January 31, 2012
In August 1968, the Conference of Latin American Bishops (CELAM) met in Medellín, Colombia, to reflect together on how to implement the ideas of Vatican II in the Latin American context. Taking the lead from Vatican II's document on the church in the modern world and the call of Pope John XXIII to "read the signs of the times," the documents produced by the Medellín conference employed a method that began with an analysis of a particular situation (justice, peace, education, youth, and so on). and continued with a brief theological reflection in the light of the scriptures and church teaching, and concluded by stating a number of pastoral commitments. This method indicated a new way of understanding the church and of understanding the church's mission. The church was not to be centered on itself or on its own concerns, but on its mission in the very concrete world of Latin American reality; mission was conceived not only as the proclamation of the gospel but as a commitment to justice, genuine development and liberation. This was a turning point, not just in the Latin American church but in the church at large, for it marks the beginnings of what would become liberation theology. Medillín anticipated what the Synod of Bishops meeting in Rome in 1971 was to say about justice: that it was a "constitutive dimension of the preaching of the Gospel, or, in other words, of the Church's mission for the redemption of the human race and its liberation from every oppressive situation." "A Theology of Mission for Today, p.312
Cecily
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January 24, 2012
In 1969, protestant theologian Richard McBrien wrote a ground-breaking work in ecclesiology, provocatively entitled Do We Need the Church? McBrien's answer to his question was very clear: no, if we conceive of the church as centered on itself, along the lines of a pre-Copernican or pre-Einsteinian cosmology or physics; yes, if by the church we mean a church that is centered on its divine election to be a sign and instrument of the reign of God." The world, in the final accounting, needs a Church which, as a revolutionary community, never rests until the principles of the Gospel of Jesus Christ are everywhere realized and extended." The church, says McBrien, must become a servant church, standing for the "highest ideals of the Gospel, standing at the forefront in the struggle for peace, racial justice, and the alleviation of poverty." It is this linking of kingdom-centeredness with the commitment for justice and liberation that will constitute the further development of this theological foundation for the church's mission, fueled by the heady optimism of the time just after the council, the promise of secularization and the revolutionary activism of the 1960s. from Constants in Context: A Theology of Mission for Today by Stephen B. Bevans and Roger P. Schroeder, page 312
Cecily
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January 16 - Martin Luther
King Day (USA)
January 18 - Week of Prayer for Christian Unity begins.
The
Eighth Assembly of the World Council of Churches, celebrating its fiftieth
anniversary in 1998, in Harare, Zimbabwe, concluded its Assembly Message with
these powerful words:
We are challenged by the vision of a church that will
reach out to everyone, sharing, caring, proclaiming the good news of God's redemption,
a sign of the kin-dom and a servant of the world.
We are challenged by a vision
of a church, the people of God on the way together, confronting all divisions
of race, gender, age or culture, striving to realize justice and peace,
upholding the
integrity of creation.
We journey together as a people of
prayer. In the midst of confusion and loss of identity, we discern signs of
God's purpose being fulfilled and expect the coming of God's reign.
We expect
the healing of human community, the wholeness of God's entire creation.
Cecily
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January 10, 2012
For several months I have been reading Stepen B. Bevans and Roger P.
Schroeder's Constants in Context: A theology of Mission for Today
(2005), a book I highly recommend. By page 239 I reached Mission in
the Twentieth Century (1919-1991) and on page 248 a section which
especially interested me: Ferment: Second Vatican Council. Pope John
XXIII convoked the Second Vatican Council in 1962, 50 years ago, to
be an aggiornamento (updating) for the Catholic Church. The mission
document, Decree on the Church's Missionary Activity, Ad Gentes,was
drafted under the leadership of Johannes Schütte superior general of
the SVD, Bevans and Schroeder's religious community, one with close
connection to VMM. Here are some salient points of Ad Gentium and
other documents:
- Mission is to be part of the very nature of what it means to be a
Christian and to be church. Mission is more than extending the
perimeters of the church, it is something motivating the very heart
of the church. Presence and witness are forms of mission, the only
form of mission in certain situations.
- The church's major image becomes the pilgrim people of God, a group
of people in a common search for the fulfillment of the reign of God.
The church is called into a positive dialogue with the world. The
Decree on Ecumenism opened up the door for new relationships with
other Christian churches and a breakthrough statement of the council
that the true church of Christ subsists in (but is not identical to)
the Catholic Church.
- The Second Vatican Council introduced a new understanding of the
nature of other religions to include all world religions. It
acknowledged that all people should be able in good conscience to
seek truth and God freely, without coercion.
Bevans and Schroeder have written another book: Prophetic Dialogue:
Reflections on Christian Mission Today (Orbis Books 2011). Meanwhile,
I will write a few more Tuesday Reflections on part III: A Theology
of Mission for Today .... only 113 more pages to go!
Cecily
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January 3, 2011
In her Christmas message, Joan Chittister OSB paraphrased the apostle Paul: "Your standards should be different than those around you." But, I reflected, our standards are not different than those around us. I cringe at articles I read in Christian magazines, comments on climate change, single mothers, the homeless, native reserves. What is written in newspapers on taxes, politics, welfare, prisons, laws, wars, budgets, etc, is not christian at all. What about advertising, consumerism, entertainment? Even our use of the word peace. What is peace, real peace?
Chisttister says: "This kind of peace does not come either from the denial of evil or the acceptance of oppression. This kind comes from the center of us and flows through us like a conduit to the world around us. This kind of peace is the peace of those who know the truth and proclaim it; who recognize oppression and refuse to accept it, who understand God's will for the world and pursue it."
Eileen Schuller, another sister, a scripture specialist, in Edmonton on December 9 to give a lecture entitled The Splendor of God's Word, was inspired by the words of Cardinal Suhard, archbishop of Paris during the war years: "To be a witness does not consist in engaging in propaganda or even in stirring people up but in being a living mystery; it means to live in such a way that one's life would not make sense if God did not exist."
Different standards, different peace, different witness, living mysteries! The VMM wish for 2012!
Cecily Mills
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