THE ROASTED AND SHARED PASSOVER LAMB

 

 

Christ, the Passover Lamb, clothed in humanity that is capable of suffering, sacrificed himself for the  suffering people of God.  He triumphed over the diseases of soul and body. He dealt with a fatal blow the man’s destroyer, death. He was led like a lamb; slaughtered like a sheep. He ransomed humanity from servitude to the world; freed us from slavery; from darkness to light. He sealed human souls with his Spirit and blood.  He covered death with shame. He smote sin and robbed iniquity of offspring. He chose humanity to be his own forever.

Saint Melito of Sardis writes: “In Abel he was slain, in Isaac bound, in Jacob exiled, in Joseph sold, in Moses exposed to die. He was sacrificed in the Passover lamb, persecuted in David, dishonored in the prophets.” He was a man who was made to hang on the tree; was buried in the earth, and raised from the dead. The mute lamb, the slain lamb, the lamb of God was seized from the flock, dragged off to be slaughtered, sacrificed in the late afternoon, died in the early evening, and buried at night. But no bone of his was broken; his body knew no decay. He is alive and active now in the world.

Jesus’ disciples prepare a Passover supper with the eating of a lamb, sacrificed in remembrance of the lambs of the original Passover, whose blood had been smeared on the doorposts. In Exodus 12:1-8 we read: “If a family is too small for a whole lamb, it shall join the nearest household in procuring one and shall share in the lamb in proportion to the number of persons who partake of it; according to what each can eat you shall make your count for the lamb[…]That same night they shall eat its roasted flesh with unleavened bread and bitter herbs.”

Through this Passover meal, Jesus affirms John the Baptist’s prophecy that he would be the unblemished Lamb of God, to be sacrificed. This sacrifice, made present at every Eucharist for our sake only, because God does not need  it. “We participate in the act by which divinity and humanity are reconciled”, when we eat his body and drink the blood of the Lamb. 

But we, like Judas at the Last Supper, fail to see the sacrificial Lamb. We get busy in ‘doing what we plan to do’ – betray Jesus. Human history proves that God is often opposed by stubborn people, preferring sin to sanctity, evil to good. Being in intimacy with Jesus, is no guarantee of  one’s faithfulness in fellowship — the sanctity of the  Last Supper is destroyed by a friend’s betrayal, preferring darkness to light (truth), money to service, a hateful kiss to love. In fact, Judas asks in exchange,  “What are you willing to give me?”(Mt 26:15). It is the same Judas, in order to hide his betraying action, over-confidently self-affirms, “Surely it is not I, Rabbi?” Most of us act and behave that way.

The Prophetic Servant, the gentle Lamb  is called, commissioned and disciplined by God, into a well-trained tongue in order to  communicate  the word loud and clear, to all the nations (John 17:8). This gentle Lamb lies low, beaten and scourged, face struck and spat upon, yet obedient to God’s plan and not disgraced, because Jesus knows God will vindicate him.  We too are disciplined by God through our suffering, and  infidelity so that we may fully embrace his love. At the same Supper, Jesus washes the disciples’ feet –a visual demonstration of the new commandment: “Love one another,” through loving charity.

How can we console Jesus with our own compassion and solidarity as he hangs upon the cross? The answer is: through the very lives we live today. To relieve the loneliness and ease others’ suffering and pain, we need to go beyond being near Jesus and his Cross. We must tend to him in others by carrying ‘our own crosses’. We must recognize the present grewsome realities in the world, in our country and in our own neighborhood, and offer acts of mercy and solidarity, being  moved by love. Christians in the local communities can support the social works done by the local agencies, clubs, association, etc.  irrespective of creed, caste and colour.

 

Foreign donations have helped the Churches in various ways to expand its infrastructures and works of charity through the development and sponsorship projects. Christians groups, dioceses and parishes, spend crores on building magnificent churches. It’s time shift radically and attend fully to building the human beings, the temples of the Holy Spirit. People will experience Jesus only by following him on the way to the Cross, to save humanity through loving service.

