Kurien Kunnumpuram S.J.

1. Challenge of Mission
There is an obvious lack of a sense of mission among the religious today. There is a lot of activity, but no clear orientation to mission as such. Many men and women religious are enthusiastic about some pet project of theirs, but not about the fulfilment of mission. I wonder whether these people ever take time to think of the reason why their province/congregation is engaged in a particular activity like, say, the educational apostolate or health services or social work. What exactly was meant to be the mission thrust of these apostolic ventures? Some years back, the German theologian Karl Rahner spoke of the dearth of true spirituality in the Church. In his opinion, “The Church’s public life even today (for all the good will which is not to be questioned) is dominated to a terrifying extent by ritualism, legalism, administration and a boring and resigned spiritual mediocrity continuing along familiar lines.”

My own feeling is that there is a lot of piety among us, but not enough spirituality. Piety consists in the performance of external devotional practices and is measured by one’s fidelity to these practices. Whether or not the faithful performance of these exercises of piety improves the quality of one’s Christian life is a question that is seldom asked. One is at times surprised that priests and sisters who are obviously pious are manifestly unfair. According to a recent sociological study of the life and ministry of the religious in India, only 34 percent of the respondents think that the majority of the religious are just and fair in their dealings with others. Some of them show very little of the compassion of Christ and are quite unwilling to forgive others.

Community life is an essential element of the religious life. And yet a recent empirical study has found that “nearly half of the respondents expressed overall dissatisfaction with their communities. This means that almost every other religious in India today lives in a community he/she is not happy with.” The primary reason for this is the poor quality of the interpersonal relationships among the members of religious communities.

Besides, selfishness is the occupational hazard of the religious life. lf you work in the mines you are likely to be infected by tuberculosis. That is the occupational hazard of working in the mines. If you are in top management you are likely to have ulcers. Similarly if you are a religious you may have an attack of selfishness. You will be preoccupied with “my health,” “my study,” “my work” and so on. That is the occupational hazard of the religious life.

This challenge is in the context of the vow of chastity which is a commitment to love. When young men or women join the religious life they are full of love. During the course of their formation, however, they do not seem to develop their capacity for love. Often because of the talk about particular friendships or about the wrong kind of love, many men and women religious grow without any love in their lives.

Besides, a wrong understanding of and attitude to the vow of chastity leads to a progressive drying up of one’s affectivity so that celibacy ceases to be an experience of love. Love is always concrete, always the love of this particular person in his/her concrete reality. Universal love often means loving nobody in particular. One may have a pious, plastic smile for everybody, but such a person will not allow anyone to become significant to him/her.

Globalization places us before a fundamental choice: God or Mammon. Mammon is material wealth when we put our trust in it. Jesus has made it quite clear: “You cannot serve God and Mammon” (Mt 6:24). In the Gospel of Luke Jesus declares: “Blessed are you who are poor” (Lk 16:20). “But woe to you who are rich” (Lk 6:24). Essentially, the founders and foundresses of the numerous religious congregations were radically committed to the Gospel ideal of poverty. But the tragedy of the religious life is this: Practically every ‘congregation’ or ‘order,’ about fifty years after it was founded, became rich! Now, this is something that immediately affects the lifestyle of the members. It goes up quite dramatically. Sometime back Karl Rahner stated: “No one can be poor if he/she belongs to a rich community.”

Money-mindedness has crept in quite noticeably. The spirit of selfless service which characterized their apostolate at the inception of their congregation or order has almost totally disappeared.

Before her death Mother Teresa — now Saint of Kolkata – was asked: What would happen to your congregation after your death? She answered: “If my sisters are quite strict in the observance of the vow of poverty, the congregation will flourish. Otherwise it will perish.” According to a recent study only 32 percent of the religious believe that the majority of the religious have the spirit of poverty and simplicity.”

There are two problems connected with authority. Firstly, not many men and women religious have a healthy Christian understanding of authority. In the Christian scheme of things, authority in the Church is for service. All the ministers of the Church are servants of their brothers and sisters, “so that all who are of the People of God, and therefore enjoy a true Christian dignity, can work towards a common goal and freely and in an orderly way, and arrive at salvation.” While discussing priests’ relationships and dealings with the laity, Vatican II has pointed out that “they should scrupulously honour that just freedom which is due to everyone in this earthly city.” All this is true of authority in the religious life.

