democracy, pluralism, anti-discrimination and equality
of all in front of the law.
We also work on building trust
and respect among the different religions and communities in the Holy Land.
“Please note that there are two
people: Palestinians and Israelis, with three religions in
this area, Judaism, Islam, and Christianity, which
consists of various communities.
About us:
Private media experiment is a rare
commodity in the Arab World, and Palestine is pioneering in that.
This helps in building a democratic
society essential to peace and stability in the region.
We started broadcasting at Al-Mahed Tv.
on 23rd September 1996, covering all events and activities and
providing objective views on current issues, earning ourselves a reputation
that has put us ahead of the competition with a wide margin in all the polls
conducted by governmental and private organizations.
Our archive includes thousands of
cassettes full of very valuable materials and shots, from the visit of the pope
John Paul II to the Holy Land, to all the events of Al-Intifada (up-rising)
where there are many unique and extraordinary shots, in addition to different
documentary films for all the holy sites in the Holy Land.
The Intifada has had its toll on all
walks of life in Palestine, and we, like all other institutions are facing
great economic hardships that might ultimately force us to stop our services.
We accept unconditional support only, and
are willing to discuss any exchange of materials from our archive or through
our production capabilities against a financial support.
The weekly
Christian program
“Gospel and
Life”
Fr. Peter Hanna Madros, Ph. D. in
Biblical Theology and Ph. D. in Biblical Sciences, a Roman Catholic Priest from
the Latin Patriarchate, presents this Program, for an hour and a half, every
Tuesday evening, at 7:00 p.m.
The program starts with a reading from
the Gospel or of any other Book of the New Testament, followed by a ten-minute
explanation. Fr. Madros, well-versed in the Scriptures in their three original
languages (Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek), departs from an accurate and scientific
approach, in order to give pastoral, human and social applications of the
sacred texts.
Then, he collects from the studio
questions addressed to the program by the telespectators and provides the
public with extensive and immediate answers.
Fr. Peter H. Madros then puts some
extracts on films about the life of Jesus Christ or any relevant Church
event(s). He bears in mind that a big number of viewers are non-Christians. He
respects their faith, calling for national unity, far from religious bigotry
and misunderstandings.
As for his fellow Christians, Fr. Madros
invites them to Church unity in Christ. He is keen on highlighting the
positions of the Church especially in the crucial Palestinian problem, where
Justice is requested for the Palestinian people, and the right for all the
people in the region of various religions and communities to live in peace in
the Holy Land of Peace.
A Lifetime Unique
Experiment
On Tuesday 2nd April, 2002 the
Israeli tanks and armoured vehicles, backed up by helicopters penetrated the
Palestinian National Authority’s territories in an incursion that lasted 40
days.
The only TV. Station in Bethlehem Governorate
which decided to remain working was AL-Mahed “Nativity” TV. despite the
expected dangers, and this decision taken by Al-Mahed Management after
consultations with the staff where four of them agreed to stay working despite
the real threat to their lives, proved to be a very wise decision as it was a
unique chance to offer humanitarian and social services to all the people of
Bethlehem Governorate specifically, and to all the citizens where our broadcast
reach i.e. Jerusalem, Ramallah, Hebron and Jericho Governorates plus many cities in Jordan.
As per the awards and appreciation
letters we received from various official and private organizations, we were
the eyes through which people looked, and the lungs through which people could
breath, and the only window to the outside world, with the tanks and
military vehicles imposing strict curfew on all the country, shooting any
moving body.
Some of these organizations are:
·
The Latin
Patriarchate – Jerusalem; Bethlehem Municipality; Beit-Sahour Municipality.; Beit-Jala
Municipality; Al-Ubiedyeh Municipality; The Legislative Council; Bethlehem
University; Palestinian Red Crescent Society; Water Supply and Sewerage
Authority; Some Martyrs’ Families; Some Patients’ Families; The Islamic
Charitable Society; Jerusalem District Electricity Co. ; Ministry of
Information; Ministry of Wakf & Religious Affairs; Ministry of Education; The
Civil Defense Directorate; The Palestinian Prisoner Society; Palestine
Technical College-Arroub.
