Over the course of time modern Catholic life has groped for a way of being church. While society has changed, propelled by modern technology and secularism, some perspectives have been focused on practical and concrete ways of living the reality of church in today’s world.
Despite a wide diversity of cultures and the richness of life’s experiences, the need for unity links everyone with the ongoing conversation with other cultures and the Third World readings of Scripture that reflects attention to some concerns and tensions in the context of moral convictions. Liberation from the heavy foot of Rome has also been seen as a struggle to embark on a different approach as interpreted in time and history.
Voltaire laid down the concept of freedom of speech in a simple sentence: “I hate what you say, but I would die for your right to say it.” It is in this way that we articulate our vision committed to guiding our mission as church of the poor. We see a web of communities whose wondrous gifts and meanings to Christian life speak volumes about a new consciousness that shores up institutions empowered for leadership; a significant shift in our theological foundation and exercise of a healthy secularity.
Just beneath the thin veneer of sadness that encrusts the majority opinion of parishioners in Holy Ghost Church and St. Rocco’s, respectively, Scalabrinian Fathers have worked diligently to bring out the best in their communities with specific ministry to the Italian immigrants. However, like any other religious congregations, the greatest challenge of personnel brings into this context as they struggle to cope with other missionary urgencies. Vocations are down and the aging process gives validity to revisit their original mission and reconsider reduction of pastoral positions.
More than a hundred years ago since the Scalabrinian Fathers arrived in Providence - to assist the influx of Italian immigrants, Holy Ghost Church has been a sacred home to most of them. The church embodied the blend of hospitality and sense of belonging.
The immigrants brought with them their own customs and traditions, cuisine, and their great devotions to saints in countless celebrations. Like the richness of color in Renaissance Italian life, their popular devotions and activities were shared with many other regions present in church. It was a vivid taste of what it meant to worship God as a faith community.
In the late 19th century, Blessed John Baptist Scalabrini, the order’s founder, came to visit his missionaries in Massachusetts and New England region. Holy Ghost Church had the honor to welcome him. He celebrated Mass with them and confirmed a great number of children. Most of them were sons and daughters of Italian immigrants.
At an age when many would let history take care of itself in the same global village where peoples and culture connect, the need to increase our solidarity as lay and ordained ministers has to be given a special weight of importance. It is an opportunity that opens our horizons to discover new faces of Christ. It is an eye-opener for us to trust in God; to trust in his providence especially when someone finds himself at the major crossroads.
Like the world, the Scalabrinian order continues to echo demographic shifts that have changed its face, its missionary focus on a particular culture that used to take care of Italian immigrants. However, in tune with the spirit of the previous chapters, along with vocations coming from other continents such as Asia, Latin America, and Africa, and the challenges in terms of improving their community and ministry, the congregation opened its door to other cultures. It gave an abiding witness to world around them with its vision to risk the future.
Their missionary spirit in the face of unprecedented challenges has drawn them to change their ways of procuring and using their resources of personnel and generated revenue toward the poorest areas in the world of missions. As a world-body in more than 30 countries, their hidden strength of hope is the Beatitudes. On their journey to be transformed as pilgrims on the road to Emmaus, Scripture speaks to them where their hearts constantly burn within themselves.
The road’s end is not in view, so to speak, but it stretches out to the unknown, the unexpected, in the timelessness that is God. Filled with great and ordinary moments where God comes to them and breaks through them in many ways, Scalabrinians across the globe continue to define what it really means to be a missionary (missioner) where the church is already established. Like other missionaries, they are called to have a heart for mission, detached from self-seeking and personal ambitions. With St Paul he says: “I can do all things in him who sends me.” And with St John the Baptist in his remarkable statements we usually read during Advent season: “He must increase; I must decrease.” Hence, we are only the messengers: God and his love is our message to people that we minister.
Rev. Mark Escobar, C.S. is the assistant pastor, St. Bartholomew Church, Providence.
