“I’m in love with the people here!”
On this Feast of Corpus Christi (Body and Blood of Christ), these words of Maryknoll Father Mike Bassano draw us deeply into the mystery of the body and blood of Christ that we receive in the Eucharist and the body and blood of Christ that is before us in every living person.
There is a quote from Annie Dillard that touches the heart of Fr. Bassano’s words and the meaning of our coming together as we celebrate the Eucharist. She asks: “Does anyone have the foggiest idea of what sort of power to so blithely invoke?... Or does no one believe a word of it?... Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares; they should lash us to our pews. For the sleeping god may wake someday and take offense or the waking god may draw us out to where we can never return.” (Annie Dillard, Teaching a Stone to Talk. Harper and Row, 1982)
Today we courageously ask: “where is the waking God drawing us?” Perhaps it is to the horrific suffering of the people in South Sudan who live on the margins of life being made vulnerable by civil war, draught, starvation, violence and floods. For Maryknoll Missioners, South Sudan is close to our hearts. Since 1975, South Sudan has been a part of our mission outreach that continues today with Maryknollers partnering with Friends in Solidarity with South Sudan – a new model of ministry and collaboration among women and men religious and laity serving the poor in South Sudan.
Maryknoll Lay Missioner, Gabe Hurrish, in the midst of “where the waking God is drawing us,” writes of one chilling experience: “I was in church the other day, and the priest had the microphone in his hand. He bumped something, and the speaker system let out a loud “pop.” A 10-year-old girl standing in front of me jumped and hit the floor in a split second. She thought it was a rifle shot. Her father slowly lifted her and spoke softly. She stopped trembling after a minute or so.”
It is in and through this “trembling” that Maryknollers stay with the South Sudanese and together endeavor to find paths to reconciliation and peace. In this accompaniment, Fr. Bassano has learned “to be patient, to move with the people, to see what they’re feeling and thinking, and yet to encourage them that as true believers we have to put our divisions aside.”
This is an important message for us on this Feast of Corpus Christi. As the Body of Christ languishes in South Sudan, we are called to work hard to “see as God sees” so that God’s love will be “made visible” in our world. And that is why Annie Dillard cautions that we need to be very intentional in our lives as disciples of Jesus as the “waking God” calls us to action. We are one family of God – may we live our lives in such a way that we witness to this reality.
Sister Nonie Gutzler is a former president of the Maryknoll Sisters.
Photo of Father Bassano, MM, talking with women inside the Protection of Civilians area inside the UN base in Malakal, South Sudan, by Paul Jeffrey courtesy of the Maryknoll Magazine.