Plus too many other establishments and
thousands of individuals who expressed their gratitude on Air through an open
line after the Israeli withdrawal.
Part of the services rendered during the
40-days incursion where people and organizations contact us and we broadcast on
our screen the requested appeal, and immediately the concerned party responds:
v
Securing
milk to babies and food supplies to sieged people.
v
Guiding
doctors to patients nearby.
v
Securing
diabetic injections to patients.
v
Helping
delivering pregnant ladies by neighbouring matrons or doctors.
v
Securing
water to various areas, and broadcasting locations of broken waterlines damaged
by the tanks.
v
Guiding
Electricity Co. to coordinate for repair of current failure or damage of
transformers supplying electricity to areas in the Governorate.
v
Helping the
Telephones’ Co. to repair cut or out of order lines due to the importance of
telephones at that time.
v
Helping
people recover lost documents, items and belongings.
v
Keeping the
citizens informed of the Israeli army activities “search of houses, detentions,
shootings etc… .
v
Warning the
people of dangers in specific areas.
v
Broadcasting
hours of lift of curfew, as conveyed to us by the Liaison office, and we were
the only means reliable and adopted by the people.
v
Close follow
up of the Church of Nativity Siege and making on-Air contact with the
sieged people inside.
v
Our
initiative to broadcast appeals through our screen enabled the Christians
attend the Easter masses during the holy week, as well as for Muslims
on some Fridays.
All above mentioned continued during the
second incursion which started on Monday, May 27th. until Friday
Aug. 16th, 2002.
It is worthy to mention
that sometimes our four people in the station could not find what to eat, and
one of them lost a brother who was shot dead and his body remained in the
streets for three days, but he continued his job, and even could not attend the
burial of his brother.
Week of
Prayer for Christian Unity?
Dr Harry
Hagopian, LL.D, KOG - KSL
But we have
this treasure in clay jars, so that it may be made clear that this
extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us (2 Corinthians 4:7)
This week, the traditional
Churches of Jerusalem come together every evening to reflect upon the theme of
the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. They will be reflecting together upon
those treasures in clay jars that are nothing more and nothing less than life
itself. After all, life in the Christian affirmation cannot be neutral. Rather,
it is positive and meant to be treasured. God created the world, enlivened the
breath of life into us and gave us a world and each other to enjoy. It is
therefore important, in the midst of our daily lives, to remember this
life-inspiring reality. After all, does the hymn we sing at times not remind
us, ‘Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee’?
St Paul, in this passage
from Corinthians, also added that we have this treasure in clay jars. We know
life in this world only through our existence in human form and within finite
space, subject to disease, to accident, to all manner of chance and change
which can alter our dreams, change our hopes, and present us with unforeseen
challenges. The life of faith, our belief that life is a God-given treasure,
can be severely tested. St Paul knew something about this in his own life, a
‘thorn’ that weighed heavily upon his shoulders
.
So if life is a God-given
treasure, albeit in fragile clay jars, and one that has been affirmed to us by
our Lord and Saviour, should we then not labour harder to safeguard and nurture
that treasure with much more cohesion let alone coherence? Should we not think
somewhat more proactively about psalm 36 verse 9 when it affirms, ‘For with you
is the fountain of Life’, as we contemplate our lives as believers in the One
Christ and followers of His teachings?
To talk about unity,
ecumenism or its affiliated constituencies, let me go back as far as 1902 when
His Holiness Yoachim II, Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, issued an
encyclical where he raised the matter of intra-Christian relations. In 1920, he
followed it up with another encyclical entitled ‘Unto the Churches of Christ
Everywhere’ in which he also encouraged the spirit of reconciliation and drew
upon the First Letter of St Peter to love one another earnestly from the heart
(1 P 1:22b).
