Newspaper Page Text
PAGE 5-March 30.1972
My Enemy Is My People
A
By
FREDERICK J. PERELLA, JR.
Assistant Educational Coordinator
Campaign for Human Development
Who, or what, killed Jesus Christ? Historically, a theocratic
leadership, in a state occupied by Rome, decided that he had to
die because his talk of freedom and kingdom had roused the
people’s hopes.
Because Rome was ready to crush brutally the first signs of
revolt by any subject people, the Jewish leaders decided that for
the good of the people, this one man must die. Thus motivated,
were the high priests and leaders guilty, or tragically misled?
Church teaching about the Lord’s death holds that the sin of
all men, collectively, killed him. Perhaps the prototype for this
concept is the behavior of the masses in Jerusalem, who turned
from exhaltation on Palm Sunday to rejection on Good Friday,
because Christ was not the bread and circuses, worldly-powerful
type Messiah they had expected. Christ, like the prophets before
Him, strove to alter this cultural definition of Messiah. He
demanded a deeper understanding of the “kingdom”; not a
Some Popular
K
Symbols
K
BY
FR. JOSEPH CHAMPLIN
The Holy Saturday Easter Vigil service is not one of our more
popular ceremonies, but it certainly ranks second to none in
terms of symbolism. The opening light ritual, when executed
properly with darkened church and burning tapers, conveys
quite beautifully through signs Christ’s victory over darkness
and death.
There are several other symbols in the liturgy which have
recently found favor and success throughout the United States.
This column is about them.
I described some time ago the personal candle presented to a
child at baptism. Its sales continue to zoom and parish priests
hear most favorable comments from parents and relatives about
this gift.
The taper, of course, represents Jesus’ light-giving life, now a
part of the baptized baby’s being. We hope each family will
burn this yearly at the anniversary date and renew on that day
the young person’s baptismal promises. In time perhaps the
child, grown to adulthood, will remake those vows on his or her
own.
A locally produced baptismal garment brings even greater
“oohs” and “ahs” than does the boxed candle. A few of our
parishioners, copying patterns from another church, cut, weave
and sew these attractive pull-over items. The priest uses them
for Sunday baptisms, explaining who made the gifts and how
they symbolize the “new man” that emerges from the font.
* | JajI iuw IUM
A niiwol, ~ hfim ,
Msgr. Theron Walker, pastor of St. Paul’s Church in Memphis,
Tennessee, believes a special candle for the bride and groom is
becoming more common at Catholic weddings. At a nuptial
celebration in his parish, for example, the newlyweds,
immediately after their exchange of vows, walked to a nearby
table upon which rested a three-pronged candlelabra.
Two of the candles burned during the marriage ceremony.
Upon completion of the rite, husband and wife extinguished
them and together lighted the third, unique wedding taper as a
sign that they, though two, had just become one.
system where men could inflict injustice on their fellows as their
wordly power grew, while seeking holiness through the
performance of external rituals. Rather, the practice of love,
social justice and simplicity of life would characterize the
kingdom. Its power would come from total dependence upon
the Holy Spirit, and from fearlessness founded upon
self-sacrifice for the other, even to the point of death.
The fault for Christ’s death lay in individual blindness,
narrow-minded “hardness of heart”. Christ simply did not
match up to expectations. A system of cultural-religious
expectations and actions had limited the people’s individual
perceptive capabilities . . .“Hearing, they did not hear”. In so far
as the leaders placed their hope in political power and
continuance, insofar as the people hoped for a spectacular
Messiah, they were incapable of hearing Christ’s word. In fact,
he constituted £ threat to their system, to its existence, for his
teaching completely upset their norms, laws and expectations.
Their social sin killed him.
Saint Paul told us that we are now the body of Christ, and
Jesus himself said that at the last judgment we would be judged
on how we treated other men: “Insofar as you did these things
to the least of my brothers, you did them to me”.
In this context, the Church’s teaching that our collective sin
killed Christ can be seen in contemporary experience, because
even now our social sins are killing his brothers. Social sin is the
perpetration by a society of injustice to its own members or to
another society. It is a collective turning away from God and
the sensibilities he requires, caused by hardening of hearts en
masse.
What can harden hearts en masse? As in Christ’s time, it can
be social-cultural norms, expectations, or group patterns of
behavior (systems), all of which define and thereby set limits on
members’ actions. It can be excessive fear of losing the securities
which derive from membership in these systems. Such social
systems define the hopes and concepts of life of their members,
through education and values.
Every system exists because individuals have staked their
security and self-fulfillment in its rewards, and their plans and
activities in the prices the system exacts. In short, self-interest is
invested in a system, making it very hard to change unless the
prices exacted are too great for the benefits. Participation in a
system ratifies it and supports its growth. The problem, as in
Christ’s time, is that people become so accustomed to their
systems that they cannot criticize them or perceive when they
are closed to Truth.
