A REVIEW OF
“TERRORISM OF GOSSIP-SPIRITUAL ALZHEIMER”
Lotus flower is beautiful. It grows in the muddy water or in a pond. But it stands out as if it is not of the water nor of the pond. The first letter of John exhorts the faithful, although the young and the old belong to the world, they should keep a different identity and stand out radiating a powerful message to the whole world that’ to be human is to be more than human’ (I John 2: 12-17). Pope Francis exhorts the faithful ‘To be fully human means to be filled with the spirit of the Lord’ in such a way that his will is parallel to the will of God who gave us life and the energy to live the life.
The world has several attractions and distractions, distorted philosophy of life, evil designs of interpreting religion and God.
As Gurudev Ravindra Nath Tagore from India has beautifully portrayed in ‘Gitanjali’, the images of God are always around us. Discover your God in your brothers and sisters who are on your left and right. “If the hunger of others is not my own, if the anguish of my neighbor in all its forms touches me not, if the nakedness of my brother doesn’t torment me, then I have no reason to go to the church and live” , says Javier Torres. Neglecting them and focusing on the crucifix in the church may not be rewarding.
The cross of Christ enables us to see suffering and death and all our struggles of day to day life in the light of resurrection. It enlightens the darkness surrounding us with the light of hope. It reminds us that we are the inheritors of the kingdom of God, even though we are still on the pilgrimage towards our final goal.
Applying the meaning of the cross into our daily life Pope John Paul II has once said that our life on earth is in the process of a continuous transformation as an artwork in the hands of the artist. He said that Christian life is creative life in which every Christian is to be turned to an artwork.
In the creation of an artwork the artist works with materials like marble, wood or paints. The artist seeks to attain the final image in the formless materials by working on them and transforming them according to the given design. In the case human life, the raw and hard experiences of day to day life, the struggles and problems, sins and failures are the materials to be transformed. The design to be realized in these life-materials is the image of Christ. The cross is the way or the method we have to adopt in sculpting our lives into beautiful artworks.
Those who do not understand the meaning of the cross may consider us as fools and despise our actions as senseless. Here we can remember the words of St. Paul in the first letter to the Corinthians: the cross is a sign of foolishness to those who are perishing, but it is the sign of God’s power and wisdom for those who are saved (cf. 1 Cor 1:18ff).
As Christians we are motivated by the vision of the hidden image of Christ in all our human experiences and we proceed to realize it, like an artist with an imaginative mind. The artist can see the possibility of a beautiful image even in a rugged marble piece.
For us believers the cross is also the symbol of the infinite love of God for humanity. St. Paul writes in his letter to the Ephesians about this all embracing love of God revealed in Jesus Christ. He wishes that we may have the power to comprehend the breadth, height and depth of this love which surpasses our comprehension (Eph 3:18). The cross of Christ is the symbol of God’s love which is extended in all cosmic directions, without excluding anybody or anything from its embrace.
In the Christian tradition the cross is known as the Tree of Life. As the symbol of resurrection and life, it is not a static object but a dynamic experience. To carry the cross means to move with Christ, following him in discipleship and to share his destiny. Jesus has explicitly said: if anyone would come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross and follow me (Mk 8:34).
Pope Francis has emphasized in his first sermon in Vatican on 14 March the nature of Christian faith as a movement. He said, we have to move with the cross in following Jesus: “When we journey without the cross, when we build without the cross and when we confess a Christ without the cross, we are not disciples of the Lord: we are worldly, we are bishops, priests, cardinals, popes, but not disciples of the Lord.”
In the cross we find salvation, life and hope. The fruit of the cross is eternal life. Let this Good Friday imprint in our hearts the sign of the cross which may always remind us of the challenges of our life in following Jesus Christ faithfully.
The Spirit of God is definitely strengthening each and every one of us from within. All the readings of today from the Old Testament, Epistle and the Gospel reveal Gods accompaniment with the faithful and continued blessings, countenance and peace. The first resolution of Pope Francis for the year 2014 was to stop gossiping. Very recently Pope has taken stern action against the bureaucracy of Vatican for indulging in gossiping rather than being the joyful men of God. Pope Francis issued a blistering critique on the men who serve him, denouncing how some people live hypocritical double lives and suffer from ‘spiritual Alzheimer’s’.
The ability to call gossip by its name in itself is the ability to bring to its end, as my brother Albert clearly brings up a different understanding of gossip, “the gossip in prayer”. Who ever thought of this? Truly at times we venture into gossips in our spiritual conversation with God. Gossip has become the greatest illness in our today’s society, it has become the “Cancer” of our society.
Gossip has torn apart strong families, has torn apart religious communities, it has torn apart believes and friendship. “A careless or wrong words out of your mouth can do that. By our speech we can ruin the world, turn harmony to chaos, throw mud on reputation, send the whole world up in smoke and go up in smoke with it right from the pit of hell” (James 3:6). In itself gossip turns our attention from Christ, we tend to concentrate on lesser important matters, and we tend to place all our attention towards the worldly things forgetting that the center, the master of our Christian life is always and has to be Our Lord Jesus Christ.