To look across two
millennia of Christianity, a number of people tend to project a waning faith,
ever-dwindling numbers in the pews and increasing ructions between the faiths.
One article I read last year even drew analogies between the faiths and Samuel
Huntingdon’s ‘Clash of Civilisations’! I do not think the analogy is
valid, any more than it is valid to compare Jan Kerkhof’s ‘Europe without
Priests’ with the faith-based situation across the world.
So let me start with
basics. We are talking here about the Christian faith, but what is this faith
in its essence? What is its definition? In my opinion, it is not enough
to discuss the word of God and comment on it. We must carry it also, and bear
witness to it in the way we live. There is no original recipe or magical
formula here! We Christians must learn afresh to become credible interpreters
and disciples of God’s love to humankind. I believe therein lies the secret of
a Mother Teresa, a Father Maximilien Kolbë or an Archbishop Desmond Tutu who
changed the world around them. In the words of Cardinal Franz König, Emeritus
Archbishop of Vienna, we need to transubstantiate faith through love, not
institutionalise it. And in the words of St John Chrysostom, Patriarch of
Constantinople and a contemporary of St Augustine in the 5C, Christians are
called to ‘shine like a light in a world of darkness’
In my opinion, that in a
nutshell is what this annual week of prayers - in Jerusalem this week and
across the world a week earlier - is about! It is not about 'transforming' all
the churches so that they become uniformly monochromatic! How lacklustre and
uninspiring that would be! Rather, it is about ordained and lay persons from
different statements of belief coming together to celebrate as sisters and
brothers the diversity of their ecclesial traditions - without forgetting the
ultimate goal of re-assembling the body of Christ into the oneness that befits
our Lord and Redeemer.
True, there are a host of
historical, theological, dogmatic, doctrinal, cultural and even psychological
obstacles obstructing this coming together and impeding a unified proclamation
of the Gospel to the world. Nonetheless, it is only fair to add that some
modest but nonetheless meaningful strides have already been taken in this
direction. There is a sense of reconciliation within the Christian world that
is hard to underrate - or dismiss altogether!
But let me come back to my
quotation of that verse from psalm 36, 'With you is the fountain of life'. It
suggests we need to find the way to the place where the fountain of life lies
in order to unlock its secret. The symbol of the fountain reminds us of the
necessity to return to the origin, to the principle, to the roots, to the
essential. To walk together, Christians need to be grounded in the Word of God,
the revelation of God's face in Jesus Christ, the renewing force of God's
Spirit, the discovery of the love of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Faith,
prayer and common action can make water spring even from the desert rock of
bitterness and cleanse the sin of division in Christendom. So, where are
we on this road toward an ecumenical recovery that faces up to those challenges?
Can we actively live and witness together the belief that 'Jesus Christ is the
same yesterday, today and forever' (Heb 13:8)?
I do not wish to be
carried away by my own thoughts or words!
I still maintain that we are not yet ready to assume fully our
ecumenical and grassroots responsibilities. There is still far too much turf
staking (despite an ever-dwindling turf) that goes on within many
denominations. The Church as an institution - as the body of our Lord and
Saviour Jesus Christ - has to learn to reconstruct itself with more integrity,
courage and vision. It also has to learn how to commune more closely with its
assembly of believers - that vast church outside the walls! In this respect, I
remember the stirring words of the philologist Joan Emri in her 1998 book where
she avers that, “self-interest, self-involvement, self-indulgence, self-love,
self-importance and self-image are too many 'selves' for the Church Universal
to carry with it all at once.”
