Newspaper Page Text
The Southern Cross, Page 8
Faith AliwJ
Thursday, November 9, 2000
Missionary territory 21st-century style
,Wiechec
CNS Photos,
By Dolores R. Leckey
Catholic News Service
M
.odern mission “lands” are
many and diverse, from hospital
spaces to cyberspace.
Recently, I witnessed the good
news incarnated
with her children and grandchildren
“for whatever time the Lord grants
me.” The spirit of jubilation was ev
erywhere.
I’m told my experience of the oncol
ogy nurses is, by and
large, the
children in stressful circumstances
can locate reservoirs of resilience
within themselves if a caring adult
can guide and encourage them. There
are echoes here of Jesus’ style of heal
ing.
Invariably Jesus would ask of the
petitioner or the troubled person,
“What do you want?” The question
was a way of empowering a person,
igniting a slumbering faith in one
who until that moment had given
up.
Our schools are filled with
children who need the steady
presence of adults who will help
them examine that question —
“What do I want?” — and help
them find the answers. Class
rooms, libraries and after
school programs are contempo-
the
good
Television, of course, is singularly in
fluential. Issues of truthfulness, eth
ics, and balance are therefore crucial
in this medium.
With the Internet, Web sites offer
vast opportunities to convey messages
of hope, faith and truthful informa
tion. The Vatican Web-site is an excel
lent example of this modern mission
ary style.
But for many, books are a primary
means of formation. I speak here not
only of explicitly religious books, but
those stories, essays and poems which
convey, through the power and el
egance of the word, aspects of tran
scendence.
I think of poets such as Mary Oliver,
essayists such as Lewis Thomas or
novelists such as Reynolds Price or
Jean Sullivan. The latter, a French
lassrooms, libraries and after-school programs are
contemporary sites for spreading the good news.... With the
Internet, Web sites offer vast opportunities to convey
messages of hope, faith and truthful
information. 55
in a cancer treatment center. I went
to Florida to be with my sister-in-law,
a widow who lives alone, during one of
the cycles in her chemotherapy. I
didn’t know what to expect in the
treatment room as the chemicals
dripped slowly into her veins, as they
did for the half dozen other patients.
I confess to apprehension as we en
tered the room. What I found were two
competent and dedicated oncology
nurses who put everyone at ease,
knew everyone’s name.
These nurses created, by their
presence, a climate of trust, hope and
palpable love. Even I, a visitor for a
day, was made to feel that I mattered
to them.
They praised their patients for not
losing weight. (Imagine!) They con
gratulated them for small victories.
Laughter was in the air. So was quiet
prayer. These women of mercy were
alert to their patients’ every twinge.
That day I witnessed total atten
tion. I also witnessed the kind of love
(“caritas”) — that was so much a part
of the healing transactions between
Jesus and those who sought his aid.
At one point a former patient
dropped in to let everyone know the
good news: She had been declared
cured. She thanked the nurses with
tears and hugs, and announced she
was moving home to Cleveland to be
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norm. As people enter
cancer centers they usu
ally are frightened, their
faith may be shaky,
their hope tenuous.
These modern bearers
of “good news” share
with the ill the power
of their own faith and
hope, as well as their
skills. They call into
being, for a little
while, a community
of common cause as
they encourage patients to help
one another.
With an aging population, health
care centers of all kinds are surely one
of the arenas for modern missionary
work. So are schools.
■ ■ ■
The daily work of selfless teachers
in Catholic schools is an obvious site.
But I’m thinking, too, of those public
school teachers who constantly go the
extra mile for students whose lives at
home may be troubled, whose re
sources may be limited, who may not
be able to imagine a different horizon.
The New York Times Magazine
had a story about a teacher who began
an after-school program, on her own,
for children in her elementary school
class in East Harlem. What began as
efforts at enrichment (trips to muse
ums and live theater) evolved into
deeper relationships.
When one boy’s family was evicted
from their home, she provided a tem
porary home for the boy and his older
brother, for example. Others would
call her for advice during times of
crisis. What this teacher tried to do
was to build self-esteem and faith in
youngsters, to teach them by her care
and her love, that they, too, had inner
resources.
This teacher demonstrated that
rary sites
for spreading
news.
Perhaps the most pervasive con
temporary mission territory, how
ever, is the field of communication.
FOODFORTHOUGHT
priest-novelist,
once wrote that he
did not write about
prayer but hoped
that someone read
ing his work might
be moved to pray.
To the extent that
we have appropriated
the Gospel in our own
lives, we will be able to
share it with others. It
will light up our work,
our homes and the
spheres of our civic en
terprises.
Perhaps that is what
St. Francis of Assisi
meant when he said that
we should preach the Gos
pel at all times, and some
times use words.
(Leckey is a senior fellow at
Woodstock Theological Center,
Georgetown University.)
Jesus “taught in the marketplaces.... Jesus risked speaking eternal
truths in ordinary language, ” Canadian Bishop Raymond Lahey of St.
George's, Newfoundland, said in a 1997 address in Rome to a Synod of
Bishops.
The bishop’s point strikes home for me, an editor. For, it is the job of
editors to communicate in ways that can be understood. And we learn
from experience how easy it is to be misunderstood.
The challenge when communicating the Gospel is twofold, Bishop
Lahey said. The Gospel must be preached “in language that is faithful,
but also in language that can be heard.”
It is tempting to take for granted that the special terminology of the
field of religion is clear to everyone. My work would be easier if the
manner of communicating were less challenging.
But Bishop Lahey cautioned against simply “repeating religious
language the culture finds meaningless.” This, he said, leads people not so
much to reject the message as to regard it as peripheral in importance.
Punctuating these points, Bishop Lahey commented that Jesus “was
rejected only when his hearers had understood him all too clearly.”
39 David Gibson, Editor, Faith Alive!