If only I were a man!

After leaving his family at the church for the Midnight Mass, a Canadian farmer returned home to escape from the approaching snowstorm. His wife's insistence that he attend the Mass with the family came to no avail. For him, the incarnation of God made no sense at all. As he dozed off in the warmth of the fireplace, he was startled awake by the sound of geese crashing against the door and windows.  Thrown off course by the storm from their migratory trajectory south, they were completely bewildered.

Moved with compassion, he went outside to open the gates of the large barn so the birds can seek shelter inside. But the birds did not come in. He started running, waving his arms, whistling, shouting and shooing to get them into the barn until the storm passed. However, the geese flew in circles not understanding what the open barn and the dramatic gestures of the desperate farmer meant (not even the breadcrumbs scattered towards the barn could convinced them to come in).

 Defeated in his attempt to save them, he sighed: "Ah, if only I were a goose! If only I could speak their language!" Hearing his own lament, he recalled the question he had asked his wife: "Why would God want to become a Man?" And, without meaning to, the answer suddenly struck him, "To save him!"... And that was Christmas.

"Religion" comes from the Latin word "religare", which means to relate, to establish a relationship. From the very beginning, man has always been religious and probably will always be. Knowing themselves to be precarious and needy, human beings have always sought favours from "gods". Thus, in all cultures, individuals have emerged who, considered to have a special sensitivity to relate to the divine, felt sent by God -- like the prophets in the Hebrew tradition.

These prophets never truly succeeded in establishing a bridge of communication between the divine and the human. This is because the Word of God, transmitted by them (men with their own personal characteristics living in a certain sociocultural context), ended up being influenced by many mediating variables (personality, prejudices, stereotypes, social standards), and the meaning of the original message was lost.

This continued to happen even after Christ. For example, when St. John mentioned the number of times the Risen Jesus appeared after his death, he did not consider the first apparition that was made to Mary Magdalene; similarly, St. Paul did not mention this apparition either and, on top of that, he made reference to another one that no evangelist mentions – the one made to Peter.

Throughout the history of humanity, God, despite his omnipotence, has found himself in the same situation of powerlessness as the farmer who could not communicate with the geese in order to save them; for this reason, in the fullness of time, He cried out, "Ah if only I were a man!" And God became Man and dwelt among us...

Christ, being both God and Man, is the true bridge that unites humanity and divinity, he is the meeting point, the full communication, without bias or influence. In his word, in his behaviour, in his works and in his life as a man, God has told us everything we need to know about himself and about what it means to be a human person.  Merry Christmas!

Fr. Jorge Amaro, IMC

The Meaning of Life

Being and Nothingness
Every man and woman who comes into this world asks himself or herself: Where did I come from? Where am I going? What is the meaning of life? The atheist says that we come from nothing and return to nothing. What meaning can there be in something that begins in nothingness and ends in nothingness?

Science and technology have improved our lives in recent years, but they do not and cannot tell us what is the meaning of life. However, the need to give meaning to our existence is common to all mortals. Consciously or unconsciously, we all seek to find a purpose for our existence and, in some way, to justify it.

Those who lose or never find the meaning of life end up depressed, feeling the nausea of emptiness, and often seek to end their lives. They quickly realize that a life without meaning is not worth living.

A Wayfarer Without a Path
“Wayfarer, your footprints are the path and nothing more; Wayfarer, there is no path, the path is made by walking."  – Antonio Machado

On one hand, every man and woman who comes into this world is born with a unique genetic code that has never existed before in the five million years of human existence and will never exist again, until the end of human history.

In this sense, every human being who comes into this world begins a new path, a new life, which is his and his alone. This is the dignity of the human person and his freedom: he can live life as he wishes, finds, and follows his own path, which did not exist beforehand, as if predestined, but which is made as he walks on.

Since he is the one making the path, as the Spanish poet intuited, the only path that exists is being made by his own footprints—that is, the journey he traces. It is like the paths that appear, formed by the many people passing through the same place, made without machines and without the intention to create them.

On the other hand, no one arrives here completely isolated from what preceded them. Just as our DNA is composed of the genetic material of our father and mother, we are also heirs of everything humanity has done throughout its history. Everyone in the human species, consciously or unconsciously, accesses what Jung called the collective unconscious, which functions as a kind of database containing the idiosyncrasies of the human race.

In this sense, every human being who arrives in this world continues what came before. Like in a relay race, we receive a legacy, an inheritance, talents, and, with our life, we continue the projects that already existed, imbuing them with our personal stamp and raising them to a higher level.

It is in this continuity that our personal touch is added. Einstein received Newton’s mechanistic physics and, with the theory of relativity, elevated it to a new level. Mozart dedicated his life to music and took it to a high level; at the end of his life, he passed the baton to Beethoven, who elevated it even higher. Every athlete, in every sport, sets new records based on previous ones.

The Way, the Truth and the Life
Every human being who comes into this world has in Christ the way, the truth, and the life (John 14:6); in other words, we are called to live in Christ, by Christ, and with Christ. Humanism and Christianity are one and the same; the Christian is the measure of the human, and the human is the measure of the Christian.

"Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters." (Luke 11:23). There are no two humanisms, no two ways of living human life. There is no equally valid alternative to Christ; there is no other way of self-realization, of living human life in fullness and achieving happiness. Therefore, whoever is not with Him is not with someone else, because that alternative model does not exist; thus, whoever is not with Him is against Him.

However, this does not mean that, with Christ as the model for all who want to be truly human, we are transformed into clones behaving like puppets or automatons, with the same personality type, thinking, acting, and living life the same way.

When we say that Christ is truly man and truly God, we are saying that, so far in humanity, only God in Christ has managed to be authentically, fully, 100% human. Only Jesus of Nazareth has fully realized the project of humanity that God had for man when He created him. Only Jesus of Nazareth has fully realized God’s dream and made it a reality.

"God became man so that man might become God" (St. Irenaeus); this is the reason for the Incarnation. Without Christ, man has no way of knowing what is to be fully human.

Different in equality, or equal in difference
Being 100% man, Christ represents the totality of the human being; He is the standard by which we all measure ourselves, the horizon, the goal, the simultaneously achievable and unachievable objective of human life. Achievable because it is within reach of all; unachievable because no one will ever completely equal to Him.

Even Saint Francis of Assisi, called by some theologians the "alter Christus”, did not reach 100% of being like Christ. Each saint, that is, each Christian who achieves spiritual success, lives a part of Christ’s humanity, both in quantity and quality.

"And these are the ones sown on the good soil: they hear the word and accept it and bear fruit, thirty and sixty and a hundredfold." (Mark 4:20). In quantity, because, as the parable of the seed that falls on good soil suggests, some produce sixty, other thirty percent. Depending on an unlimited number of variables, vicissitudes, and circumstances, some imitate Christ by 60%, while others only by 30%. The amount does not matter, as the parable seems to suggest, but rather having Christ always as the sole reference in our life.

“(…) so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here you have what is yours." (Matthew 25:25). In quality, because Christ possesses the totality of talents; we receive some talents and not others. Everyone receives enough talents to make his or her life viable, but no one receives all the talents or none of the talents. The important thing is to develop and make the talents received bear fruit instead of hiding them, admiring, or envying the talents of others, trying to live their life, which is never possible.

Francis of Assisi and Francis of Xavier are both saints and even have the same name, but they are quite different in the path of holiness they followed. Francis of Assisi imitated Christ in His humility, while Francis of Xavier imitated Him in His zeal to reach out to as many as he could.

There is a psychological theory called the Enneagram, which argues that there are nine different personality types, and that each human being belongs to one of these nine types. Each of these types develops a human quality to the detriment of others. This theory suggests that Christ, being 100% man, embodies the complete realization of all these qualities.

As Jesus is the model to follow, the standard of humanity, His personality is made up of all nine types. In the incarnation, He accepted and fully lived all the forms of human personality, so He can be the model and paradigm for all personality types; the way, the truth, and the life for all to follow, each in his or her own way.

Conclusion – The meaning of life lies in finding our unique path, inspired by Christ as the model of full humanity, developing the talents we have received, and living authentically and consciously.

Fr. Jorge Amaro, IMC

The Purpose of the Itinerant Mission

"Unus Christianus, nullus Christianus," said St. Augustine. The natural habitat of a Christian is the community. We cannot be a Christian alone, and we cannot live and persevere in the faith without a community as our point of reference. In order to grow in faith, it is not enough to personally confront God and his Word; it is also necessary to confront the community and, at the same time, become a part of it, by being an integral and active member of the Mystical Body of Christ, the Church.

In most parishes because they are large, cold and unwelcoming, people do not know or relate with each other, and as a result, they are becoming less and less a reference point for growing in faith.

For this reason, many have left the Church to join smaller Protestant churches, or even sects, subjecting themselves to paying tithes in order to obtain a more personalized and less massified treatment. Still others, to cope with the feeling of "depersonalization" resulting from massification, have taken refuge in certain ecclesial movements that have emerged, in order to experience the faith in a more personal and customized way.

All these movements have as their point of reference the small Christian community of which some even see themselves as their inventors. They forget that the Church of the first centuries, before Emperor Constantine, was a church made up of small communities that met in people's homes.

The model and inspiration for the Itinerant Mission is St. Paul: a tireless evangelist, he spread the seed of the gospel by forming small Christian communities – in Corinth, in Thessalonica, in Ephesus, etc. This model was followed by us missionaries in Africa with the Small Christian Communities and in Latin America with the “Base Communities”.

This, then, is the objective of the Itinerant Mission: to help parishes, surrounded by paganism, to spread the faith to the limits of their borders. How? Through street activities, in shopping centres, in cultural centres, or two by two and from door to door with the aim of forming a small Christian community in this or that neighbourhood!

This "small Christian community" meets weekly or fortnightly, taking turn in different members’ homes. Starting with the Word of God, the members share their lives in a context of prayer and, almost, of a support/therapeutic group. On Sundays, all the small Christian communities in a parish gather in the Church to celebrate the Lord's Day. This celebration is a true celebration of life and from life because this parish is now a "Community of communities", as the Second Vatican Council envisioned 50 years ago.

Ready to help, here is an appeal: is there a parish priest who, being the Good Shepherd, wants to go out in search of the lost sheep living somewhere within the geographical space of his parish?

Fr. Jorge Amaro, IMC