The Need for Contemplation
The
shrine of the Sto. Niño has a prominent position in the airport
terminal at Mactan, Cebu, Philippines. One time while I was waiting
there I saw a distinguished looking man go before the shrine and bow
in prayer for several minutes. He touched several parts of the shrine
and then several parts of his own anatomy. He opened his wallet and
ostentatiously dropped two hundred-peso bills in the money box.
I
said to my companion, "What wonderful faith that man has!"
But my companion was laughing and I asked him why.
"Don't
you know who that guy is? He is the DECS Regional Director in our
area and he is known to be the most corrupt and immoral in the whole
country. If someone needs anything they must pay under the table,
if it is a beautiful woman she may be asked for something else. Of
course, he is asking for a safe flight because in no way is he ready
to meet his Maker." This is probably the first difficulty about
religion, we reduce it to prayers and devotions, and divorce it from
the quality of the rest of our lives.
The
devotion to the Sto. Niño which is very beautiful in itself
and has sustained the faith, especially of the Cebuano people, over
the centuries is expressive of this weakness. Our God image is an
infant, a child dressed as an adult king. He is a child who is powerless
and manipulatable and yet he is a powerful king. He is somebody that
we can control and ignore like a helpless child and yet appeal to
for intervention on our behalf as a powerful monarch. There is a gap
in between; the gap of taking responsibility and acting maturely.
Does this devotion encourage us to be like the jeepney driver who
drives recklessly and yet has a big "Sto. Niño Protect
Us" between the stickers of naked women on his dashboard?
If the first difficulty about religion is reducing it to prayers and
devotions the second is reducing it to action. This struck me recently
when I was leaving the Provincial Jail, now called the Rehabilitation
and Detention Center, after a meditation session. A prisoner approached
me and said, "Are you the fellow who gets the glasses?"
I simultaneously laughed and cried in the depths of my being. So this
was my identity, "the fellow who gets the glasses."
The
background was that an enterprising and caring optician abroad had
sent me a box of good but discarded reading glasses which she hoped
I could give to the needy poor. With the help of a local optician
we had tried to match the glasses to the needs of some of the prisoners.
No doubt it was a good thing to do and it is an enterprise that could
be expanded and expanded. And I could even become famous, and have
my ego boosted, as the guy who gets the glasses. But is that what
I am a Christian or a priest for?
This has been a pitfall that the Church has fallen into many times.
When Christianity went to Africa slavery was seen to be the great
evil and so the Christians did the good thing of buying slaves and
setting them free. But then they became the people who bought the
slaves. In other times and places Christians, and especially full
time religious people, saw the need for good education and care of
the sick and quickly became identified with schools and hospitals.
But is Christianity = running schools and hospitals? In answering
a worthy human need it is so easy to become sucked into a way of acting
and identity whereby your original purpose and identity becomes forgotten.
This can happen both to individuals and to institutions.
Christ
himself had to struggle with this problem of identity. He loved his
Father and he expressed this especially in his love for human beings,
the image of His Father. He sought to set us free from all enslavement
but especially the enslavement of insecurity, greed, unforgiveness
at the depth of our being. Sometimes this expressed itself in also
taking away physical sickness. Often he told those he cured to not
tell anybody. This was because he did not want people to be coming
to him for the wrong reason. While he did care and heal he was more
interested in a deeper wisdom and a deeper healing. But often the
good is the obstacle to the better.
In meditation we are opening ourselves to the better. To be present
to God with no prior agenda. This was beautifully expressed by the
poet Henry W. Longfellow (1807-1882)
Let
us, then, labor for an inward stillness -
An inward stillness and an inward healing:
That perfect silence where the lips and heart
Are still, and we no longer entertain
Our own imperfect thoughts and vain options,
But God alone speaks in us, and we wait
in singleness of heart, that we may know
His will, and in the silence of our spirits,
That we may do his will and do that only.
To
act wisely and well we need to BE, to rediscover our contemplative
selves. In doing this we are" giving the glasses," the capacity
to see deeper and to act out of that depth. The great obstacle to
this better gift can often be our good prayers and actions that are
cut off from their source.
Taken
from Sundays
into Silence - A Pathway to Life. Copyright © 1998 by Claretian
Publications
