Here and Now with Francis 4/27/16 (Christ, laity, vocation, responsibility, culture, politics, inculturation, faith, politics)
To look continually at the People of God saves us from certain slogans that are beautiful phrases but which do not succeed in
supporting the life of our communities.
From a message
What does it mean for us, Pastors, that the laity is working in public life? It means to seek a way to be able to encourage, accompany and stimulate all their attempts and efforts, which already today are carried out, to keep hope and faith alive in a world full of contradictions especially for the poorest, especially with the poorest. It means that, as Pastors, we must be committed in the midst of our people and, with our people, sustain their faith and their hope – opening doors, working with them, dreaming with them, reflecting and especially praying with them. We need to recognize the city – and hence all the areas where the life of our people unfolds – from a contemplative look, a look of faith that discovers the God that dwells in their homes, in their streets, in their squares … He lives among the citizens promoting charity, fraternity, the desire of the good, of truth, of justice. That presence must not be fabricated but discovered, revealed. God does not hide from those that seek Him with a sincere heart. (EG 71). [...] We have often fallen into the temptation of thinking that the committed layman is one who works in the tasks of the Church and/or in the things of the parish or of the diocese, and we have reflected little on how to accompany a baptized person in his public and daily life; like him, in his daily task, with the responsibilities he has he commits himself as a Christian in public life. Without realizing it, we have generated a lay elite, believing that only they are committed laymen who work in the things “of the priests,” and we haver forgotten, neglected the believer who often burns his hope in the daily struggle to live the faith. These are the situations that clericalism cannot see, as it is more concerned to dominate areas more than to generate processes. Inculturation is a process that we Pastors are called to stimulate, encouraging the people to live their faith where they are and with whom they are. Inculturation is to learn to discover how a determined portion of the people of today, in the here and now of history, lives, celebrates and proclaims its faith, with its particular idiosyncrasy and in keeping with the problems it must address, as well as all the reasons it has to celebrate. Inculturation is a work of artisans and not a factory of serial production of processes that are dedicated to “to fabricate Christian worlds or areas.” [...] We are asked to take care of two memories of our people: the memory of Jesus Christ and the memory of our forbearers. We have received the faith; it is a gift that has come to us in many cases from the hands of our mothers, of our grandmothers. They have been the living memory of Jesus Christ in the heart of our homes. It was in the silence of family life where the majority of us learned to pray, to love and to live the faith. It was within family life, which afterwards took the form of parish, school, communities, that faith came to our life, becoming flesh. It was also that simple faith that has often accompanied us in the different ups and downs of the path. To lose the memory is to be uprooted from where we come and, therefore, we will not know either where we are going. [full text]
