Conversion of St. Paul: CM Foundation
It’s 2,010!
What do we feel – as a small group of middle-aged missioners – as we walk into a new decade?
“Soon, and very soon…” so begins the spiritual hymn, putting in a few words how central to our lives of faith is the experience of hope, of anticipation of the Lord’s "putting right" all of creation. Better known as our Christian faith, this one dream is a "keeper."
Yes, surely we have all had our own dreams. As years roll by some of them sort of just dissipate -- perhaps they weren’t all that worth pining for after all -- while others are fulfilled and soon forgotten, and still others we gradually outgrow. But this big dream is ours to nurture and share; it stays with us, never fully realized yet central to how we live. Despite that it is beyond our personal, human control it seems always to be the backdrop to our lives, like it or not. Eventually we "faithful" dreamers find ourselves walking the thin line between cynical disillusion (hollowed out with nothing left to do but to blame -- someone!) and hard-won maturity (unreasonably hopeful, generous and compassionate).
So, which is it, then, as we enter a new decade after ten years which many would just as soon forget? Do we see grace at work, not despite us but in and through us? Or do we shudder at the prospect of losing more battles with poverty that seems only to deepen and broaden, or in the face of the hardening battle-lines in our societies or even in our faith communities? Or is it a bit of both?
It seems to me that we CM misioners might dread facing our shadows less if we were able to appreciate just how dark our own foundations were. One could even say that the best of us always has been born out of that darkness.
The Church? At first Jesus’ resurrection touched only a handful– they attracted a few more, and they many others – but those early followers of Jesus’ “Way” were soon routed out of their synagogues, hounded and persecuted as if a pestilence on God-fearing, Mosaic-law abiding society. Saul was one zealous leader of the clean-up crew until he was struck down. The “incident” that transformed Saul of Tarsus into Paul – the church’s most famous evangelizer; it also made the church truly outward-looking, missionary, cross-cultural, and universal.
The "little company?" One view of 16th and 17th century European society, especially France, favored by a least a few historians, is that it was a world so desperately poor (especially in the country) and so divided and torn by conflict as to be corporately “soul-less.” Most certainly this was a dark time! Yet it was also the “right time” for Vincent de Paul, his associates, lay collaborators – all relying on grace and Providence – to usher in an era of hope, light, compassion and organization.
As you and I head toward San Antonio to gather with our confreres from the West and the Midwest, there to begin to face real challenges of a larger area and limited human resources, I pray that we bring with us the kind of expectant, perceptive faith that our Christian ancestors and our father, Vincent put to good use. For that, after all, there is no better time than now!
