| Letters of Aquila and Priscilla |
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Never will the powers of (Mt 16:18) |
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During my recent trip to Hanoi to attend an ASEAN meeting, I found that I had some free time one morning. Since the organizers had assigned me a car and a security officer, I decided to go and visit the Catholic cathedral. It was about a half-hour ride from the hotel where the meeting was being held. When we reached the cathedral we found that the doors were closed. My security officer asked around and finally we were led to a small door near the back of the cathedral. As we went in, we saw that the cathedral was empty except for three fragile- and austere-looking old ladies and a young man who were chanting prayers, which I could not understand. I told my security officer that I wanted to stay for a while. He then motioned that he would just wait outside in the car. And so I sat there, just a few meters from the group of chanters who paid no notice of me. I always enjoy sitting alone inside a big church. Although the cathedral in Hanoi is not very large, it has numerous beautiful icons and images that date back to French colonial times. Moments such as this remind me of the passage in Psalm 27:4: One thing I ask of the Lord; this I seek: To dwell in the Lord’s house all the days of my life, to gaze on the Lord’s beauty, to visit his temple. While reflecting inside the cathedral, I thought of how difficult it must have been for the Catholic community to live in communist Vietnam. One cannot help but marvel at the fact that despite the communist regime and the two wars, first with the French then with the Americans, the Catholic Church survived in Hanoi, the present capital and the capital of communist North Vietnam during the war. Conditions have, of course, changed. There is now a much improved religious freedom since Vietnam has already opened up to the rest of the world, has adopted a market economy and has in fact become a member of ASEAN. In his book Sketches for a Portrait of Vietnamese Culture, noted Vietnamese writer and journalist Huu Ngoc wrote that: Catholicism has rather painful history in Vietnam perhaps because of its “original sin.” Europe’s colonial expansion and the “discovery” of new lands in Asia in the 16th century helped a great deal to extend Christ’s Kingdom. Unfortunately, evangelization was often heavily involved in colonial enterprise. The Dominicans and Franciscans began to arrive in Vietnam in the 16th and early 17th century. But it was the Jesuits who succeeded in forming a core of some 30,000 converts in 1650. In 1627 one French missionary, Alexandre de Rhodes, arrived in Ba Lang, a village in Thanh Hoa province. One day as he was preaching the Word of God to villagers, who gathered at the beach to watch his boat, the French missionary saw Lord Trinh Trang passing by. He came to meet the ruler and presented him with a watch and a book on mathematics. He was allowed to preach and, in just two months, he made 200 converts. The new faith, however, was in conflict with native beliefs and customs. It prohibited the worship of ancestors, the consumption of votive offerings and the practice of polygamy. In this way Catholicism failed to become an integral part of the Vietnamese social organism, contrary to the case of Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism. That was why it was banned again and again. I also recall the time when I visited Beijing several years ago as an official of the United Nations. I wanted to attend the Sunday Mass and after persistent inquiries from various sources, I was finally directed to a small Catholic church. Attending the Mass at that church was like being transported back into the past. The Mass was said in Latin. The priest wore old-style vestments and celebrated the Mass with his back to the congregation. It was exactly how I remember the Mass being celebrated when I was a young boy in the province. Again, the thought that I had then was to marvel at how the Catholic faith had survived in the midst of very difficult circumstances. In his 500-page book, A Concise History of the Catholic Church, Thomas Bokenkotter divides the history of the church into five parts: AD 30-600: The Church Triumphs Over Paganism; AD 600-1300: The Making of Christendom; AD 1300-1650: The Unmaking of Christendom; AD 1650-1891: The Church in the State of Siege; and AD 1891-1990s: The State of Siege is Slowly Lifted. The book concludes with a chapter on The Bark of Peter in Stormy Seas, which opens with the following sentence: Many storms have crashed around the Church in its long history and threatened to overwhelm and destroy it. But the Catholic Church has survived for nearly 2,000 years! Jesus’ words in Matthew 16:18 are indeed true: And I say to you: You are Peter and upon this rock I will build my Church; and never will the powers of death overcome it. And the prophecy in Psalm 22:32 continues to be fulfilled: The generation to come will be told of the Lord, that they may proclaim to a people yet unborn the deliverance you have brought. Today, the Catholic Church has not only survived but is undergoing a tremendous renewal, particularly in terms of the active participation of the laity. Couples for Christ is at the forefront of this renewal. I need not cite the rapid growth in the worldwide membership of Couples for Christ – a growth that cannot be attributed to human effort alone. The Holy Spirit must be working very powerfully, using ordinary men and women, in CFC’s work of evangelization. But the best proof that CFC is God’s work is the internal transformation that happens in each and every member. And this is something you can testify to, yourself! My brothers and sisters, look at yourself! Reflect for a moment on what has happened to you, the changes that have slowly occurred in yourself, in your life and in your family. What prompted Bro Jojo to volunteer to go on mission to far-away Flores? And now Bro Renne has also volunteered to go to Flores to give two Covenant Orientation talks! What makes Ric/Tess, Damus/Elvie, Gerry/Karen, Bert/Fe, Roby/Rita and others to take care of the kids of the CLP participants and service team members Sunday after Sunday? They miss out on the talks, they miss out on the fellowship, but they devotedly do the work assigned to them. Why? Perhaps, more appropriately, how? How are they able to do this? The only reasonable answer is that the Lord must have touched and is continuously touching their hearts. The Holy Spirit must be working in them very powerfully. And we can only pray that in return for this dedicated service, the Lord will open the floodgates of heaven and pour on them blessings upon blessings. Those who serve in Kids for Christ and those who volunteer to go on mission to distant places in Indonesia have a very special place in my heart – and I am sure, in the heart of our Lord Jesus. During my personal prayer time, I always pray for them and ask the Lord to pour out His blessings on them. I should like to ask all brothers and sisters to do likewise. It is because of men and women such as them that the Church endures. They are the “rock” on which the Lord builds the church. Because of the special grace that God has given them, the power of death will never overcome the Church. |