Stand for what you believe
WITH TERESA OF CHILD JESUS, BEING MYSTIC AND POLITIK IN AFRICA
Today is the feast of Saint Therese of the Child Jesus. From the readings of today, what can we say with regard to our identity of Muntu and to the spirituality of St Therese? This is one of the responses: we are called to be more and more mystic and politic. Being mystic like Therese and doing politics like any Jesuit trying to see and to love the world as Jesus did. This passage from the GC 35 can epitomize that particular Jesuit way of proceeding: “Being and doing; contemplation and action; prayer and prophetic living; being and completely united with Christ and completely inserted into the world with him as an apostolic body: all of these polarities mark deeply the life of a Jesuit and express both its essence and its possibilities”. “Our lives must provoke the questions, ‘who are you, that you do these things’. Because “our deep love of God and our passion for this world has set us on fire” (Decree 2, 8-9). Brothers, Therese had a deep love for God. With her help, we can evaluate our great passion for God in Africa.
She lives a life of obscurity in the convent of Lisieux (France). Her preference for hidden sacrifice did indeed convert souls: “I prefer the monotony of obscure sacrifice to all ecstasies. To pick up a pin for love can convert a soul”. She never left her convent but today she is the patron saint of missionaries. Her love was greater than the entire universe. One day she wrote: “I want to spend my heaven by doing good”. Despite these wonderful graces she received, she had terrible moments of dryness in her life: “I see a wall. It is painful. Where are you Lord?” It is like Job who, in the first reading, repeatedly confesses about God: “Should he come near me, I see him not; should he pass by, I am not aware of him”. But, at the end of his journey, Job said: “I had heard of you by word of mouth, but now my eye has seen you”(Job 42,5). Like Job, Therese did not give up. It was a long journey of search, trial, but with love and confidence. The encounter was wonderful. Therese decided to spend her heaven by doing good. Similar experience with other mystic. Ignatius decided to go to Jerusalem. St John of the Cross started to write about the vivid flame of love. St Augustine exclaimed: “O Beauty, late I loved you…”. Yes, it is an emotional love and a practical wisdom. It is a fire. The only fire which makes us able to leave our family and to follow Jesus.
Brothers, they are many interpretations about the gospel of today. Do you remember one of them in the Noviciate. During the first week, we were asked to read the general exam of the Constitutions: “They will learn to say they had a mothers and a father etc…Even more: we used to joke that we are ready to follow Jesus even in the cave of Ossama. But today, I would like to draw your attention on our real motivation as Jesuit following Christ. Why do we have to follow Him? It is because of his message of the Kingdom. I know how Alfred de Loisy mocked that notion, how some revolutionary thinkers misinterpreted the notion, how the fastidious study of exegesis or lengthy speculation has paradoxically stuffed up our creativity and enthusiasm about that reality. But still I invite you to consider the Kingdom not as a metaphor but as an existential truth we live for. It is more than a dream; it a good news that gives us the courage to leave our family and to set a fire of love throughout the world.
Brothers, the Kingdom of God is a promise which can gives us the strength to live. In any continent, people share this Kingdom story in different ways: a civil religion, grand narrative, concrete utopia for which they live and die. In Africa, there is a black hole and a dark sky without any brilliant narrative to enlighten our future. We need a radiant project to shape more clearly our expectations. We have to turn the page of afro-pessimism by bringing the great vision of this kingdom and the kind of leadership that Jesus offers to us.
The kingdom of God gives us the grace of being in motion from God and for others. It calls us to trace the footprints of God wherever we are, to appreciate the value of daily life, the power of truth, the consistency of regular tasks, the grace of being human and of seeing the reality with the lens of love and hope.
The kingdom of God gives us the grace of being in motion from God and for others. It calls us to trace the footprints of God wherever we are, to appreciate the value of daily life, the power of truth, the consistency of regular tasks, the grace of being human and of seeing the reality with the lens of love and hope.
What can we learn from Therese of the Child Jesus? It is to be with ordinary people and to give them value, to let them know that they have the power of light within them, they can encounter God in their daily life, that God “will never ask from them sacrifices above their strength”. Do you remember when Mandela rose his arm and sang “Nkosi Sikeleli Africa? South Africans believed that a new day has come for them. Today we have more than Mandela. Jesus is telling us: stand up and move on… Set a hand to the plow… Don’t look back… Don’t go back to what is left behind… The future will be bright with me because I am the Light. Brothers, God never lies. His Kingdom is not a metaphor. The question is: “Do we believe that? How do we live that reality in the small details of our daily life like Therese? Are we all fired up and ready to go with Jesus Eucharist? Let us pray for that.
