REFLECTIONS OF A PILGRIM

The long-lasting relationship of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee with La Sagrada Familia Parish has grown into something very special for me and for my parish. Two years ago the people of La Sagrada Familia welcomed a small group from Holy Apostles Parish (New Berlin, Milwaukee) into their lives. It couldn’t have been more appropriate for that visit to have been during Pentecost as I’ve never felt the Holy Spirit more than when I was there. I fell in love with the people and their spirit has never left me.

Although life and living conditions are different than mine, I’ve never felt so at home and so I returned a second time.

I have a clouded memory of the many challenges the people there face because at the forefront of my memory is the people’s spirit. To name a few of the challenges, inadequate housing, education, healthcare, child care, jobs, food and water. I don’t intend to skip over or to minimize the challenges of life there, but I hesitate to expand on details. Please know and be aware that the challenges are real and many. Basic human dignities are lacking and much help is needed. When I reflect on my time there, however, I dwell on the hope and faith of how the people deal with the challenges, not on the challenges themselves.

REFORESTATION AND QUALITY OF LIFE IN BOLIVIA

Talk about long range planning! According Montserrat Madrid, the Community of St. Paul member who works with peasant communities in the Highlands of Bolivia, in 2006 the CSP initiated a reforestation project in the high plateaus of the Andean mountains in Cochabamba (Bolivia) to improve the quality of life for the people of this zone and to reverse the deforestation of the region that began almost 500 years ago. Deforestation has been occurring since the Spanish colonial era, when the region began to receive more population. Because of the high altitude forests are very slow growth, the needs for housing, cooking, building and mining structures began the process of deforestation which also accelerated in the last two hundred years because of overcrowding and many more people consuming the timber for firewood. At the same time, there was no effort to manage the local forests and to reforest.

It’s not as simple as planting seedlings and sitting down to wait for fifteen or twenty years to begin harvesting the new pine trees. First came the feasibility tests for a tree nursery at the high elevation (3666 meters = 12,027 feet). Then, gradually, came the necessary infrastructure for such a project: water springs, canals, water tanks, tool sheds, technical advisers, recruiting and organizing 37 local land-holding participants and planning the layout of reforestation areas for each of these community participants.

REFLECTION

TEAM WORK IN THE CHURCH 

(Thoughts about the readings for the 29^th Sunday in Ordinary Time)

This Sunday’s second reading is from the letter of Saint Paul to the Thessalonians (1 Thes 1:1-5b). Did you know that this letter is the most ancient New Testament writing we have? Yes, among the letters of Saint Paul we have in the New Testament, 1^st Thessalonians is dated to be the oldest. And because Paul wrote before the evangelists, this letter is the first New Testament writing that mentions Jesus.

It is very interesting to note that at the beginning of the letter, the initial greeting is not made by Paul alone. Silvanus and Timothy together with Paul are the senders of this letter to the church in Thessalonica. I found this to be a great teaching for our Church today. In our time personal achievement is so overemphasized; here you have a “team” working for the Church at its origins. Every time we think about the letters of Paul we think of them as coming from one single author. Well, it may be that Paul wrote them from his own hand and the letter was composed mostly by his words, but the greeting of 1^st Thessalonians suggests an interesting nuance. Paul was part of a team, and although he might have been the leader, he was evangelizing along with others. If you read the rest of the letter you would notice that he uses the pronoun we instead of I.  This letter was the message of a team of leaders, which together were founding churches for the glory of God.

How do we understand this in our reality today? How do we work in the Church? We should aim to work as a team, and enjoy our faith as one team too. Actually that is the meaning of Church: we are an assembly that is constituted by many. It may be that for society we are “individuals,” but for God we are a family, a Church. Society will expect for us to be individuals; that is the presumption of Caesar’s tax law: each one ought to pay. But for God we are a family; a community of brothers and sisters that help each other and whose problems and loads are shared, not individualized. Let us then give to God what he expects from us, to be a community and to serve others; and let us follow the example of Paul, Silvanus and Timothy and leave behind any personal merit. 

José Mario Nieto

SABANA YEGUA HEALTHCARE VOLUNTEERS LEARN TO FIGHT CHIKUNGUNYA OUTBREAK

Sabana Yegua’s network of home-based community First Aid centers and the volunteer leaders that host these “walk-in clinics” have been called upon to fight an urgent new healthcare menace, the epidemic of the mosquito-borne Chikungunya virus. The virus, long a problem in Africa and Asia, has only recently become established among Caribbean mosquitoes. The Pan American Health Organization says there have been at least 1 million cases throughout the Western Hemisphere. The Dominican Republic’s health ministry estimates nearly 500,000 people have sickened by Chikungunya since the introduction of the disease only a few months ago.