The second problem is connected with the abuse of authority which is quite widespread among us religious. I do not wish to go into detail here. Way back in 1965 Vatican II made this perceptive comment: “Never before today have men and women been so keenly aware of freedom, yet at the same time new forms of social and psychological slavery make their appearance.”

Think of all the liberation movements that have sprung up in recent years in different parts of the world and in different areas of human existence. Think also of the many subtle ways of controlling and manipulating human beings that have been used by dictators, opinion-makers and those who own the mass media. These developments have had their impact on the religious of today. While serious efforts are being made by some religious to grow in genuine freedom, there is a lot of abuse of freedom taking place among men and women religious. A great many wrong things are being done in the name of freedom.

Many years ago, when I entered the novitiate I was told to follow Christ and become divine. However, Vatican council II unhesitatingly declares: “whoever follows Christ, the perfect man, becomes more of a human being” To understand this statement in perspective we need to examine another passage from the Council’s documents: “For by His incarnation, the Son of God has united Himself in some fashion with every human being. He worked with human hands, He thought with a human being, acted by human choice and loved with a human heart.” Hence to follow Christ is to become increasingly more human. No wonder, the Council can claim: “Nothing genuinely human fails to raise an echo in their (the followers of Christ) hearts.” Is this true of us? Is it true of me?

When Jesus was born the angel of the Lord said to the shepherds: “I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people” (Lk 2:10). According to Mark, Jesus begins His public ministry by proclaiming the good news that the kingdom of God has come (Mk 1:14-15). Joy is one of the fruits of the kingdom (Rom 14:17).

In the world today there is so much suffering and sorrow. Many people despair of finding peace and joy in their life. It is here that the religious as prophets of the kingdom have to spread the sunshine of cheerfulness and joy. In this task they have to follow Jesus who declared: “I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete” (Jn 15:11). As Albert Nolan points out:

“Joy was in fact the most characteristic result of all of Jesus’ activity amongst the poor and the oppressed. The meals He had with them were festive celebrations, parties; Jesus obviously had a way of ensuring that people enjoyed themselves at these gatherings. The Pharisees were scandalized by this. Rejoicing and celebrating with sinners was incomprehensibly scandalous (Lk 15:l). They could only assume that He had become a pleasure-seeker, ‘a drunkard and a glutton’ (Lk 7:34).”

The Religious life is a phenomenon in many religions-Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism. What is common to different types of the religious life in these different religions is this: Men and women set out to build a life centred on God. As John M. Lozano has observed:

“These men and women have been touched by God, and this touch leads them to want to build a life which, in its very material shape, as a type of existence, has its explanation in the experience of God and tends to facilitate the further development of this experience.”

2. Followers of Christ
As long as Christianity was a persecuted, despised religion, those who chose to follow the gospel way of life lived it radically, making no compromise with the world. But this glorious period ended in the 4th century when Emperor Constantine made Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire. “With the establishment of Christianity, membership in the despised sect was seen to have definite advantages and whole cities and countries became Christian.” Not many of these new Christians were committed to the gospel way of life. In fact, the religious life originated precisely in the context of the sad state of affairs prevailing in the Church of the fourth century.

“The Gospel texts on the calling of the first disciples of Jesus and on the conditions required for following Him have played a constant and decisive role in the creation of the religious life, from the primitive monachate to the apostolic institutes. Let us now examine some of these texts. The Gospel of Mark gives us a fairly good idea of what the discipleship of Jesus means.”

In the chapter one, we have two vocation narratives:

l. As Jesus passed along the Sea of Galilee, He saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting a net into the sea-for they were fishermen. And Jesus said to them, “Follow me and l will make you fish for people.” And immediately they left their nets and followed Him (Mk l:l6-18).

2. As He went a little farther, He saw James, son of Zebedee, and his brother John, who were in their boat mending the nets. Immediately He called them, and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired men, and followed Him (Mk 1:l9-20).

Discipleship is based on a call to follow Jesus

1. It is Jesus who takes the initiative and calls people. No one just volunteers to be a follower of Jesus. The story of the Gerasene demoniac illustrates this point. Even though he wanted to follow Jesus, Jesus did not call him (Mk 5:l8-l9).

2. The response of those called to be disciples of Jesus is whole hearted and total: they left everything and followed Him.