This brings us to the idea of being indifferent with other people. Feeling special than other group of people. This separates us from the divine love that Christ brings to us. Loving the Lord our God, with all our hearts and all our soul, loving our neighbour as ourselves. Another aspect involves loving our enemies. This is never possible with the indifferent syndrome in us. As the author clearly indicates that, “For whenever our interior life becomes caught up in its own interest and concerns, it gives no room for others, no place for the poor and no listening to charity. God’s voice is no longer heard, the quiet joy of his love is no longer felt and the desire to do good fades”. The moment we see each other part of the greater universe, the creation of God, we will automatically live the “beatitude life”, the life of being our brother/sisters keeper.
Pope Francis talks of existential schizophrenia. What a big word, but a deeper meaning in itself…its deepness refers to the challenges of Christian life. Living as a Christian is truly a challenge, but a sweet challenge, a true life of the cross. In this Christian living, we are caught up with various challenges which include a “double life”. What I mean with double life is what the Pope explained as existential schizophrenia. This involves one being seen to the public especially in the Church circles as a very devote Christian but outside the known “area”, he or she automatically turns to be the opposite of what is required of a Christian. As Albert explains in his book, that we must do what we teach as Christians, and not remaining in our shells, while expecting others to practice what we preach. We should not in any way defend tricky plans that support double life in Christendom. Christians, let us not be thrilled by the culture of prosperity, for it is deadening to our spiritual growth and ascent to heaven. I can clearly agree with him that to get rid of this vice we can only manage by having daily renewed encounter with God’s love which blossoms into an enriching friendship with Jesus Christ.
Self-righteous people will never experience forgiveness and love, since they are blind to their sinfulness. The Pharisees and the scribes, the learned and the intellectual could not understand why Jesus was friendly with the sinners and mingled with the outcasts of society. With the parable of the prodigal and his brother Jesus explained to them that it is the realization of one’s own unworthiness and heartfelt repentance that makes one dear to God, who is a loving Father to all.
We need not be ashamed of our sins and weaknesses before God. As we read in the Book of the Prophet Micah, Israel, the people of God besought God’s forgiveness again and again without any shame. The people were not ashamed of their unfaithful past. They were convinced that God would pardon all their transgressions. He would not retain his anger forever, because he delights in steadfast love.
One important point to note is Albert’s point out that, “each individual Christian and every community is called to be an instrument of God for the liberation and promotion of the poor, and for enabling them to be fully part of their societies”. This calling involves a true re-birth of Christians to Christ that is by living the Christian values to the fullness. Accepting the Jesus Christ is the Lord and Saviour of our life. Though the Author brings in another thought, his claim is that; whenever we form circles or cliques, we create an impression that threatens the whole community and its members. Our focus is redirected from Christ to that of the circles. This to my understanding is the question of priorities. What is our main focus? Is it the small groupings we form or its Christ? Circles tempt us to tend to glorify our own being, it tempt us to work on fulfilling the demands created by the human beings in charge of the respective circles thus forgetting the main purpose of life. The glorification of God. The Author sums up this with a biblical quotation that states, “How can you believe, who receive glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes from God?” (John 5:44). It tends to hinder s from the main goal. This will tempt us to also seek favors’ from our “bosses”, to seek higher positions in various movements or circles that we identify ourselves with respectively. We are to abandon ourselves or those who seek to be “worshipped”, and focus on Christ. What favour do we seek from humanity? The greatest blessings we should seek is from our Lord Jesus Christ.
In the two last Chapters, we are taken back to the great parable of Mary and Martha. The character of busyness and then the most contagious question of who is a Christian. First on the question of busyness. How busy are we for Christ? Like Martha, we might be tempted to make all seem right, we might be busy with projects, developments, food among other things that might bring external happiness to us, but the reality is always that we are called to be like Mary. To sit at the feet of Christ, to listen to the words of Christ, to allow the teacher to share His knowledge with us. Resting at the feet of Christ allows us not only to recognize our deeper self, but to know Christ more and more. We are not called to busy ourselves with the world, but to focus more on the Christ the Teacher. Lastly, my friend Albert talks about. “How to be a Christian”. I like criteria that Albert gives for a Christian, “we can be called Christians if and only if we follow the details of the Divine Living Word of God and bring salvation and joy to our soul and the souls of others”. This summarizes the whole book. The whole book is all about our Christian life, how we can best be Christian. He talks about baptism though important, but we still are required to install more effort. We are to work towards being true Christians. We are called to Faith, faith in Christ ad this is through action, through our day to day deeds, through our relation with others and the most important is our relation with God. This is what makes us true Christians.
By
Peter Kennedy Owino
