By chhotebhai
Kanpur, Oct 15, 2024: Back in 2000 Arun Shourie wrote a book “Harvesting Souls – Missionaries, their designs and claims.” It was a condemnation of everything remotely connected with missionaries. In the Indian context it was about our Christian presence.
For those who came in late this book was written in the aftermath of his address to the CBCI at its annual gathering. It was also a consequence of Pope John Paul II’s second visit to India in 1998. He had then released his infamous encyclical “Ecclesia in Asia”, asserting that the third millennium of Christianity was the time for the conversion of Asia. He said this on Indian soil as a guest of the State!
It was a grossly insensitive statement that effectively closed the doors on any further papal visits to India. It also added grist to the mill of those antagonistic to Christianity. We lay persons are left dumb struck at the naiveté of our bishops and pope and have to face the brunt of their insensitive acts and utterances.
However, it was not Shourie’s book, but a homily preached 1400 years ago, by another pope, that got me thinking about the “harvest”. That was homily No 17 of Pope St Gregory the Great, as found in the breviary, page 629, volume III, in the office of Readings for the 27th Sunday of the liturgical year, this 12th October. I use the breviary, also known as the liturgy of the hours, for my daily prayer.
This pope, only one of three that have the suffix “Great”, was the 64th pope, for 14 years from 590 to 604. Let me quote from this homily that hit me like a sledge hammer and occasioned this article. He was commenting on Jesus’ lament:
“He felt sorry for them because they were harassed and dejected like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples – The harvest is rich but the labourers are few, so ask the Lord of the harvest to send out labourers to his harvest” (Mat 9:36-37). His response to Jesus’ lament was as follows:
• It grieves us to have to say that the labourers for this great harvest are few, because there are not enough people to preach the good news, although there are people waiting to hear it.
• We see around us a world full of priests, but it is very rare to find a labourer in God’s harvest, because we are not doing the work demanded by our priesthood
• Preachers are often prevented from speaking because of their own wickedness
• We do know for certain that the silence of the preacher, while it is sometimes damaging to himself, is always damaging to those in his care
• What causes great grief is the sort of life led by some pastors
• The fact is that we have allowed ourselves to become involved in external affairs, and the contrast between the honour we have received and the way in which we carry out the duties of our office is very great
• We give up the ministry of preaching and to our discredit. We are called bishops, but enjoy this honour in name only, and not in practice.
• The people entrusted to our care are abandoning God and we remain silent.
• We shall never be in a position to correct the lives of others as long as we neglect our own. We are wrapped up in the cares of this world, and the more we seem to busy ourselves with external affairs the more spiritually insensitive we become.
• We are neglecting our own proper ministry as long as we remain wrapped up in external affairs.
This is as damning an indictment as there could ever be. The fact that it is reproduced in the breviary is indicative of the importance and relevance of this exhortation. It makes me wonder – has anything really changed in the last 1400 years? Being busy with external affairs, the faithful abandoning the church! Are they discrediting their position? Are bishops attending convent concerts and cutting ribbons, or priests as principals and managers, actually preaching or bearing Christian witness?
Canon Law considers the Breviary or Liturgy of the Hours a sacred obligation to attain perfection in ones ministry. “Priests and deacons aspiring to the priesthood are obliged to carry out the liturgy of the hours daily” (Can 276:3).
Sadly, the clerical breviary has often been replaced by the administrator’s briefcase. This is what the great pope was hinting at when he said that the bishops and clergy have become involved in “external affairs”. I don’t think he was referring to sexual affairs, but worldly affairs that have derailed the labourers in the vineyard.
In today’s context, instead of tending to the vines to bear more fruit (caring for the community and seeking its growth), the managers (not labourers) are busy acquiring more and more vineyards, farm houses with guard dogs and high walls.
Read between the lines – acquiring properties, building more institutions and the pre-occupation with protecting these fixed assets; rather than the kerygma (proclamation), metanoia (conversion of heart), diaconia (services) and koinonia (community building) that is expected of them. That was Jesus’ lament when he saw the people of God as sheep without a shepherd.
The prophet Ezekiel’s warning to the shepherds is even more sinister. “Disaster is in store for the shepherds of Israel who feed themselves! Are not shepherds meant to feed the flock? Yet you have fed on milk, you have dressed yourselves in wool, you have sacrificed the fattest sheep, but failed to feed the flock. You have failed to make weak sheep strong or to care for the sick ones, or bandage the injured ones. You have failed to bring back strays or look for the lost … My flock has been scattered all over the world, no one bothers about them and no one looks for them” (Ez 34: 3-6).
There is much more that Ezekiel says about wayward shepherds. Let this much suffice. The above is not my personal opinion, but what the Lord himself is saying to us through the scriptures. I have many friends among bishops and priests. They are mostly good people. But that is precisely the conundrum; because merely being good is not nearly good enough. It leads to complacency and a degenerative backward slide.
Let me conclude with some observations on Gregory the Great, for he practiced what he preached. At the death of Pope Pelagius II in 590 the Romans unanimously elected Gregory to be his successor. However, in humility, he resisted being consecrated for seven months. As pope he continued to live the simple life of a monk. One of his first acts was to enforce the law of celibacy on priests, deacons and subdeacons.
He also protected the Jews residing in Italy and sent missionaries to England to save the enslaved Anglei (English) and make them Angeli (angels). Indeed for those in the vineyard of the Lord we cannot harvest anything until and unless we ourselves become angeli in both precept and practice. We have much to learn from Pope Gregory the Great; else we will have more Shouries falsely indicting us for “harvesting non-existent souls”.
(The writer is the Convenor of the Indian Catholic Forum.)