On Holy Thursday and Good Friday, we are invited not just to ritually wash the feet of twelve persons, perform the passion narrative and kiss the crucifix; instead go out to the periphery and serve the needy, through voluntary service. This is the challenge for all Christians – doing the will of the Father, as Jesus did.  We have miles to go, in order to support and cooperate with all those who work for the common good. As we face a tough time to witness to Jesus dying on the Cross for the salvation of humanity, we need to act to unite people, and work for Peace and Justice.

How can I serve those in need in the coming days?

Let this be our prayer: “Lord Jesus, it is so mysterious to see how people rejected you, your message of merciful love, and your mighty works. You were the innocent one who went about doing good, healing the sick, casting out demons, and feeding the hungry, and yet you were condemned and crucified by your people. Help me to embrace suffering and persecution for the sake of your name.”

 

FIRST SUNDAY OF LENT CELEBRATION AT BANDEL SHRINE

 

 

Popular Devotion VS Sentimental Pietism

         Hundreds of families irrespective of creed, caste and colour, fulfilled their pilgrim-promises to Our Lady of Happy Voyage at Bandel Basilica, a Shrine dedicated to the Queen of the Holy Rosary, to pray that their families encounter a similar rediscovery of our Lord who encounters his Mother, on his way to the Calvary. Devout faithful flocked in the Church for the morning Masses in Hindi, Bengali and English, with the observance of First Sunday of Lent (26^th Feb 2023), listening to the Lenten Message of the Pope during the homily.  Some families waited three years to come here to pray to God through the intercession of Mary.

        On this first Sunday of Lent, many families visit this shrine, especially for the ‘community expression’ (religiosity) of the Way of the Cross, with the memorable event of Jesus meeting his Mother while carrying the Cross to Calvary – an emotional meeting of the devotees with the suffering Son, Jesus. Such devotional religiosity revealed a ‘spirituality of the senses’, as part of ‘bhakti’, practices and popular piety.  However much of its moment of meeting missed out this year, this ritualistic practice has many personal and family-related expectations tied to it, which they believe to be realized by the grace of Jesus through Mary.  This Annual observance of the meeting of Jesus with his Mother at the annual Lenten Way of the Cross held at 2 p.m., started many years ago, is a special moment of grace for many. The atmosphere with such devotional-ritual practices, under the supervision of nearly 150 volunteers from the local parish, popularized the people’s ‘pilgrimage’ to Bandel. Many such annual pilgrimages were made by the devoted families in the subsequent years with lots of faith and devotion.

       Besides, many devotees believe that the miraculous statue of Our Lady of Bandel at this sacred location motivates them to come to this religious shrine to thank her for health-healing and intercessions. The pilgrimage by all sort of people is more than a devotional moment. People from all walks of life stood in the hot afternoon sun and felt one with Jesus making his way to Calvary, ready to walk the extra mile along with the rest of the pilgrims, listening to the short Marian reflections given by Fr. Moloy D'Costa of Kolkata Archdiocese and Fr Sebastian SJ, in Bengali and English alternatively, and praying. These pilgrims return with graces, blessings, peace and fulfilment, with the assurance that God, through the intercession of Mary, is going to take care of them all.  

       The “pilgrim families” coming mostly from the various surrounding parishes — many of them from Basanti, Khari, Morapai, Canning, etc. of Baruipur diocese,— thank God through Mary for shaping them as Christian families. Certainly, they go back, promising to imitate the Holy Family, in being families on pilgrimage along with neighbours and companions on the way. They come with a reason and purpose with a social centering. Literally, they run to touch Jesus (statue) for healing of self or their children. They’re not just a random group of families, wandering around in the campus and inside the Church. Though, some of their social behaviours expressed, do not often fit the expectations from a pilgrim people! Noisy movement, distracted devotions, smartphone-photo/video mania, are just a few of the major distractions that can strain families from being fulfilled through such pilgrimage. Nevertheless, coming together of parents, children and relatives, effect positively their relationship with each other and influence even their understanding of faith in God through simple devotional practices. The pilgrimage made as a family often makes them feel that life and relationships fall short of God’s expectation. People go back with the ideal worth working for, and struggling towards a life of peace and prosperity. Sometimes reconciliation and healing do happen here. Persons change, circumstances improve, and they work their way through difficult times with prayer through Mary.

