Theme: Living the Faith as Marshallans in a challenging World
The 2014 REGIONAL CONFERENCE OF THE ACCRA WEST REGIONAL COUNCIL OF THE KNIGHTS & LADIES OF MARSHALL.
Guest Speaker: Rev. Fr. Francis Destiny Amenuvor
In the opening lines of Pope Francis’s Apostolic Exhortation, Evangelii Gaudium he writes; ” The joy of the Gospel fills the hearts and lives of all who encounter Jesus. Those who accept his offer of salvation are set free from sin, sorrow, inner emptiness and loneliness”.
The scripture text I have chosen to set the tone for this faith sharing encounter is 1Kings 21:1-21. (Read the passage)
( I have discovered what I call 4 flash points, in this text. We will discuss the first two and in future, when given another platform, we’ll delve into the last two)
” Give me your vineyard to be my vegetable garden”… “Or if you prefer, I’ll give you it’s value in money”…
” The Lord forbid, … that I should give you my ancestral heritage”…
” A fine ruler over Israel you are indeed!, Get up. Eat and be cheerful. I will obtain the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite for you.” …
” The Lord says; After murdering, do you also take possession?…In the place where the dogs licked up the blood of Naboth, the dogs shall lick up your blood too.”
Before I go into discussing these flash points, permit me to take yet another quote from Evangelii Gaudium. In the 2nd Paragraph of the introduction, the Pope writes;
” The great danger in today’s world, pervaded as it is by consumerism, is the desolation and anguish born of a complacent yet covetous heart, the feverish pursuit of frivolous pleasures, and a blunted conscience. Whenever our interior life becomes caught up in its own interests and concerns, there is no longer room for others, no place for the poor. God’s voice is no longer heard, the quiet joy of his love is no longer felt, and the desire to do good fades. This is a very real danger for believers too. Many fall prey to it, and end up resentful, angry and listless. That is no way to live a dignified and fulfilled life; it is not God’s will for us…”
1. Give me your vineyard to be my vegetable garden 1Kgs 21:2
This was said by Ahab to Naboth some thousands of years ago. However I would want us to wake up to the reality that this is the mind set and attitude of many of us living in this 21st Century, such that even toddlers have unconsciously imbibed this traits. ( story of the two toddlers in my Hall of Residence ).
We live in a world as the Pope describes it, that is characterized or better still pervaded as it were by consumerism, and this consumerism has brought in its wake a desolation and anguish that is born of a complacent and covetous heart. In our world, so many of us are covetous; we take or often are planning to take what does not belong to us. Some of us have taken other’s husbands, for some, it is other’s wives or future wives, some, public funds and property, public time(we often don’t get to work at the time we are detailed to be there and leave before the scheduled time. And in-between those hours we are there, we tend to soldiering- wasting those moments chatting or discussing personal affairs) and what is worse, we rob God of the time due Him. Such is the pitiable state of our world. Indeed something we cannot boast about because it is an evil way of living.
The point is that “the haves” are still using their wealth and position to exploit the “have nots”. We who are in this attitude, angrily and with Venom, forcefully demand to take the vineyard of others just to make it our vegetable farms! What a shame! This is undignifying for anyone who calls himself or herself a Marshallan and to be very specific a Catholic Christian. But the point is that it is happening! And at sporadic rates!
In Israel, a vineyard was a commercial property, so for Ahab to say to Naboth I want to take your vineyard and convert it into my vegetable garden meant a disrespect and de-humanization of Naboth. Yes indeed Ahab offered another vineyard in place of what he wanted, and even offered to pay its value in money. But dear friends another vineyard or the money can never commensurate the originality of Naboth’s vineyard, which was his ancestral heritage. That is precisely the evil I would want us to identify. Too many of us are using money to buy the dignity of others, thereby robbing them of their ancestral heritage!
The question now is; will you give away your ancestral heritage?
2. In 1Kgs 21:3, Naboth says; ” The Lord forbid that I should give you my ancestral heritage.”
Dear friends, fellow Marshallans and Catholic Christians, it is very easy to give away your ancestral heritage. But know that it’s very name shows that it existed from antiquity, and you cannot afford to lose it cheaply!
