Newspaper Page Text
January 8,1981
PAGE 6
BY FATHER PHILIP J. MURNION
Just before He died, Jesus gave one of His
most powerful teachings. Tying a towel
around His waist, He took a basin of water
and went around the table during the last
meal with His followers. Kneeling before
each, Jesus washed their dusty feet.
His action so violently clashed with the
usual customs of leaders that Peter rebelled.
But Jesus insisted that the apostles
understand His point: The leader is one who
serves.
As parishes go about serving the needs of
people this lesson is a good one to recall. For
today, the services people require often are
provided by public agencies and social
service professionals. These services are often
bureaucratized. At times they are
anonymous and burdened by red tape.
Today the term “public servant” is
sometimes used, not simply as a description
for agencies, but as an expression of
frustration when the red tape seems to have
taken over.
The problem is not just a problem for
public agencies. It is a problem for anyone
providing services for people in need. The
problem is this: There is a tendency for the
focus to shirt away from the people in need.
Then the person in need comes to be
regarded more or less as an object who
receives the good graces of those who
provide them. The dignity, the knowledge,
perhaps even the real desires of the person in
need are not always kept as the priority.
There is a greater need than ever today
for people in parishes to serve each other.
Parishioners should not think that they are
no longer needed since public agencies are
doing everything that can be done. No
amount of publicly organized service
eliminates the need for individuals and
groups willing to serve.
In parishes then, following the example
of Jesus, those providing care can truly
acquire the attitude of servants. But to do
so, they should view the person in need as
someone with something to offer others, not
simply as the recipient of aid.
In many parishes there is, in fact, an
increasing emphasis on individual and
personalized service. Parishes are:
1. developing numerous services for the
elderly - recreation and nutrition programs,
programs of visiting and phoning shut-ins,
even help in dealing With city agencies;
2. making new efforts to help the grieving
and widowed learn to deal with their
difficulties;
3. organizing groups called FISH (For
Immediate and Sympathetic Help) to
respond to calls for help. FISH provides a
variety of services such as shopping for
shut-ins, minding children when a parent
goes out, cleaning the house for a sick
person or helping a frail person get to a
medical appointment;
4. providing periodic bus trips to the local
cemetery for those who otherwise would not
be able to visit the graves of loved ones;
5. arranging for special dinners on
Christmas and Thanksgiving for people who
otherwise would eat alone.
A parish’s efforts to serve can, of course,
reach beyond the parish boundaries. There
are many examples of cooperation among
parishes in order to serve the people of a
community. Then there are the organized
services of the diocese, supported financially
by parishes, to reach beyond parish
boundaries.
In providing services, parishes can search
for ways to respect the sensitivities of
persons in need. Perhaps parishes can ask
people with a particular need to help make
decisions about how services should be
provided. There’s something to be learned,
for example, from those instances when the
elderly have pitched in to care for each
other, perhaps visiting or calling on those in
nursing homes.
Teen-agers, too, can be encouraged to
serve others. This shows young people that
their contributions are respected.
Again, a parish expresses faith in the
contribution of prayer when shut-ins are
kept informed about the parish and their
prayers for the work of the parish are
sought.
We are all able to receive from others
when we know there will be an opportunity
to give as well. Parishes are coming alive with
new ways for people to care for one another.
And many are discovering that when they
not only reflect on needs in their
community, but also reflect together with
the people who have needs, the ability to
serve well grows.
AT A TIME when services have
become bureaucratized,
professionalized, anonymous,
burdened by red tape and so often
conducted as an exercise of power
over vulnerable people, there is a
greater need than ever for people in
parishes to serve one another. A nun
working with an outreach program
visits a Harlem man. (NC Photo by
Chris Sheridan)
DEACON JOHN FAIRFAX of
Washington is a volunteer barber at
the Little Sisters of the Poor Home
for the Aged in Washington, D.C.
“Loving and serving individuals and
the community of persons in Christ is
the deacon’s most characteristic
ministry,” the American bishops state
in their guidelines to permanent
deacons. (NC Photo by Richard H.
Hirsch)
Discussion
Points And Questions
1. Why is the concept of service such an important one for
Christians?
2. Father Philip Mumion uses an action of Jesus to illustrate the
need for serving others. What event does Father Mumion recount and
what is his main point? How does Father O’Callaghan use the same
story?
3. What is the FISH program in parishes? List several other examples
given by Father Mumion to show what sorts of service programs
parishes have today.
4. Why does Father John O’Callaghan consider the example of
deacons in the early church so instructive? How has the function of
deacons changed through the centuries? What is their importance in the
church today?
5. Father John Castelot discusses some aspects of marriage. In what
circumstances does Paul indicate it might be well for people to remain
single?
6. Why does Father Castelot say that Paul is a realist?
7. From your recent KYF reading, think about what it means to be a
Christian. What do you consider the most important aspect of being a
Christian?
KNOW
YOUR FAITH
(All Articles on This Page Copyrighted 1981 By N.C. News Service)
Those Who Serve
Signs Of Reality
BY FATHER JOHN J. O’CALLAGHAN, SJ
Increasingly, parishes require young
people to complete a service project before
receiving the sacrament of confirmation. A
young person commits himself or herself to
some activity over a period of time which
helps people who are in need.
Done well, such projects ought to be
excellent ways to make confirmation
become what a sacrament should be: a sign
of reality. As a requirement for being
confirmed, helping people in need connects
the sacrament with life and symbolizes what
Christian life is about in the process.
