Prophets for our age?

The new mass text is, we were told, going to revitalise the Church.  Maybe I saw what that will be like in Medjugorje in September when I was passing by for a few days while travelling in Bosnia. The Church was full to overflowing. We proclaimed our grievous sinfulness – actually, they proclaimed their sinfulness while I remembered first that I was  a Baptised child of God needing to respond to the God who seeks me, and second I needed to acknowledge my sinfulness. By the time I'd thought that through even the repeated declarations of fault  had fortunately passed.  We were looked down on from the sanctuary by 30 male priests dressed in a glow of gold.  The “and with your spirit”s shook the walls, declared with such fervour that I expected the vestments to shine brighter.

A man with a walking stick hobbled half way down the church to where I was standing, propping up a pillar. He wobbled a bit, then stood looking around for a seat. There was none. Nobody moved – too engrossed. I watched for two minutes then asked someone to make space for him. They resentfully squashed up along, rather than anyone standing up to offer a seat. He could at least sit now and smiled his thanks to me.  It then seemed appropriate that the Creed we proclaimed was personal, not communal.

They asked the Lord to enter under our roofs so their souls might be healed; I begged healing for ill friends and wondered about the contrast with Lourdes - there were some there wanting healing, but the compassion of Lourdes was less evident to me, and I wondered if the extent of the priority for those in need had perhaps been demonstrated already.  Yet it is so dangerous to draw conclusions from a little evidence.  The word roof reminded me of the refugees I had met, and the homeless here, for whom I do so little.  The Lord can even speak in this translation.

Afterwards I pondered why, on this feast of St Vincent, there was so little mention of the poor. A prayer after communion spoke of the poor as being the people to whom Vincent had preached the gospel. I wondered which gospel the writers of the prayer had in mind. Not the one that says “whatever you do to the least of these you do to me”, was my reaction.  Where was the call to be the Gospel for the poor, as was Vincent? That is the challenge I need to keep being confronted with.

I wondered if that Mass indicated the future we might have if we respond with passivity to the Curia.  The real prophets for me that day were a few miles away. They were the refugees living in asbestos roofed huts with no facilities; the children whose spirits soared above the surroundings as they played laughing in the street, and their parents who welcomed me with generosity.... the family living in one room, and offering me a drink for I was struggling with the heat. It was over 30 degrees, but 10 cooler than it had been in midsummer.

I wonder how quickly the money from the collections taken at each of the many daily Masses could have housed a family of refugees.  I guessed that a tiny fraction of the money  from the holy places would have housed them all over the last decades. I'd been told, in the pilgrims' information centre, that the camp I had visited was empty. Eyes, but not the camp, are closed. 

There were many people in Medjugorje acting with generosity and warmth – I stayed with some of them in their B&B and had memorable talks with others.  Some were seeking God with all their hearts and so were finding peace there. But for me God was more evident with the refugees than in that Mass which felt too detached from reality and incarnation - a sign of the Church that we risk becoming?