Archive for September, 2007

Reflecting on Mother Teresa’s Crisis of faith

drchris September 26th, 2007

 How strong is our faith? 

The tenth anniversary of the death of Mother Teresa brought to mind some interesting insight into her life which made me reflect on my own faith.

How  strong and unshakable is my faith in Jesus?Will it stand the trials and tribulaions in life?

In Mother Teresa - Crisis of Faith by David Van Biema that was published in the September 3, 2007 edition of Time Magazine, the writer related an incident that revealed Mother Teresa at one time even doubted the existence of God. She was reported to have told Rev.Michael Van Der Peet,

“Jesus has a very special love for you. As for me, the silence and the emptiness is so great that I look and do not see, listen and do not hear, the tongue moves [in prayer] but does not speak ….” 

Less than 3 months later on receiving the Nobel Peace Prize she reaffirmed her unshakable faith in God and advised us on the need to see Christ around us.

“It is not enough for us to say, ‘I love God, but I do not love my neighbor’, since in dying on the Cross, God had made himself the hungry one, the naked one, the homeless one.” Jesus’ hunger, she said, is what “you and I must find” and alleviate. Christ is everywhere — Christ in our hearts, Christ in the poor we meet, Christ in the smile we give and in the smile that we receive. 

We all knew Mother Teresa for her unwavering faith and trust in God. Here she was even expressing doubt in the very existence of God himself. This admission by her just goes to show that the Saint of the Gutters, who was beatified on October 19, 2003, was just as human like all of us. The crisis in her faith that Mother Teresa experienced was understandable because of the perpetual challenges she encountered as she lived humbly submitting to the call of God to serve fellow men among the poorest of the poor. 

We too face all sorts of challenges in our own ways. We fulfill all our religious duties diligently and therefore believe that God will never forsake us under all circumstances. We never have the slightest doubt in our trust and faith in Him. This may be so when things go right but very often life does not seem to go the way we want it to be. It is in times of these challenges and tragedies that our faith is put to the test. Despite all our earnest prayers, our petitions never seem to be answered. It is during these extreme trying times we begin to doubt the existence of God.

Some of these challenges to our faith today are:

1.      Death of loved ones ,terminal illness, permanent disability

2.      Divorce and failures in love

3.      Failures in examinations and unemployment when our future appears doomed

4.      Extreme poverty and hunger

5.      Natural disasters

6.      Persecution and torture for standing up for truth and justice

7.      Loneliness

When we are inflicted by these tragedies and God does not seem to intervene to help us, many of us give up hope and may even leave Him. We are taught that God is so loving, kind and merciful, then why does he forsake us? Why doesn’t he come down to get us out of the misery that had inflicted us.

This is the time we need all the faith and trust in Him like Mother Teresa. Many among us expect God to come down in person and work miracles to help us overcome our problems. We fail to realize that God come to us in forms we do not recognize thereby fail to welcome him into our lives. If we are waiting for him to come in majesty  and glamour then we will be sadly  mistaken. He will instead come in the form of the poor and destitute. Unless we welcome these downtrodden people into our hearts, we will never experience God in our lives.

Mother Teresa identified Jesus in her “poorest of the poor” Unless we too recognize Him in the downtrodden and despised and welcome them into our hearts, we will  never experience God in our lives.

We must be convinced that God will never fail us if we do His will. It is in times of trial that we should reflect on ourselves to see where we have gone wrong. When God does not come to our aid then there must be something wrong with us and not with God. We should reflect on our relationship with God and our neighbor. There must be something wrong in the way we interpret and practice his teachings. To many of us it is easy to love God, whom we can’t see, hear or feel but difficult to love our neighbor who is physically there in our midst.

As Mother Teresa said we cannot possibly love God if we do not love fellow humans, which is very true. Emerging fundamentalism in the Church has given rise to a situation where we are meaninglessly worshipping God without loving men. We spend many hours to be with Him in prayer and meditation but not willing to spare a fraction of that time to attend to those in need.  

With our obsession with “worshipping” God, we ignore the plea of those who yearn for our love and care. How can we expect God to listen to us when we ignore Jesus in our neighbor? How can we expect God to answer our prayers when they are all meant to seek favors for us and our loved ones?

The good, God will try them repeatedly but will never forsake them, whereas the bad, he may shower with all the fortunes in life but in times of need will forsake them.

Dr.Chris Anthony

Clergy Scandal

drchris September 14th, 2007

Tablet
The Tablet

Church in the World
15 September 2007

Ncube steps down over adultery allegations

Pius Ncube has resigned as Archbishop of Bulawayo two months after being accused of adultery.

In a statement issued on Tuesday he vowed to remain in church leadership and to continue speaking out against the suffering caused by President Robert Mugabe’s regime. He said that his resignation was tendered to the Vatican in July, but made public only when it had been accepted. He is standing down because he fears the Church’s image would otherwise suffer when he appears in court in connection with the adultery accusation.