We read in the Acts of the Apostles how
deacons were named to serve. The story is
instructive: Everyday needs, like providing
hungry people with food, were real to the
first Christians. Meeting these needs was seen
as a Christian duty - even a sacramental one.
Later on, the evolution of the deacon’s
function into a largely ceremonial one is also
instructive: Removed from real life,
sacraments lose meaning.
Then, for centuries, up until 1967,
church practice conferred the order of
deacon exclusively on men en route to the
priesthood. It became largely honorific, or at
most a dry run for priestly ministry.
Recently the church restored the
diaconate. In doing so, the church
emphasized once again a central truth: There
is no contradiction between the sacraments
and the homely needs of everyday life. Just
the opposite! A deacon is ordained to
minister to people, not primarily to assist at
the altar.
The U.S. bishops have made that clear.
“Loving and serving individuals and the
community of persons in Christ is the
deacon’s most characteristic ministry,” the
bishops point out in guidelines for
permanent deacons. Like the Lord, the
deacon washes the feet of others, the
bishops state.
The bishops then give examples of service
deacons can render: to the aged, the sick in
hospitals and homes, to prisoners, the poor,
the rejected. But their most telling statement
is their hope that the deacon will not look or
feel different from lay Christians! True to
the nature of sacraments, the deacon’s
ordained role focuses that of every Christian.
The liturgical role a deacon may play
symbolizes his broader role of service to the
body of Christ. His assistance in the
sanctuary is validated, then, by his work
outside it.
That same insight underlies service
projects at the time of confirmation. To be
an adult Christian is to commit yourself to
the welfare of the body of Christ in its many
members, in and out of the church. This has
to be done in particular instances, at times
of crisis, to meet emergency needs.
We have to be ready to interrupt our
ordinary lives, to change our plans and
respond to the unexpected. This can be
hard, but often we find ourselves rising to
the occasion of such needs -- no doubt
prompted by grace.
There is a need, however, to program
ways of meeting needs. There are many
people who need help consistently, over a
long period of time.
A parish is an organization. It has
officers, committees, policies and structures.
All are geared to helping the community live
its Christian life of worship, prayer, growth
and service. We cannot imagine a parish
which would not provide regular Masses,
organized and scheduled in such a way as to
meet the needs of parishioners.
In just the same way, parishes which
grasp the truth that being Christian means
serving real-life needs will structure ways for
BY FATHER JOHN J. CASTELOT
Did St. Paul feel that married people
somehow were not called to a life of
Christian perfection? That conclusion often
has been drawn from his remarks in Chapter
7 of First Corinthians, with most regrettable
results for the self-image of the vast majority
of the People of God.
Wittingly, or unwittingly, married people
often have been made to feel like
second-class citizens, not quite complete
Christians. That is a shame. For Christian
perfection is open to all. In fact, all
Christians have the duty to strive for that
perfection.
When Jesus said in the Gospel of
Matthew, “In a word, you must be made
perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect,”
he was not addressing an unmarried elite.
What could Paul have meant, then, when
he wrote: “To those not married and to
widows I have this to say: It would be well if
they remain as they are, even as I do myself;
but if they cannot exercise self-control, they
should marry. It is better to marry than to
be on fire.”
There are circumstances in which
singleness is to be preferred, Paul thinks,
because it is more practical. Free of the
inevitable concerns of married life, Paul
believes a person can be more completely
devoted to the service of the larger
community, as he himself is.
Another important consideration, which
will emerge later in Chapter 7, is the
prospect of the imminent return of the risen
Lord to establish a new order of things - a
prospect which was very real to Paul and his
contemporaries. Why change your status,
then, why launch out on a new career, when
it’s all going to be over very soon?
members to carry out this commitment.
Programs using volunteer bus drivers to
get elderly people to Sunday Mass might be
one way. Coordinating foster grandmothers
to spend time feeding - or just holding! -
severely retarded children is another.
Parishes with high schools might set up
tutoring programs for underprivileged
youngsters, asking juniors and seniors to
volunteer for this service.
There are endless needs and varieties of
ways to meet them, once we grasp the
notion of service as an essential element of
Christian living.
Most readers were probably confirmed
before anyone thought of service projects as
a requirement for this sacrament.
Nonetheless, a central effect of the
sacrament of confirmation for everyone
ought to be grace for service.
Still, always the realist, Paul is well aware
that what may be good for him personally is
not necessarily good for everyone. Actually
it may be positively harmful. Consequently
he has no hesitation in recommending
marriage for those who feel that the single
life would be agonizing. Losing one’s mind is
not necessary in order to save one’s soul - or
to attain perfection.
Paul goes on after this discussion to
restate the gospel ideal of a stable union, a
permanent commitment joining husband and
wife. The precise situation Paul then deals
with is that of a Christian married to a
pagan.
In such a marriage, if the non-Christian is
willing to live in peace with the Christian,
respecting his or her convictions and
lifestyle, then by all means let the two stay
together. The unbeliever is not automatically
a bad influence in the community.
On the contrary, the influence may well
work in the opposite direction, with the
pagan benefiting from association with the
Christian and with the community to which
he or she belongs.
Paul illustrates this by referring to the
children of the couple. If the children did
not profit by living in a Christian
environment, then one would have to say
that they were “unclean,” completely
subjected to pagan influences. But they are
in fact “holy,” constantly influenced by
Christian example and enjoying the
opportunity to grow into mature members
of the community.
On the other hand, Paul continues, if the
pagan party simply refuses to live in
harmony with the Christian, then let him or
her go. Paul writes: “The believing husband
or wife is not bound in such cases. God has
called you to live in peace.”
Called To Perfection