        The Portuguese Church established in 1599 by the Augustinian monks has been under the care of the Salesians of Don Bosco since 1928. Today there are more than 4,000 Catholics in the parish with two communities of Salesians and four women religious congregations catering to the education of some 5,000 students both with English and Bengali medium education.

         An afterthought: As rational and irrational creatures we express our beliefs, going beyond the basics to meet personal need!  Faithful tries to ‘transmit’ faith through intercessions.  As tools they can only help experience religious expressions. Faith is a personal adherence and witness to the person of Jesus - a pure worship with the hope of no reward. What is needed most is being with God, and not chasing after some ‘miracles’.

       Within a belief system, we tend to speak in emotive sentimental terms. Contrary to popular devotions as expressed on this First Sunday of Lent here at Bandel, hyper-emotional “popular pietism” (sentimental) of many can become superstitious practices. Faith cannot be ‘transmitted’, but witnessed. Some of the religious expressions are designed to disguise psychological and physical realities. Such shadowed expressions are promoted at the cost of conscience. It reduces Catholic faith and morals to pious sentimentalities.

       Using two central Christian faith-events, – the Cross and Resurrection – it is easy to manipulate human emotions. An emotional “faith” expressed out of sentimental pietism, can be extremely dangerous. It affects one’s moral and religious growth. Sacrificial love on the Cross and the joy of resurrection are a balance of devotional and intellectual life by witnessing to Jesus Christ who died on the Cross and rose.  Unbridled human emotion, without critical questioning, begins to drive the faithful away from the creation – the real world. God does not want that people trample upon God’s truth in the name of ritual worship! Besides, detached from context, culture and reason, the sentimental faith-expressions becomes ill-educated, arrogant, and vicious. Certainly, we were reminded by the announcer of the war between Russia and Ukraine, the natural and earthquake calamities in Syria and Turkey, the fight between Israel and Palestine, the persecution of the minorities, etc.   God says, ‘learn to do good, be just, redress the wrong and defend the poor’ (cf. Is 1:10-17). Jesus speaks straight, “whoever does not take up his cross and follow after me is not worthy of me” (Mt 10:38).

      There are Christians by conviction, devout Christians and Christians by instinct, wherein religion, culture, customs, rituals and identity are all rolled into one. A Christian priest with the clerical dress donned, a Catholic nun in her garb, a Marian Shrine with lots of rituals, rites, folklore and other external devotional practices keep people’s passions festering. They are a part of “collective memory” of Christian belief system. Besides, the ingrained social and cultural customs of the community sustain the traditional sensibilities of people of the place. Till date, as human beings, we fail when we are not ready to eat, drink, worship and pray through popular devotions with one who is religiously different from us and one who is in need. The convivial moments through a devotional practices especially in this public Marian pilgrim centre, as on First Sunday of Lent, are occasions of building up the harmony needed to live in unity. 

 

 

Shrines: Place of Prayer, Mercy and Hospitality

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People  must have wondered why hundreds of men and women, young and old visit the Basilica of the Holy Rosary at Bandel or other shrines in India. Many do so in order to fulfil a vow made in the past, others come to pray, still others to see. The sacred promise to go on a pilgrimage to the Basilica is a way of telling God how desperate, how earnest they are in praying for protection and good life. How well do the shrines come to help in the daily journey of Christians? In them one expresses with simplicity one’s faith, which is enriched by many initiatives: retreats, courses, ritual offerings, moments of prayers and recollection etc. that lead them, in turn, to a lived charity. For this reason it is important that pilgrims, arriving at a shrine, feel at home and can pray in silence before the Lord and experience God's mercy in the confessional.