We will be looking at “ecclesio-spiritual” ancestral heritages, “moral” ancestral heritages, “national” and “socio-cultural” ancestral heritages and “Sir James Marshall” ancestral heritages. These are concepts I have created myself.
a. “Ecclesio-spiritual” ancestral heritages:
I am referring to the fact that as Marshallans and for that matter, Catholic Christians, we have ecclesial( meaning church) as well as spiritual ancestral heritages to safeguard. The Church is One, the Church is Holy, the Church is Apostolic and the Church is Catholic. This means that we must preserve the unity, the sanctity, the antiquity and the universality of the Church. It also means that we must do everything possible to preserve the sacrosanct nature of the sacraments and our worship. These include what we do in the official liturgy of the Church( The Holy Mass), and in other para- liturgical assemblies. Some of these para-liturgical assemblies include; sessions of Adoration of the Holy Eucharist, Rosary Prayers, Charismatic Prayer meetings, Devotions ( Sacred Heart, St. Anthony, etc), societal, groups and association meetings and prayers. Worthy of mention is the rich ancestral heritage of common prayers we have as Catholic Christians which unfortunately we hardly take advantage of. I remember that recently I gave a Homily on the theme; ” WE ARE DWELLING ON SPIRITUAL TREASURES, WHICH WE ARE EITHER IGNORANT OF, OR IGNORING “. In that exhortation, I remember saying that as Catholic Christians, we have unimaginable tremendous treasures in our common prayers like the invocatory prayer to St. Anthony, Prayer to St. Michael the Archangel, the Hail Mary and a lot of our Hymns( when we walk with The Lord in the Light of His Word, what a glory He sheds on our way…). But very unfortunately many of us are ignorant of them or know them but are ignoring them as a result of sheer spiritual sloth or a hardened heart that is enjoying fleeting pleasures.
Another worrying concern of Holy Mother, the Catholic Church is the infiltration of some of her sons and daughters into certain “UNCHRISTIAN ASSOCIATIONS”, and or an infiltration of characteristics and practices of such associations into Catholic Christian groups and societies. The Ghana Catholic Bishops Conference ( GCBC) issued a booklet in May 2013, titled: FREEMASONRY AND THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. In the forword to this master piece of a literary work, Most Rev. Joseph Osei- Bonsu, stated in clear and unambiguous language that the “Church forbids her members to join Masonic Associations.” From pages 45-48 of this document, the GCBC, gave ten (10) reasons for the incompatibility of The Catholic Church to Freemasonry. They include the fact that 1. Freemasonry is a religion in its own right; 2. Indifferentism ( teaching that all religions are competitive attempts to express the truth about God and are equally effective in advancing one’s spiritual life); 3. That, their stance that morality is relativistic is un-Christian, we can go on and on but time will not permit us. I will recommend that you find time as courts, councils and individuals to study more carefully the pages of this document.
But the point we are making is that we cannot afford to sell our ecclesio-spiritual heritage for anything!
b. Moral ancestral heritages:
It is an undeniable fact that in our world today, morality has been thrown to the dogs. I will use two verses of scripture to elucidate this point.
In Rom 6:21 scripture says; ” But what profit did you get then from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death.”
And Philippians 3:18-19 says; ” For many, as I have often told you and now tell you even in tears, conduct themselves as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their end is destruction. Their God is their stomach; their glory is their shame. Their minds are occupied with earthly things.”
Friends this is a real challenge to living our faith as Marshallan Catholic Christians. Our world today is faceless, it is shameless! Today we hear of Armed Robbers Association, homosexual unions, prostitutes associations and what have you. We hear of the legalization of abortion, of gay relationships, and I won’t be surprised if pretty soon we hear of the legalization of people walking about naked and that of armed robbery! Friends, it is definitely not an issue to laugh about. It is frightening! But God will save his own. The point we are making here is that too many of us boast of the things we should rather be ashamed of. (Share the joke of the pastor and his catechist).