“Today the Vatican will publicise their acceptance of an offer I tendered to them in July,” the statement read. “I wrote to the Pope about a state-driven attack not only on myself but also the Church in Zimbabwe. It is important that I must face this case in court as Pius Ncube and avoid having the Church’s image tarnished. I remain a Catholic bishop and will continue speaking on issues that sadly become more acute by the day in our country.”

The statement was read out at a press conference in Bulawayo by Essie Ncube (no relation), chairman of the Archbishop Pius Ncube Solidarity Coalition. Neither Bishop Ncube nor his lawyer attended the event; the bishop is reported to be out of the country, possibly in South Africa. He has kept a low profile since allegations against him were made by Onesimus Sibanda, a man aligned to the ruling Zanu-PF party, of an affair with his wife Rosemary. Mr Sibanda is suing Bishop Ncube in the civil courts, alleging that he committed adultery with his wife, who worked in Archbishop’s House. Bishop Ncube has said that he cannot comment directly on the allegation because the matter is sub judice.

Bishop Ncube hopes to find fresh opportunities to work with the poor either “within the Church” or “within the civic movement”. A brief statement from the Vatican said Pope Benedict XVI had accepted Bishop Ncube’s resignation under the article of church law that says a bishop should retire if he is ill or if “some other grave reason” has made him unable to fulfil his office. The Pope has appointed Fr Martin Schupp, an ex-provincial of the Missionaries of Mariannhill, as diocesan administrator for the time being.

Sources close to Bishop Ncube say he has funding from donors to cater for his welfare as well as costs for his legal battle. It is understood that he is under no immediate pressure to leave the archbishop’s residence although he is expected to do so in due course.

Suspicion surrounds video footage that appears to show the bishop in compromising positions with Rosemary Sibanda, as well as other women. Supporters of the bishop say the footage was put together by the state media, the intelligence service and Mugabe’s office.

Over the years the Vatican has seemed reluctant to support the archbishop openly in his fierce criticism of President Mugabe, who is a Catholic. Just nine days before publicly accepting the church leader’s resignation, the Pope transferred his nuncio in Zimbabwe - Archbishop Edward Adams - to the nunciature in the Philippines. Archbishop Adams’ reassignment after five years in the African post was not abnormal, although the timing saved him from being brought into the fray surrounding Archbishop Ncube’s departure. There is currently no nuncio in Zimbabwe.

One God many religions

drchris September 3rd, 2007

    Work to make better humans in their own faith

The nineteen South Korean Christian volunteers held hostage by the Taliban in
Afghanistan for six weeks were finally freed. It brought great relief not only to the hostages but to the whole international community. It is deeply distressing that two people lost their lives in the ordeal.According to the Taliban, they were paid $20 million for the release of the hostages, a claim which the South Korean government denies vehemently.

Encouraged by the “reward”, the Taliban have wowed to continue their struggle with more such kidnappings ransom and possibly more killings as well. Meanwhile the Christian workers say that they went to the Muslim country to spread God’s love and carry out his wishes and their Afghan ordeal had only strengthened their resolve to send more missionaries there. According to some of the hostages they had been tortured for refusing to embrace Islam.

We have a strange situation where the Christian workers went to
Afghanistan to “convert” people there but in the process they were kidnapped and persuaded to embrace Islam instead. Where do all these going to lead – where one religious group is trying to convert another to its own faith, both acting in the name of God?

While both groups claim to be out to do the work of God, it is ironical that, in the final outcome, only money and not goodwill and prayer, could free both of them from their predicament.
As Christians we are asked to evangelise, which was traditionally trying to persuade people to become Christians. This was what the South Korean missionaries tried to do in
Afghanistan.

Today many religions have attained a significant presence all over, even in countries once predominantly Christian. It would be morally wrong and a disaster if we continue to practice evangelization in the traditional way.

In a world plagued with so much hate and violence for fellow humans, we need religion to direct mankind to peace, compassion and love. It is sad that the very religions that were instituted to serve such a noble purpose are being misused for reasons contrary to its aims.

So what should evangelism mean to us today? Evangelism today should be more tailored to share Christ’s love to those in need around us, not convert them by the rituals of our faith. For the true followers of any religion, their faith is not in the rituals that they perform but rather it is God’s love deeply rooted in their hearts and lives. It can never be surrendered by persuasion or force unless they willingly give it up themselves.

As Christians we should first convert ourselves and align our lives in keeping with the teachings of Christ. Instead of trying to convert others to our own religion, it would be a great service to mankind if we can convert them, by our examples, to become better humans in their own faith, as finally all religions lead us to the same God, whom we call by different names.

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