The chikungunya virus causes extreme joint pain, severe rashes, fevers and headaches and other flu-like symptoms. 90% of these bitten by an infected mosquito usually develop symptoms within 4-7 days. Though rarely fatal, the diseases symptoms are so severe for up to a week that the patient is unable to carry on routine daily activities. Much absenteeism from school and work occurs. Also the elderly and infants are a risk of complications.

REFLECTION

A MARRIAGE FEAST

A marriage feast is another image Jesus uses to talk about the Kingdom of God. A feast where God will provide for all peoples rich food and choices of wine! That sounds good like a nice party! The Hebrews, like other peoples of the ancient Near East, were enormously fond of social feasting. Nevertheless the parable that we read in today’s Gospel (Mt 22,1-14) contains one of the most enigmatic passages on the Gospel: the guest without the wedding garment? How can we interpret this passage, which left us somehow with a bittersweet flavor? Some answer may be found if we take a look at the historical context of the parable.

A marriage feast included wine drinking, as we see in the story of Cana. And if the banquet was large a second invitation was usually sent on the day of the feast, and also a servant escorted the invitees to the feast. The host welcomed the guests with a kiss, and their feet were washed because of the dusty roads (remember the story of Jesus and the woman that washes his feet in the house of the Pharisee that invited him for a banquet?). Following this, the guest’s head was anointed, as well as sometimes his beard, his feet and his clothing. The people invited were seated according to their respective rank and their hands were washed. But the most relevant event for us now is that when someone was invited to a marriage feast and banquet, the host of the feast provided robes and garments for the guests, which were worn in his honor and as a token of his regard. Here we have the problem! This guest didn’t want to use the garment that the host gave him to wear!

I believe we do that sometimes. When God invited us to his feast of life, he gave us a garment; the garment that God’s children must use, a garment made out of love and mercy. How often do we use that garment? Do we use it at all? If we have answered a yes to his invitation, it would be nice if we use the garment he gave us to wear in honor of Him, who is all love and all mercy!

José Mario Nieto

CELEBRATING THE NEW YEAR IN ETHIOPIA

María José Morales has been in Ethiopia almost two years, where the Community of St. Paul, in cooperation with the Apostolic Vicariate of Meki, has initiated several new apostolates in the areas of Health, Promotion of Women, Education, Rural Access to Water and participation in the Vicariate’s Pastoral Coordination. She shares with us one of the cultural peculiarities of this interesting country.

"This past September 11, we celebrated a very special feast in Ethiopia: the arrival of the new year.  Here we have just begun 2007!

“Indeed in Ethiopia we continue using the Julian Calendar, established in the year 46 BC by Julius Caesar (to which it owes its name).  It has 12 months of 30 days, and one month of 5 days –or six each 4 years. According to the Julian Calendar, a year = 365.25 days.

AGORA XXI: OUR BLOG DEBUTS ITS NAME

We began this blog two years ago. Since then, it has been a means through which we have been regularly sharing information related with the Community of Saint Paul: meetings, priestly ordinations, news from the places where we are working, pastoral initiatives, projects of human development that we are carrying out… Likewise, we have shared short reflections about life, faith and the Gospel with those who follow us.  Also, as of a few months ago, we have included more extensive articles about the Church, society and the challenges that our world raises for us.  As such, this blog has become a forum by which we keep in contact with many friends, followers, benefactors and supporters spread throughout the world. Today, we wish to give it a new impulse, “baptizing” it with the name that you see on the screen: Agora XXI.

Of course, the word agora was used in ancient Greece to refer to the public space or square, in the middle of the city, that served as a place of encounter and dialogue for all the citizens.  Why have we chosen this name for our blog?

As they are expressed in our statutes, among the objectives of the Community of Saint Paul is the following: “To promote the spirit of dialogue with the world according to the Second Vatican Council.” We are convinced that both the civil world as well as the Church need to constantly recall the hope in dialogue that the Council promoted: only persons and groups with a sincere desire to converse amongst themselves, and with those who think differently, will know how to find the ways to peace, justice and solidarity.  And so that such a dialogue may develop, it is necessary to create settings, fora, agoras, where we can sit and listen to the other. This is the reason for our name: we hope that, from its simplicity, this blog of the Community of Saint Paul may be a space of open and peaceful conversation for today, for the 21^st century.

We hope that you enjoy our blog, and that our new agora may be, truly, a place of encounter and sincere dialogue.