We must of necessity preserve our moral ancestral heritage. For the verse 20 of Philippians Chapter 3 says; ” But our citizenship is in Heaven, ….” For his word says ” be holy for I The Lord your God I am holy” ( Lev 11:44, 19:2, 20:7 & 1Pet 1:16)
c. By “national” and “socio-cultural” heritages:
I wish to lead us to admit that as a Nation, we can do better in upholding and defending the heritage won for us through blood the toil of our fore-fathers. That which is happening to our economy; that which is happening to our political institutions( partisan politics and chieftancy); that which is happening to the very socio- economic fabric of our beloved country Ghana, which has led to a discussion on the use of the national heritage fund to solve the current economic problems is a clear sign that we must do more if we want to safeguard our national heritage for the sake of posterity. Friends if we don’t wake up from this stupor, posterity will never forgive us. That is to say that, those of us who are misusing and mismanaging public funds must sit up and reconsider our dealings.( I won’t belabor this point because you as well as I know the state of our country’s economy, and we can attest to the fact that its not too good.) Permit me to quote one Nigerian priest I once met in Nigeria on my holiday abroad. He said ; ” our oil boom has become a doom for us!” Why should this be the case if not for the greed, insincerity, selfishness and depravity of some of us Ghanaians, most of whom are Christians!
Again, the socio-cultural heritage that the founders of our nation bequeathed to us has been endangered. Where is the socio-cultural heritage of respect for the elderly and our leaders(both temporary and spiritual); where is the socio-cultural heritage of being one another’s keeper? Friends, like Naboth we must come to that consciousness that The Lord forbids that we give away our socio- cultural heritages!
d. “Sir James Marshall” ancestral heritage:
By this I am referring to this illustrious son of Edinburgh Scotland. Sir James Marshall (1829-1889) was a Scottish Anglican clergyman who converted to Roman Catholicism. He studied law and was called to the bar in 1886. In 1873, he accepted an appointment in the British Colonial Service as Chief Magistrate and Judicial Assessor to the native chiefs in the Gold Coast, now Ghana. In 1879, Sir James Marshall asked the office of the Propagation of the Faith in Rome to provide missionaries for Gold Coast. This resulted in the Society of African Missions sending Frs. Auguste Moreau and Eugene Murat to establish the Catholic Mission in the Gold Coast, at Elmina.
The high point of the history of this illustrious man in Gold Coast for us Catholic Christians was his initiative to have the Catholic Mission established in this country. Friends the “Sir James Marshall” heritage therefore is the zeal we must put into evangelization. Particularly in:
1. Teaching the Catholic Faith( but we must note that nemo dat quod non habeat- no one can give what he does not have). Instead of allowing ourselves to be led by the Holy Spirit to grow in the faith, we rather worry about positions and titles in the faith. We end up in defamation just because leadership is being given to somebody else;
2. In supporting infrastructural and personnel development in our Church. Some of us have built mansions, others are thinking of building magnificent structures to house them for their societal meetings, meanwhile we are losing scores of Catholics to other Churches simply because when they relocate into new localities they do not find structures of Catholic Church.
Let’s look at a scripture from Haggai 1:4, it says ” is it right for you to live in richly paneled houses while my temple is in ruins?” In his sermon, Fr. Boansi asked a question, are we always thinking of ourselves or we are thinking of the broader picture? In other words do we think of the common good? Friends it is time we stop rationalizing! And be open to what God wants for His Church.
3. I believe that this “Sir James Marshall” heritage expands also to providing social support to the less privileged in society and
4. Truly net-working particularly young men and women joining our ranks in the Noble Order as well us within the Church, that they may get good job opportunities once they are qualified. And in some instances assisting some others to create jobs for them so that having had their daily bread they too can have the peace of mind to worship God.
To conclude this faith sharing rapport fellow Marshallan Catholic Christians, I wish to remind all of us once more about those starling words of Pope Francis in the 2nd paragraph to the introduction of Evangelii Gaudium ; ” … Whenever our interior life becomes caught up in its own interests, and concerns, there is no longer room for others, no place for the poor. God’s voice is no longer heard, the quiet joy of his love is no longer felt, and the desire to do good fades…”
And since we do not want our desire to do good to fade away, let us rise up to the challenge of living our faith as Mashallan Catholic Christians. Let us not be like King Ahab taking someone else’s vineyard to use for our vegetable garden and using money to deprive others of their dignity. Let us rather strive to be like Naboth making a conscientious effort to safeguard our FAITH HERITAGE so that the challenges of living our faith in this world may not overwhelm us.
Come Holy Ghost, send down those beams …Come fill our hearts with love, oh Father of all our stock, come fill our hearts with love.