THE MISSION, A SPIRITUAL EXPERIENCE

1. Introduction

The mission is our letter of presentation in the Church and in the various circles of society. It is by this that we are recognised, appreciated and hated. As far as we are concerned, this word unites us or divides us and places us in conflict… because, even though the vocation is essentially the same, it has many meanings and ways to carry it out. We often say that the people in the mission acquire an idea of who we are from what we do. This is the measure by which they evaluate and define us; even to the point of saying that one missionary is more so than the other. As for ourselves, there are persistent concerns which confuse us and endanger our fraternity. In the final analysis, we may all agree that the mission is still a divine question which requires human responses, contextualised and experienced starting from our specific vocations, in a process which involves listening, contemplation and actions that we believe necessary and urgent.

2. Distorted view of our vocation

The diverse and problematic situations of the populations we have before our eyes penetrate our hearts and awaken the horizontal mercy of our vocation, causing us to fall into the unending spiral of social assistance and human promotion. Many of us, in fact, may give the impression – and many people in the mission are of this view – that the purpose of our presence is to open paths of humanisation and development among peoples. The kindness of our hearts urges and obliges us to be mistaken for just about any social worker or human promoter of a NGO. The problem does not lie in seeking solutions to the needs of the people but in believing that this is the reason why we stay there or not, or, worse still, in feeling realised and satisfied with this. Because we eventually realise that many of the paths we have opened and the projects we undertook with great energy collapse when we leave, due to lack of continuity, individualism and the failure to plan properly, or differing methodologies or due to the limited ability or capacity of one’s successors or simply because they are not abreast to the culture of the people. In fact, it frequently happens that, even if we do not often admit it, we end up not completely satisfied but rather worried and frustrated.

Besides, at times, the awareness that we are members of the Church, the formation we have received, the weight of a missionary clerical tradition and the inability to accompany the processes of peoples, cause us to adopt a proposal which is based on cult and the sacraments which often adds up to the magical mentality of the peoples to whom we are sent; and we cannot make do with this. Not infrequently, the people see us as promoters of a foreign cult and civilisation which makes room for some forms of the cult of the place and gives us a privileged role among the people. The practical dimension of our missionary life often alters the message which we wish to communicate through our vocation.

3. Which spirit do we wish to incarnate?

Our actions reflect the spirit which moves us. For us religious, there is nothing new in saying that there is a very close, if unconscious, connection between faith and life, because values, behaviours, attitudes, lifestyles and daily life are intimately related to convictions – all that we believe profoundly. We may not say, therefore, that there is such a thing as a “disincarnate spirituality” because merely existing and acting according to personal or group convictions causes us to act in such a way as to directly touch the reality in which we live. The problem therefore, does not lie in a “disincarnate spirituality” but in the sort of “spirit” which we make “incarnate”, since it is this “spirit” which impacts group and individual practice. In other words, as human beings we have a “spirit” which models our being and our doing. There is always a “spirit” behind our mode of being and acting. It is this spirit that becomes “the source of our spirituality” from which the specific quality of our presence in all ambits of our life derives. This spirit speaks through our style of life, showing to all who see us or relate to us, what sort of people we are. Even if we are experts in our profession, and even if people are aware of this, the first reality visible to them is our person and the spirit which moves us. Spirituality defines us as regards others. In other words, “the spirit speaks of us”. That which the people perceive and express when they see us allows us to deduce the spirit that stands as the base of our spirituality.

4. Identifying the spirits-source of our being

If we view and read the Gospels with attention, with contemplative listening and with love, we may perceive that Jesus carried out a radical change of the spirit and, therefore, of the complete “acting” of the people he met; in other words, he gave them “a new spirit”. We might say that Jesus carried out a reform which was of the spirits, not of the institutions, an “essential”, not a transitory reform. This is why his words still speak to us even today. He did not work superficially but in the heart of the human person, that is, in the organic centre of life, where things do not change and where the actions of a person are born (Mk 7, 21-23). It was clear to Jesus that it was not enough to eliminate or punish wrongs and injustices; He saw that it was necessary to abolish the “spirit” which generates all this.

In the Gospels we read of various spirits which “possessed” people whom Jesus met in his daily journeys. These spirits are often called “demons”[1] and cause many sorts of infirmities and determine the behaviour of these people. For example:

• The Gadarene Demoniacs were so dangerous that “nobody was able to pass along that road” where they were. They were possessed by a spirit which made people fear them, a spirit which made them appear as an obstacle to the journey of others[2]. It was a spirit that made them live “among the tombs”, the place of the dead[3], of the unfeeling... a spirit that moves the person to seek deserted places, to become isolated and prevented from establishing any kind of relationship with others[4]. This spirit renders the individual aggressive, violent, isolated, solitary, devoid of feeling... incapable of friendship or fraternity.
• The possessed mute is possessed by a different spirit which leaves him incapable of speech. He is unable to express his ideas, sentiments, thoughts or his point of view... this spirit prevents him from speaking out when he sees a situation with which he disagrees[5]. This spirit leaves the person speechless, incapable of communication.
• The possessed blind, mute and deaf man is a person possessed by a spirit that holds him incapable of seeing, speaking or listening. This spirit deprives the person of the ability to see the reality, to analyse it or to understand it... a spirit which even deprives the person of the possibility of hearing reality[6] (the inability to analyse, to express oneself or to listen).
• The epileptic demoniac is a person dominated by a spirit that causes personal instability and uncertainty. It destroys the person, makes him suffer internally and does not allow him to speak. This is a spirit which causes the person to cry aloud, causing him to suffer from fatigue and tiredness, leaving him weak. This spirit does not conceal the suffering of the person but does not allow him to ask for help[7] (inability to ask for help, uncertainty, lack of confidence, inconstancy …).
• The crippled woman is a person possessed by a spirit that keeps her bent over, unable to raise her gaze and look others in the face. It is a spirit that prevents her from lifting up her head, a spirit that makes a person submissive, ashamed of himself[8] (the inability to be and to feel equal to others).