Shrines and New Evangelization

"The Shrine doors open for new evangelization": this was the theme of the International Conference for Rectors of Sanctuaries (27-29 Nov 2018) held in Rome in the presence of about 600 rectors of shrines from all over the world, including Loreto, Fatima, Lourdes, Guadalupe, etc. With the apostolic letter of Pope Francis, Sanctuary in Ecclesia, Pope Francis transferred the powers related to the shrines directly to the Pontifical Council for the promotion of the new evangelization, highlighting the missionary dimension of the Church.

As a testimony of charity the Shrines are asked to keep “popular piety” (changed from ‘popular religiosity’, cf. EN 48) alive which “is the immune system of the Church” as one speaker held. (Cf. Gianantonio, Santuari: preghiera, misericordia, cordialità, in “ La Madonna di Castelmonte”, Feb 2019, n.2, p. 12.). Welcoming attitude is, in the first place, the important mindset reserved for pilgrims. We know that more and more often our shrines are not welcoming places. Hospitality is important for the Church's journey and for the pastoral ministry of shrines: pedagogy of evangelization, proclamation of faith, silent guardian of faith, and of mystery and beauty. The Marian shrines should respond well to the Church’s directions and suggestions. In the daily journey that the Church takes, the shrines become the places where our people most willingly gather to express their faith in simplicity and in accordance with the various traditions, practices, religious rituals and cultural expressions of the place and people. They are moments of faith, witnessing the same love and live the same hope. Many shrines have arisen precisely because of the request for prayer that the Virgin Mary has addressed to the visionary, so that the Church may never forget the words of the Lord Jesus to pray without ceasing (Lk 18:1) and to remain vigilant while waiting for his return (cf. Mk 14:28).

Silence for the Sacred

In addition, shrines are called to facilitate the individual pilgrim’s prayer in the silence of his/her heart. With the words of the heart, with silence, with his formulas learned from memory as a child, with his gestures of piety, each one must be helped to express his/her personal prayer. There are many who come to the shrine because they need to receive a grace and then return to thank for having received it, often for having received strength and peace in the trial. This prayer makes the shrines fertile places, because of the piety of the pilgrims or autonomous groups, who set out on a journey to reach these holy places. It is sad when it happens that, upon their arrival, there is no one to give them a word of welcome and to welcome them as pilgrims who have often made a long journey to reach the shrine. And worse still, is when they find the door closed! And priests are not available.  We cannot give more attention to material and financial needs, forgetting that the most important subjects of pilgrimage are the pilgrims. They're the ones who matter. More than food and lodging, each one of them must be made to feel ‘at home’, as if a long-awaited family member finally has arrived. It must also be considered that many people visit the shrine because it is a local tradition; sometimes the works of art attract the people, or because it is located in a natural environment of great beauty.

Place of Prayer

The shrine is above all a place of prayer. Most of our shrines are dedicated to Marian piety. Here, the Virgin Mary opens the arms of her maternal love to listen to everyone's prayer and intercede. The feelings of every pilgrim felt in the deepest of his/her heart are those experiences that are felt by Mary. Here she smiles, giving consolation; she sheds tears with those who cry. She presents to each the Son of God in her arms as the most precious possession that every mother possesses. Mary makes herself a companion of every person who raises his/her eyes to her, asking for a grace, certain to be fulfilled. The Virgin responds with sensitivity to all with the intensity of her gaze, which the artists have figured on her face. For the pilgrims the Virgin Mary is alive in the miraculous statue. She guides her devotees to contemplation and encourages them to Church prayers and sacraments. Shrines would do well to encourage the pilgrims to pray the prayers of Church (Lauds, offices, vespers, etc.); that they always be nourished and grow in the knowledge of God's love.