What if our social-econonic-political system functions in such
a way to consistently exclude some members from full
participation and benefit? Our economic and social system is
based upon production, predictable levels of consumption,
growth in secure investment (profits). What happens to those
who cannot fit these definitions or participate in these
functions? We call them “the poor” or “lower classes”. These-
are over 30 million such persons in our country alone who, by a
standard of living lower than subsistence, are poor.
“WHO, OR WHAT, KILLED JESUS CHRIST? Church teaching
about the Lord’s death holds that the sin of all men,
Millions more are dependent, secondary beneficiaries of the
primary processes of investment, ownership and power. They
benefit by jobs, wages, consumption. These people are not
subjects of their own lives. They are Spanish-speaking, black,
Americanjndian, poor white, the elderly, working class ethnics;
Our system allows the poor to suffer in declining
neighborhoods, allows them to pay proportionally more taxes
than the rich, begrudges food for the 14 million hungry poor in
the United States, and cannot guarantee a decent income
supplement to provide a head-start towards self-sufficiency. The
excuse is that the poor are lazy, when in fact, most poor are
capable physically to work, often two or more jobs. Our system
will force even mothers of poor families to work, even while it
devises new technologies which put middle class persons out of
jobs. Our system does not even allow the poor to make the
system work for them.
How does one judge individual fault when we are all
conditioned by the system? Who among us is guilty of wishing
evil upon the poor? Probably few of us, for most men are good
collectively, killed him.” Silhouette of Christ figure on the
Cross. NC Photy by Richard T. Lee.
people, trying to look out for themselves and wishing well to
others.
But systems are ultimately many people interacting. The
question is how conscious are they of the meaning and end
result of their actions? Will Christian people control or be
controlled by the system, and will they want to make the effort
to study the system in order to reform it? People caught up in
daily life may not see the immoral results of the indirect
support they daily give the system by participating in it, with
moral intentions. But if our system excludes other Christs from
a decent human life, ignorance or unwillingness to analyse
becomes collective social sin in which we all share.
Tragically, it is possible to sin indirectly. To be truly
Christian today is to be a radical critic of society, not in the
extremist political sense, but in the analytical sense of
examining our way of life and motivations for continuing in it
to the roots. If we allow our system to be hard of heart to the
poor, in our country and around the world, how can we deny
personal fault? What a tragedy if our well-meant actions
indirectly kill the Christ!
KNOW YOUR FAITH
Meaning And Message Of Easter
We offer couples a similar candle, but employ it in a different
manner. The taper itself, decorated with a cross and interlocking
circles, comes packaged in a carton with space on the bottom
for the statistics of names, date and place.
At the service’s conclusion, while a celebrant imparts the final
blessing, bride and groom hold the burning symbol between
them. Following the multiple benediction, they blow out the
flame, hand the candle to their best man and leave the sanctuary
to start a life as husband and wife. We naturally hope they will
retain this gift and even make it an annual reminder of the
wonderful occasion when each promised to love and cherish the
other until death do them part.
One American company manufacturers a huge ($5.00) Cana
candle, also with cross and interlocking circles, which serves as
an appropriate parish remembrance for silver and golden
jubilarians. We keep it on the altar during the Sunday Eucharist
and present this handsome object to the celebrating couple after
Mass. I suppose, if we were truly logical and generous, the
smaller taper should go to older husbands and wives, the larger
one to newlyweds.
. X THE CANDLE remains one of the many symbols used in the
L-jChurch’s liturgy. (NC PHOTO)
ft, :
v 3
CARDINAL JOHN J. KROL
Archbishop of Philadelphia
President, National Conference
of Catholic Bishops
“This is the day the Lord has made; let us be glad and rejoice
in it.” (Ps. 118-24)
Every human aspires to joy. He feels himself made for it and
spends time, talent, and energy in the pursuit of happiness. God
alone is the true source of joy.
The angel of the Lord proclaimed to the shepherds “tidings
of great joy to be shared by the whole people.” Our Lord told
the Apostles: “All this I tell you that my joy may be yours and
your joy may be complete .. .you will weep and mourn .. .but
your grief will be turned to joy . . .In the same way you are sad
for a time, but I shall see you again; then your hearts will rejoice
with a joy no one can take from you.”
Through his resurrection, Jesus communicates a new life to
those who believe in him, and actualized the words spoken to
Martha: “I am the Resurrection and the Life: Whoever believes
in me though he shall die, will come to life; and whoever is alive
and believes in me will never die.”
Every man desires immortality. Some men try to satisfy this
desire by seeking to prolong their earthly life, or by seeking to
immortalize their memory in the annals of history by their
earthly deeds. The desire for immortality is a normal one, and
can be actualized only in the immortality of the soul - not of
the body.
Men today as always sense a weariness -- a weariness of doing
good - a fatigue of oldness, of dry bones. It may be the
weariness of committee meetings; of tedious negotiations; of the
slow creaking of structures; of boring housework; of factory
routine, of the process of aging with diminishing reserves of
strength; of distaste for the daily trivia. These are human things
penetrated by the sin of history that weighs us down, by the
personal sin and sinfulness that presses in upon each of us.
