Visit ad limina of Our Bishops, Part II

The ad limina visit of our bishops was a time for the Malankara Catholic community in Rome to share the joy of living the Catholic faith at the center of the Universal Church. Two of our Bethany Sisters serve in a parish in Selva Candida, Rome, where we gathered for Mass on Sunday, March 26.  The Major Archbishop was the main celebrant of the Mass and Mar Eusebius delivered the homily. All the Malankara Catholic priests, sisters, seminarians and a few of the faithful joined the Mass with the bishops. After the Mass, we had lunch together at the convent. It seemed to me that everyone enjoyed the traditional South Indian food as if we hadn’t eaten it for a long time. It was a family gathering in the afternoon, and we used the occasion to celebrate the 25^th wedding anniversary of Mr. & Mrs. Chandy and Elsy Plammoottil  who got married here at St. Peter’s when some of the bishops there were students in Rome. We also congratulated the bishops who were newly consecrated and those who were celebrating their Jubilee, also.

Bishops' individual meetings with the Pope and meetings with the officials of the Roman Curia took place during the week.  It was on March 25^th that the bishops met with the Holy Father together after their individual meetings. In his address to the Holy Father, my Major Archbishop Baselios Cleemis expressed the greetings of the Malankara Catholic Church to the Pope with sentiments of filial affection and allegiance.

Mar Baselios Bava also thanked the Holy Father for his spiritual and moral leadership today. The Syro- Malankara Church is very grateful for his constant support and generous patronage to us “in our attempt to safeguard and live our precious Apostolic tradition, to bear Christian witness through our commitment to the Gospel values, to grow in our service of ‘Diakonia’ to the world, and to flourish in Catholic communion.” The liturgical tradition of the Malankara Catholic Church is central to her ecclesial and social life and we are aware of our call to live and witness our ecclesial identity. We are aware of the responsibility placed on the Malankara Catholic Church “to be in continuous and constructive dialogue with other Eastern Christian brothers and sisters who have not yet been privileged to experience the grace of this communion.”

Baselios Bava also highlighted the multi-cultural and multi-religious context in which we live offer challenges and opportunities for the gospel, which is one of the reasons we are engaged in dialogue with the various religions and cultures around us. He also underlined the missionary mandate of the Malankara Catholic Church to everyone, as the Servant of God Mar Ivanios has perceived it ever since he came into communion with the Universal Church. In order to equip the entire Church for this missionary task, the next General Assembly of the Church in September is to discuss the topic ‘The Missionary Malankara Catholic Church’.  

As a believing community gathered and sustained by the love of Christ, we are deeply aware of our special mission to our brothers and sisters who are less privileged than we are; those who are the victims of poverty, violence, solitude, discrimination etc. The challenge of Christian charity impels us to be positively sensitive to them and to do all that is within our resources to allow them to live in the dignity of the Children of God.

Baselios Bava also brought to the attention of the Holy Father the longstanding dream of the Oriental Churches in India. It is the dream of having jurisdiction over all of India to take care of the spiritual needs of our faithful, which is to “bring in a new atmosphere of proper Catholic communion in the entire nation, and enhance the work of evangelization in the sub-continent.” On behalf of the Episcopal Synod, he also invited the Holy Father to visit India. Bava’s address concluded by expressing our gratitude once again and then offering our love, support and prayers for the Holy Father so that he may continue to exercise his ministry as the Chief Shepherd for the good of the Church also to the people all over the world.   

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I will talk about Pope Benedict’s address to the bishops next week. I had at least one suggestion to write about Lent and then thought of doing it even if we are already half way through Lent.

Lent

The purpose of Lent is to prepare us to participate in the Paschal Mystery of Christ to receive the spiritual benefits from God. The success of any important event in our life depends on the kind of preparation we undertake for it. The joy of the resurrection might better be experienced by observing the true spirit of Lent. It is a period of purification for the Church as a community and at the same time preeminently a period of personal purification.

In Scripture we read: “Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil and he fasted forty days and forty nights” (Mt. 4: 1-2). Those days in the wilderness were the time for preparation for Jesus for the impending intense public ministry. Our forty-day observance has its origin in the Sacred Scripture. In the book of Genesis, it rained forty days and forty nights in order that the world might be purified from its sinfulness. Moses had to be on Mount Sinai forty days and nights fasting and praying to receive the Ten Commandment from God. He has seen and reflected the glory of God because of his selection and preparation. Elijah had to prepare and travel forty days and nights before reaching Mount Horeb to encounter and eliminate idol worshippers from Israel. The people of Israel were in the wilderness forty years preparing to reach the Promised Land. As the new Israel of God, we prepare to reap the benefits Christ has gained for us through his passion, death and resurrection.

The three traditional pillars of Lenten observance are prayer, fasting and alms giving. At this time, we give special attention to our prayer life, drawing us closer to God. Prayers, directed to the passion of Christ, help us to understand the meaning of the mystery of the cross. We may not consider reading Sacred Scripture as an option, but a requirement for us to understand what God has revealed to us through the Word of God. Fasting is one of the ancient practices linked to Lent. Even at the basic level, it helps us to know how it feels to be hungry. We spend most of our time on our material needs. As we give up food for few hours it has to remind us to think about our spiritual life which is more important than material things. Often Lent’s meaning is reduced to the level of giving up something for the sake of doing it. Fasting should be linked to our concern for those who are forced to fast by their poverty, those who suffer from the injustices of economic and political structures and those who are in need for any reason. God speaks to us through prophet Isaiah: “This, rather, is the fasting that I wish: releasing those bound unjustly, untying the thongs of the yoke; Setting free the oppressed, breaking every yoke; Sharing your bread with the hungry, sheltering the oppressed and the homeless; Clothing the naked when you see them, and not turning your back on your own” (Is 58: 6 – 7). Almsgiving is a sign of our care for those in need and also an expression of our gratitude for everything God has given to us. Whatever we have, we received as a gift from God. It is our responsibility to share those material riches with those who cannot afford to have the basic needs of human life. 

We should not have the misconception that these spiritual exercises are just for the season of Lent. We are always preparing for our final journey to encounter God in heaven, and our life here is a short stay in the wilderness of the earth. Let us try to practice a life of love and charity, being generous with others, visiting the sick and lonely, feeding the poor, studying the Scripture, attending the stations of the Cross, praying the rosary, and practicing self-control- to make our observance of Lent more meaningful.