Experience of Mercy

No one in our shrines should feel like a stranger, especially when one comes to meet a priest with the weight of sin. The sanctuary is a privileged place to experience mercy that knows no boundaries. This is one of the reasons that led to designate the "Door of Mercy" (main entrance) even in the shrines during the extraordinary jubilee year of Mercy. In fact, mercy, when it is lived, becomes a form of real evangelization, because it transforms those who receive mercy into witnesses of mercy. First, the sacrament of reconciliation, which is so often celebrated in shrines, needs well-formed priests, holy, merciful and capable of making true encounter with the Lord who forgives.

Finally, the works of mercy are to be lived in a particular way in shrines, because in them generosity and charity are carried out in a natural and spontaneous way as acts of obedience and love to the Lord Jesus and the Virgin Mary. This is a great pastoral responsibility that has been entrusted to the priests – the ‘care-takers’ of the Shrines. According to Pope Francis, the shrine is a place of the pilgrim's encounter not only with God, but also of the encounter of pastors with their people. The Lord goes to the shrine to meet his people which is so essential, to go out to meet his people, to understand the people of God, without prejudice (cf. Liturgy of 2nd February); the people endowed with that ‘sense’ of faith (sensus fidei, LG 12).  This meeting is essential.

Popular Piety and Rituals

Here we touch on an aspect of evangelization that cannot leave us insensitive. We want to talk about that reality which is often referred to today as ‘popular religiosity’. Both in the regions where the Church has been implanted for centuries and where it is in the way of being implanted, there are special expressions of the search for God and faith among the people. For a long time this was considered less pure, sometimes despised. Today, these same expressions form everywhere the object of a rediscovery. The bishops had deepened its significance during the synod (1974), with the theme: "Evangelization in the modern world", with remarkable pastoral realism and zeal. Popular religiosity, certainly has its limits.

Every religion has its own rituals that serve us in many ways e.g. grace before meals, various prayers said at different times of the day, etc.  They add meaning and joy to our routine activities. Pilgrimage to the shrine as an expression of popular piety with certain rituals boost the participants’ spirit. For example, rituals that students (getting our parents’ blessing before exams), sportsmen (while entering the field) resort to, give us strength when they face situations that are beyond their control. It improves their confidence and focus. A community pilgrimage to the Shrines gives a sense of belonging and solidarity. The various rituals performed at the shrine hold person strong, keep steady, and help praying regularly even when not felt like praying. Many socio-religious rituals hold people in love, affection, graciousness, civility, and good manners. They too sustain love, marriage, family, friendship, neighbourliness and our relationships beyond feelings. Therefore, we need to understand the power of popular piety, pilgrimages and meaningful rituals.

On a cautious note, popular religiosity with various ritualistic expressions often leads to many deformations of religion, many superstitions. It often remains at the level of cult manifestations, without committing a genuine adherence to faith. It can also lead to the formation of sects, and endanger the true Church community. The apostolic exhortation, Evangelii nuntiandi, issued by Pope Paul VI states:

“But if it is well oriented, above all by a pedagogy of evangelization, it is rich in values. It manifests a thirst for God which only the simple and poor can know. It makes people capable of generosity and sacrifice even to the point of heroism, when it is a question of manifesting belief. It involves an acute awareness of profound attributes of God: fatherhood, providence, loving and constant presence. It engenders interior attitudes rarely observed to the same degree elsewhere: patience, the sense of the cross in daily life, detachment, openness to others, devotion. By reason of these aspects, we readily call it "popular piety," that is, religion of the people, rather than religiosity. Pastoral charity must dictate to all those whom the Lord has placed as leaders of the ecclesial communities the proper attitude in regard to this reality, which is at the same time so rich and so vulnerable. Above all one must be sensitive to it, know how to perceive its interior dimensions and undeniable values, be ready to help it to overcome its risks of deviation. When it is well oriented, this popular religiosity call be more and more for multitudes of our people a true encounter with God in Jesus Christ” (EN 48).