The message of Easter is a message of Fresh Life - ever
beginning, ever new. It is Jesus who imparts his gift -- a newness
to our lives as we who labor and are burdened come to him for
refreshment. The yoke of our sinful lives is heavy, but the yoke
of his Easter Spirit is light. “Behold I make all things new,” says
the Risen Christ of the Apocalypse. Easter is the feast of the
joyful hope and of hopeful joy - a feast of new life.
May this Easter of 1972 refresh us who are sad, burdened,
mourning, and grieving. May he give us the joy which no one
can take from us. Our prayer on'this feast of Easter is simply for
that new life in the Lord; that once again he break through the
walls of our dulled, tired senses so that each of us in the words
of Augustine cry out in prayer.
“You called: you cried
You broke through my deafness
You chased away my blindness
You became fragrant;
And I inhaled and sighed for You . . .
Late have I loved You
0 Beauty ever ancient, ever new.”
Christian Education
By FR. C. ALBERT KOOB
President, National Catholic
Educational Association
As the sacred mysteries of Holy Week are once again
impressed upon our minds, Catholics are reminded to think
about the Christian dimension of life. They might also consider
with profit the various means that are used to deepen this
dimension of life and transfer the knowledge of these mysteries
from one generation to the next.
Much in the manner of the mystery plays of the Middle Ages,
the Holy Week ceremonies continue to be a learning experience
of considerable importance to every Christian. The liturgy for
Holy Week and Easter is a superb vehicle of instruction. The
meaningful ceremonies, the music, the readings -- all join
together to teach. The liturgy, then, is an educational device as
well as the means of worship, combining in a superb way the
development of both cognitive and affective learning.
Every Catholic needs to learn and to relearn the lessons of
Christian living. Since human learning goes on all the time, the
agents of such learning can be wide and varied. Man learns from
his surroundings. To put this idea in the modern jargon,
education is a lifetime process, and it is much broader than the
schools.
The primary agents which directly foster learning are the
home, the media, the school, and peer groups. And the Church,
as it seeks to cultivate lives that are based on Christian values,
must carry out its educational mission through each of these
agents. The home and the Catholic school are in a very special
sense true learning centers and the laboratories of Christian
living, for both consciously attempt to relate learning to a value
system. Both home and school are, and should be, the
community in which values are taught, tested, and lived.
But the Church must teach also through the media and
through social action programs which bring man constantly in
touch with his fellow man. Somehow the Christian message has
to penetrate every agent of education. And the more
complicated society becomes, the more complex the technology
of the media, the more important it is for the church to
recognize its educational mission within the context of these
agents. Today there needs to be a special emphasis on education
through television and on social programs in addition to what
the home and school are doing.
All of this thinking, then, on the wide and varied mission of
the Church in education serves to highlight the present crisis
within the Church which is brought about by the closing of so
many Catholic schools. It is a real crisis. It is a real tragedy.
Everyone suffers when schools close.
Christian education is more important today than ever
before. And the school as school, for all of its current problems,
whether it be public, private, or parochial, still represents the
best method man has yet devised to supplement the work of the
home in teaching values and transmitting culture. The Catholic
school has been successful in teaching values that are part of the
Catholic way of life. It has done what it was asked to do and it
has done it superbly.
For those Catholics, then, who can complacently stand by
and watch the Catholic educational effort falter, there would
seem to be a failure to recognize how terribly important it is
that man be taught and trained to live in the Christian way. All
learning must be ordered and coordinated. This is the service
provided by a school.
The secular and sacred -- science, mathematics, and the
liturgy - form an integral part of the Christian way of life. The
Christian must find consistency between the sacred and the
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secular. This requires a direct educational effort. There is a
specific way in which the Christian must understand the world
around him. Someone must help each of us reach this
understanding.
The Catholic school has as its primary goal to assist the
learner to understand, to love, to appreciate and to live in the
way of Christ. Where the school does not exist, the home takes
on a double responsibility.
Next week fifteen thousand Catholic educators from across
the nation will gather in Philadelphia to explore the many ways
to educate for Christian values. The importance of their work
could hardly be exaggerated as they face such basic questions as
the role of the school in modern society, the use of the many
agents of education, the ordering of priorities with due
consideration of the limits on personnel and finance.
Perhaps, however, their greatest problem will be that of
convincing all Catholics that education with a Christian
dimension is important. In an age that has glorified luxury and
monetary success, the cultivation of spiritual values is
frequently left to chance. This is tragic.
Massive indifference as to what values are being transferred to
youth can only lead to catastrophe in the ranks of the Catholic
people. To take just one small item, Catholics must see that
Catholic education is vital.
The beautiful learning experience of the liturgy will be lost
on the next generation unless youth is educated to appreciate
the lesson. Liturgy will become mere pageantry - cold and
museum-like in nature. So will schools become mere warehouses
of secular information if the Christian dimension is missing, or
they will, at best, convey the values of secular humanism. In
either case, both the individual and society at large suffer a loss