Some of these people were in the synagogue when Jesus healed them, that is in a ‘religious place’ where the Word of God is heard, where people who are wise and well versed in the “Law” (the Scriptures) are to be found. This means that being “religious” or to frequent ‘religious places’, is no guarantee that we have the spirit of “Children of God”. These people were in the synagogue but wanted neither to hear nor to see Jesus[9] and this does not mean to say they were free; on the contrary, they had a spirit that made them live as slaves but they were so accustomed to living in that way that the free presence of Jesus frightened them.

From what we have just noted, there emerges the importance of spirituality in personal life, in community life and in accompanying the people, because it is the ‘spirit” that moves the person, making him be, act, think, react... in a concrete way. The challenge consists in knowing how to discover the spirit behind our convictions and our daily actions, in order to proceed immediately to its expulsion. From this derives the importance of spiritual discernment as the method of the missionary.

5. Spiritual living together

There is nothing new in stating that interpersonal and communitarian conflicts (relationships among Comboni Missionaries) are frequently caused by a lack of communication and of dialogue, by messianic individualism, the aggressive and violent characters, the superiority and inferiority complexes disguised in various ways, the lack of a common project, of planning, or continuity and of constancy... All of this is part and parcel of our daily missionary lives, despite our fidelity to our prayers in all their forms, despite celebrating the Eucharist together as a community and with the people and despite ongoing formation which covers all aspects of our life... Is it a purely human problem? Is it a question of personal ability? Is it a natural and inherent part of community life? Is it a question of personality or character? No. In my experience it is a question of spirituality, a question of understanding and accepting the Gospel. Briefly, we may say that we carry on living together without understanding, perhaps, that our “spirits” keep the “Spirit” of Jesus at a distance and, as a result, our communities, provinces and the Institute itself become a space where dumb, deaf, violent, epileptic, crippled and blind spirits live together, embodied in the convictions and the behaviour of each one, independently of culture or age.

6. The Spirit of the Lord

If we read again the account of the Baptism of Our Lord with simplicity and intellectual honesty, we will have no fear of love, of letting ourselves be loved, of allowing ourselves to be possessed by the one who loves us (God), of allowing his Spirit to embrace us and take us into the desert, the place preferred by Him to show us his tenderness. As religious, we have read and studied this in the universities we have attended. To feel that we are children loved by the Father, to feel that someone loves us and that ‘that someone is God’ is what gives meaning to the nonsense of personal, community and mission life. It is what makes us happy and strong and capable of journeying through the ocean of troubles which we, as religious missionaries, encounter. At times the people do not love us; they put up with us, tolerate us, use us... At times, our confreres in community live with us as if we did not exist... The Spirit of the Lord lets us hear the voice of the Lord which says: “This is my beloved son...” No, we are not just “simply God’s collaborators”, not simply “envoys” of God; we are his beloved sons. This is what the Spirit constantly whispers to us. It is this awareness that moves us out of ourselves; this is the fundamental reason why we spend our lives among the people, even though many do not appreciate us or even though we do not love them; it suffices to know that the Lord loves them and we are with them for God’s sake, not for the sake of the people as such nor for the sake of their many needs and problems, but for the sake of the Beloved who loves us. This gives meaning to everything.

7. The Action of the Spirit

Who among us has not experienced the presence of the Spirit in the chaos and confusion of the people among whom we have lived or among whom we are now, as missionaries? We have all been touched by this reality described in the Book of Genesis. We religious have the means and the sensibility to be able to perceive how the Spirit “hovers over” the real situations of the people. It is because of this that, even if we do not understand what’s happening, even if everyone else, seeing only a future of death, goes away and abandons the people, we stay with them. The certainty that the Spirit is present gives us the confidence and the strength even to the shedding of our blood, a witness which many Comboni missionaries have given.

In the journey of accompaniment and formation of persons, all of us have touched with our hands the creative beauty of God that is giving shape to the dust so it may become a human being; we contemplate in amazement how the “breath of God” (Spirit) penetrates these human beings, transforming their individual and collective lives, just as the mud gradually becomes a person. Those of us who have let themselves become instruments of the Spirit of the Lord who, despite all our limits, makes us become Emmanuel, the breath of God in the reality of the people, open the eyes of those who cannot see with their own eyes (awareness), restore the ability to walk with their own feet and to use their own hands paralysed by lack of ability (protagonism of the people), open the ears of the deaf (capacity for dialogue), heal the deep wounds in the hearts of the people (culture of justice and peace), remove the heavy burdens which keep people’s backs bent over (reconstruction of human dignity)... In short, the mission is for us a spiritual experience. It means listening to the Spirit of the Lord who loves in each one of us and urges us to be with the poor, to restore sight to the blind, freedom to prisoners... To be a missionary does not mean DOING but BEING the incarnation of the same Spirit whom Jesus made visible and felt in his time. The same Spirit who does not smooth over differences but proposes them as opportunities (Pentecost)... Therefore we often say: “The mission is the work of the Spirit” and this we have seen, we have heard and we have experienced.

Fr. Joel Cruz Reyes

[1] Mt 8,16.

[2] Mt 8,28ff.

[3] Mc 5,1ff.

[4] Lk 8, 29.

[5] Mt, 9, 32-33; Lk 11,14ff.

[6] Mt 12, 22; Mk 7,31ff.

[7] Mt 17, 14-16; Mk 9, 14-18; Lk 9,37ff.

[8] Lk 13,10ff.

[9] Mc 1,21ff; Lc 4,31ff.