M.U.S.E.U.M. – Utinam ‘how I wish’

Our Founder, Fr George Preca, had this great desire to make people come to know Jesus. He often remarked that those who sinned, they sinned not because they hated God, but rather because they didn’t have true knowledge of Him. He used to say that unfortunately, God was for many just a big zero i.e. nothing.
    As SDC Members, and as missionaries, our main aim is to make Jesus known to others through catechesis. Obviously, there cannot be any catechesis unless first and foremost the people are not evangelized. One many then ask: where is the starting point of evangelization?
    The stating point of everything in an absolute sense is always God, the Love which efficaciously reveals itself as salvation, justice and reconciliation for people. In another sense, perhaps not less concrete, the starting point is the human experience: divine revelation is never separated from the total experience of man. We cannot separate the full consciousness of Christ as being the beloved Son sent by the Father from the human experience which he had of himself and of the world around him. Every form and pattern of the knowledge of God, especially those expressed in words, are, up to a certain point, conditioned by human experiences.
    If we therefore want our Evangelization to bear fruit, we need to start precisely by knowing the people we are about to evangelize. It stands to reason, therefore, that we cannot speak to people of today without knowing them, without uniting ourselves existentially to their experiences, joys, hopes and sufferings. Jesus the Incarnate Word has always spoken in parables. In the parable the first place is given to the concrete experience known by those who listen to it. But the Lord does not remain closed in the narrow limits of this experience; this experience is only a starting point for much wider and higher horizons.
    Many a times, as SDC Members, we do find it difficult to speak meaningfully to the culture in which we live. This arises both if we are natives to the culture and even more if we are missionaries. An SDC Member can, even without knowing, marginalize himself/herself from the very society one is living in. If I tend to shy and step aside, rendering myself illiterate to the new life styles adopted by those to whom I am supposed to teach, than I shouldn’t be in any way shocked in front of empty class-rooms! A similar difficult task is faced also by the SDC missionary who is trying to come to terms with the new environment s/he found her/himself in, in that particular country s/he is serving as a missionary.
    Thus to be able to formulate and communicate the message of salvation which remains always identical, it is necessary to know human experience in its favourable aspects and also in its dangerous ones. Above all, it is necessary to know well the situation of the people and the community to which we are sent as messengers of salvation. It is not a question of knowing every detail, fact or statistic, nor of knowing every aspect of events or of science; it is a question of scrutinizing and discerning those events, processes and interdependences which have profound repercussions on the whole moral, religious, and social life, in fact on life in all its manifestations.
    This is without doubt a dauntless task. Yet if we are able to listen to those to whom we are ministering, and even if we are able to sit among ourselves and especially through House Chapters we study together, then we may come up with concrete suggestions and plans of actions that render our efforts more fruitful. May we all work together to continue to discern the ‘signs of our times’ and be faithful to our particular call.

Tonio Caruana sdc
Blata l-Bajda - Malta

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