Miserando atque eligendo

I am no Latin scholar and never pretend to be.  Rather what I do here is simply present the motto of Pope Francis for his coat of arms, and I only discover it now.  They are words taken from a homily given by Venerable Bede, Doctor of the Church from 8th century England.  His homily was on Jesus' choosing Matthew, the tax collector and as such a publicly recognized sinner of his time.  In the gospel scene, Jesus looked at Matthew, the public sinner, chose him and called him.  He was chosen with the look of mercy.  It was as simple as that.  It is a story of mercy that has spoken to and motivated Francis through his life as bishop and now Pope.

Given my lack of Latin, I ask what does this defining phrase mean?

Following Francis' own explanation, "miserando" means "reaching into somebody with mercy".  So Francis describes it as "mercifying" which is his own word used to give fuller meaning to the Latin.  So Jesus entered into Matthew with mercy and mercied him.  In this way, Jesus chose him - "atque eligendo".

This then is Francis' motto -   I am mercied and so chosen and loved by God. That is the same for each one of us - we are all mercied and loved by God.  I reflect on this during a week special for two close friends back home.  One gave birth to a gorgeous little boy.  The other lost her dear mother.  Both special experiences involved their own history of great struggle and great love.  My two friends do not know each other but I see how their own treasured experiences of this week reflect each other in a world ruled God's love, a love by defined by God's own mercy for each one of us.

It's all about love

 

We can concern ourselves forever in my line of work about how we help the poor and vulnerable focusing programmes and donor money, looking at funding proposals and all sorts of business items, but really the bottom line is that it is all about love for humanity.  That is what we are about.  As the Pope says, the Church is not an NGO. 

 

Then last week, I was thrilled to read Pope Francis' words to women religious leaders in Rome.  It was about women and their role in Church, asserting their role in a positive and constructive way, but it was about much more as well.  I could see Francis offering the insight of a five step model for working on human and community development which I found utterly exciting. 

 

Simply put his model goes like this.

1) As a base line, uphold human dignity for all.

2) Address the evils and abuses that keep people oppressed.    

3) Give a role to the excluded.

4) Give a voice to the voiceless. 

5) Empower those marginalized in society for leadership in service. 

In this way, we show love and, in showing love, we show God.  Such love builds up human dignity and gives hope to a people that need it.  So we are good theologians and our world so badly needs good theologians. 

It's a Heatwave

With 40 degrees and over, sunshine and no rain, day after day, last night it became official this is a heatwave.  So declared my German neighbour.  In such conditions, the weather becomes the focus of how one plans one life. 

It is too hot to go out in the middle of the day.  It is better to go to work early.  When you meet someone, best to meet in a mall.  Stay indoors with the air-con on. 

What it also does is sap your energy so that I just don't feel inspired to write anything this week but I remain determined to do so.  It is not that nothing of note has happened.  It has. 

During the week, I was negotiating going to Sydney for a meeting next month but then discovered that the decision was to be made for me by the fact that there were no seats left on a plane for a return to Bangkok.  This is because of school holidays in New South Wales and the subsequent rush of Australians to Thailand.  That simple experience made me realize how my basic choices in life determine other possibilities and realities for me.  This is where I am and I cannot just go when I want, like or decide.  There are consequences to decisions made and that is the way it is.  This is life.

Sunday saw the arrival of the new administrator to the cathedral.  I thought how I miss our previous administrator as he was so kind.  It made me realize that I have been here long enough to both know and like the priests and now here long enough to be affected by their comings and goings.  This is life

In the same week, I heard of the death of a friend from here and made a new friend.  I had met Allan when I first came here.  We had both arrived around the same time.  This meant that we had a natural bond and shared common experiences.  So we would talk about being here.  Allan became somewhat disillusioned about here but ever the gentleman ready for a friendly chat.  Ten years later he dies in Bangkok.  It makes me think about me and my being here.  You spend a life here and where does it go as time goes so quickly.  This is life. 

This news of Allan's death is shared by another friend with another and me.  The other guy at the end of this news is also shocked.  Maybe it is once again a common bond but within a few days we have a new friend in each other.  This is life.   

Heatwave or no heatwave, life goes on.  This is life. 

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter!

Yes, it is another Easter as last Sunday was Easter in the Orthodox communion.  This highlights the division in the Christian world with different communions of the one faith celebrating Easter at different times.  Such is division in our world.

We see the Syrias of our world, politics in the USA, wars and barbarism in the name of religion and so we can see that world peace is obviously still as far away as it was at anytime in human history.

Why don't we learn from history?  Why don't we learn from our mistakes?  Why do we keep doing the same things when we know that they don't work and even worse when we know the destructive impact of doing the same things?

I live in a Thailand where I see rising levels of violence.  At work, we hired a new manager and the outcome was just totally unpredictable. Within a month of being employed, he hated his staff because they did not treat him in ways demanded by his culture.  He was full of hurt and anger and expressed his hatred and contempt for staff because of what I would describe as simple experiences that he judged to be offensive.  My experience of his response to staff was one of violence.

Anger and hurt are human feelings They are not destined to create more violence but still violence happens everywhere.  If we want to explain the Syrias and the state of our world, I guess we don't look further than ourselves.  Living here, another ingredient I see is that people just do not take responsibility for their actions nor does their system encourage them to do so.  What I then learn here is that violence rises rampantly where no one takes responsibility for their actions and feelings for this results in ones not acting for good change to better life and our lot in it.  So violence is destined to continue and rise.

Easter is about transformation, radical change.  Happy Easter!