Indeed, those self-imposed
'selves' weaken immeasurably the prophetic message of the Church worldwide and
diminish its Christian ministry of love, compassion, reconciliation and
forgiveness - ineffable virtues that Christians celebrate at least twice during
the Christmas and Easter seasons. What is helpful here is a love for the other
that transcends dogmatic differences. By implication, what is therefore
required is a fellowship not unlike that of the Early Church that is more basic
- and therefore more grounded - than theosophical quibbles in order to guide
the relentless dialogue over dogma itself. To encourage us all in that
direction, I remind us all of St Augustine’s famous phrase, “Our hearts are
restless till they find their rest in Thee.”
What is the Church to make
of this unsettling contrast between institutional decline, ecumenical
obscurantism and re-emerging spiritual awareness? I believe that the
major focus of the Church should not lie simply on filling empty pews. Perhaps
more serious and certainly more urgent is the realisation that we are not in
touch with the ways in which God the Holy Spirit is communicating with
us. In the final analysis, ought we not perhaps recall Thomas à Kempis
whose statement might also hold an answer to the present predicament, “An
humble knowledge of thyself is a surer way to God than a deep search after
learning”?
However, to survive in the
next millennium with an ever-enhancing sense of fellowship that comes closer to
the logos of the truth, churches and
ecumenical movements alike must re-discover the sense of awe that characterises
us as Christians. The most perceptive theologians have always insisted
that God exists beyond our doctrinal formulations. For centuries, mystics
have referred to a ‘cloud of unknowing’ in which we must wait before we can grasp
the divine. Perhaps Christians today have to endure such a period of
patient waiting before they can re-formulate their sense of the sacred and
re-affirm the God-centred praxis of our common apostolic and catholic Christian
faith. Perhaps this should be our goal as we become acquainted with our
new century.
Can we perhaps think
together of three renewable buzzwords and use them as constant mnemonics in our
lives? The first is Metanoya -
a sense of renewal and change. The second is Koinonia - an assembly of believers in communion. And the
third is Kairos - an opportunity in a
moment of crisis as a sign of hope. Can they help bridge the gap that
straddles the practical with the probable and then leads to the possible in our
imperfect lives as Christians striving to define our unity? Will the
Christian communities - leadership and grassroots alike - appropriate
this movement and make it their own? Is the Oikumene - that inhabited earth - a reality? Or are we
knocking at the wrong doors?
The leaflet from Jerusalem
promoting the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity 2003 states that ‘the unity of
Christians needs to be the paradigm for the unity of humankind.’ It articulates
a challenge that, ‘the unity of all those who believe in Christ is made visible
when Christians truly take up their task in the world in which they are living,
when together they speak out against all that destroys the dignity of the human
person and pray and act together in favour of true peace.’
My own prayers for unity
this week are also prayers for peace in the whole world. How true and how
timely that we pray for peace, true peace in a true Christian sense, as we are
all girding up our loins for more wars, more confrontation, and ultimately more
human misery! As we spurn that which is sinful, and embrace that which is
God-given, as we remind ourselves of the treasure in clay jars, we could
perhaps again keep St Paul in our minds. In his letter to the Ephesians, he
wrote, ‘With all lowliness and gentleness, with long suffering, bearing with
one another in love, endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond
of peace (Eph 4:2-3).
After all, are we not
purported to project hope, compassion and unity? Yet, just look at the levels
of violence and terrorism, genocide, destruction, poverty, despair,
hopelessness, threat, oppression and ultimately disunity hovering over the
world from the Palestinian town of Bethlehem, birthplace of our Lord, to the
African shores of Zanzibar! Where is that Christian voice? How much stronger
would we become if we managed to speak in a Christian voice that reflects our
unity not only on lofty principles but equally on issues of justice and peace
for the long-suffering peoples of the world. That is one of the practical
benefits of unity - not only an idea to pursue for its own sake, but the hope
of using our faith to make a difference toward the better - for ourselves, our
families and friends, our country and our whole world.
Can we understand ‘unity’
in this positivist sense, or will we have forgotten all about it next week
anyway?
© hbv-H@ 21 January 2003
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