3. Unlike rabbinic students the disciples do not learn ‘bookishly.’ They are to learn by walking after Jesus. They gained their knowledge and sense of mission by ‘being with Jesus.’ This is the importance of the physical connotation of the verbs ‘to follow’ or ‘to come after.’

4. The call to discipleship cuts across social classes. This is the significance of the call of Levi.

5. There is always the possibility of failure. Judas Iscariot was called, chosen and appointed to be one of the twelve, yet he betrayed Jesus (Mk 3:14, 19).

Vatican II has clearly stated that the appropriate renewal involves, among other things, a return to the sources of all Christian life. It also points out the importance of following Christ: “since the fundamental norm of the religious life is a following of Christ has proposed by the gospel, such is to be regarded by all communities as their supreme law.” There is a growing consensus today that the religious are meant to be prophets of the Lord. As Francis J. Moloney has remarked, “It was the intuition of a famous Protestant scholar, W.F.Albright, to suggest an analogy between the beginnings of the prophetic movement in the Old Testament and the growth of the religious life within the Church.” Today many scholars speak of the religious as the prophets of the Lord. Pope John Paul II referred to the “prophetic character of the consecrated life.” According to Pope Francis “the religious are men and women who can awaken the world. Consecrated life is prophecy.”

George Soares-Prabhu believes that the term prophet describes the Jesus of history, Jesus as He appeared to His contemporaries, quite adequately. As he explains: “Neither a priest (for unlike John the Baptist he was not born into a priestly family), nor a scribe (for unlike Paul he was not brought up in a scribal school). Jesus is most emphatically a prophet, a Spirit filled man (Mk 1:9-11), “mighty in deed and word” (Lk 24:19), called out of the anonymity of a wholly unpretentious lay existence (Mk 6:3), to speak (in an utterly unique and authoritative way) for God, and announce His salvation.”

Hence it is natural for the ‘crowds’ to recognize Jesus as a prophet (Mk 6:15; Mt 21:11; Lk 7:l6), indeed as the prophet, that is, the eschatological avatar of Moses promised in “Deuteronomy l8:l5, (Jn 6:14). His disciples also acknowledge Him as a prophet (Lk: 24:19), and Jesus Himself compares His destiny to that of a prophet as least twice; for like a prophet he is “not without honour except in his own country” (Mk 6:4); and he too must die in Jerusalem like a prophet (Lk 13:33).

As Walter Brueggemann points out: “The task of prophetic ministry is to nurture, nourish and evoke a consciousness and perception alternative to the consciousness and perception of the dominant culture around us.”

3. Perfection of Love
As has been pointed out, the religious life is the work of the Holy Spirit. Now the Spirit “blows not only and where He wills but for as long as He wills.” Hence religious congregations do not have the promise of indefectibility which the Church enjoys. They can die. Many congregations which existed in the Middle Ages do not exist anymore. It is, therefore, necessary for the individual religious and religious congregations to be prepared to die. Only then can they live adventurously. Let me illustrate this with some examples.

4. Conflicts
The clericalization of the religious life has been a step in this process of domestication and control. The ministerial priesthood belongs to the institutional dimensions of Church, while the religious life belongs to its charismatic dimension. If we wish to have the religious life in its purity, no religious should be ordained priests, much less appointed bishops. All religious are and should always remain brothers or sisters.

Finally I wish to say that I fully agree with Joan Chittister that “the religious are meant to be the wake- up call of the Church.” They have both a prophetic and an innovative function in the Church.

By way of conclusion I wish to make three observations:

1) Most of the men and women religious do not seem to be aware of the implications of their vocation to the prophets. Otherwise how do we explain the fact that a large number of religious men and women are cheerful conformists, complacement defenders of the status quo and willing custodians of the established order.

2) There is a widespread impression that our pastors do not pay adequate respect to women religious who are engaged in pastoral work. I am inclined to believe that our pastors do not look upon these women religious as their collaborators and involve them in the formulation and implementation of pastoral policies.

3) At times some of our young men and women honestly feel called to missionary or contemplative congregations of the Latin Church. I am told that the hierarchy of the Syro-Malabar Church is quite reluctant to let these young people follow their vocation. I would request the hierarchy kindly to be more gracious and generous in this matter. For I believe that God, God’s will and God’s call are above and beyond rite differences.