The Sacraments
(Alfred Kimaryo 11079T)
Sacrament
has been defined generally as a sign of an invisible grace. In the very
beginning sacrament pointed to any reality that pointed beyond it normal
outlook that is it went to the supernatural realm. Later as time passed by it
was reduce to the seven sacraments which we have in the Catholic Church. In the
Sacraments we have the visible and the invisible elements which should always
be held together. According to Augustine in “sacraments one thing is seen the
other is understood”[1].
The Sacraments presents the whole life of Christ especially his passion and
death which brought our salvation. The reception of the Sacraments needs a
proper disposition of the person who receives. To a Muslim the body of Christ
is just a small bread but to me a catholic it is much more than a bread.
Therefore we can say that faith is a requirement for the reception of the
Sacraments. The church has put before us the Sacraments from Jesus himself but
the question is that we need some people to administer them. In the Catholic
Church the priests and Deacons administer the Sacraments with the exceptions.
For instance a Deacon cannot administer the Eucharist or the baptism can be
administered by anybody at the point of death.
Can we say that these sacraments depend on the
moral disposition of the minister? The answer is no because the sacraments are
efficacious in themselves, it is God who communicates his grace to us. This has
brought lots of problems in the church because of the poor understanding. We
know that we are all sinner in one way or the other and the minister are not
exempted. Today many priests us normal human beings are caught up with sins and
people do not see the need to go to them for this sacraments especially the
sacrament of reconciliation. It is not that we are saying they should sin but
people should understand them and help them so that they may celebrate well the
sacrament. However on the other hand it is very difficult to see the meaning of
these sacraments if the only who is celebrating does not adhere to them it does
not render them invalid but it makes it difficult to belief. Today most of the
sacraments have lost meaning people celebrate them as part of their initiation
into Christianity that because they are Christians they have to do. We do not
see the graces that go together with these sacraments.
Relationship of the priest and the lay people
(Alfred Joseph
Kimaryo 11079T)
A priest is a spiritual leader who
always should seek to bring himself and other people to God. In the past the
parish priest seemed to be everything in the parish in a way that the faithful
had very little to do in matters concerning the parish. Today the understanding
is somewhat different though some priests seem not to understand what the
church today advocates for a parish; whilst at the same time some laity believe
they have a greater role to play than is perhaps appropriate. Canon Law sets
out the duties and responsibilities quite clearly; the aim is to have a
community of the people of God under the guidance of the bishop.
In response to
this problem there was a development of the Parish council; this can have its
own problems, as some members of the laity can be on the council for many years
and sometimes develop an attitude that it theirs almost by right. Often the
responsibilities and limitations are not clearly understood. This is to look
only at the negative; in a positive way it brings together the many talents
that are to be found in the parish and enables many to lead their Christian
vocation through service to their community.
The involvement
of the laity varies considerably, not only from one continent to the other, or
from the ‘developing’ world and the ‘developed’. Quite often the involvement of
the laity, especially in remote places, where the parish priest is still
considered as the most educated person who knows everything, is at a low level.
Often this reflects the political, educational and/or social realities of a
country or location. In some cases they have meetings but you find that the
priest dominates in such a way that he has already decided the answers for
everything even before the discussions, which effectively means the imposition
of his will.
The world today
is a very complex place; the priest cannot know everything – buildings, aspects
of liturgy, music, education, social welfare, counselling - he needs the help
of others. Priests should listen to lay people, be understanding of their
wishes as much as possible and recognize their competence and experience in
human field activities – and often their spiritual and other religiuous
insights. (Presbyterorum ordinis [PO] 9).
Priests should feel free to give the laity different duties within the parish
in the service of the Church and even responsibility for projects when it is
possible (PO 9) and so long as it fulfils the requirements of Canon law. I have
come across examples of a situation whereby the faithful from one parish go for
mass in another parish because the priest does not recognize their value or
potential.
However in some cases things have
gone too far, to the extent that the laity (perhaps better, a group of laity)
determines everything that happens in the parish; for example people say that
they want mass to last for one hour and not more than that. In some cases the
priest will do things according to the will of the local faithful – for example
there might be types of liturgy which he does not find particularly helpful but
which the people are keen to have.
A priest should
be for all and especially the poor, as our present Pope Francis emphasizes.
Today some priests are manipulated by a few for personal motivation. It is
quite common in these days that those who are well off will be looked after
more closely than the others and sometimes these people will receive services
that they do not deceive. A good example is in some parishes there have been
some sanctions like not getting church services if you are not married in the
church but when these rich or influential people come they are given the
service because probably they are close to the priest or they support the priest
and the church financially; and so on.
The
collaboration between priest and people is complex; the priest must be open to
all the pastoral needs of his parishioners and the others who live within the
parish or mission limits; ‘the faithful for their part ought to realize that
they have obligations to their priests’. (PO 9.)
We can see that it is important for
priests to think above all of his pastoral responsibilities and to consider how
best to bring the Word to the people; to get advice from different people
before making decisions and to recognize their charismatic gifts, because the
Holy Spirit can use anybody in the community
Tradition and faith
(Alfred Joseph Kimaryo 11079)
Faith is both subjective and objective.
Subjective faith would be the personal faith whereas objective faith is the one
reveled to as through Jesus Christ especially through the Holy Scripture. It
follows that we should take into account the community of faith because of the
subjective faith. This community of faith in the Catholic Church is expressed
in the tradition. This tradition refers to both present situation of faith in
the community and the past. Tradition just in simple words is the hand over. As
Gerald O’Collins put it “Human life is simply unthinkable without the element
of tradition”[1].
In general without tradition no culture and therefore that society or community
will be in chaos because there will not be the guiding principles on how to go
about. Tradition is indeed something significant to the existence and survival
of the church passed on from one generation to the next so as to preserve the
identity and nature. It is through tradition that our life is shaped but today
there is a hostile attitude towards tradition. The church should take tradition
as one of the sources of Revelation because that is how things have been handed
over from the apostolic era. Tradition makes a bond between successive
generations in a given society. The nature of tradition is to keep a culture, a
society, a family, a group or an individual alive to their identity.
Traditions are good to follow but
today we find difficult. I will just take an example of liturgy. We know very
well that our liturgy is well arranged and solemnly but many people today do
not like it because they feel that it is boring. This is the place that the
Pentecostal churches win the Catholics. In the Catholic Church we have restricted
things like dancing, instruments and many other things under the name of
tradition which brings with it lots of challenges.
To conclude we can see that
traditions are very important in the life of the church otherwise if we lose
them then we will not have our identity anymore but yet the church should be
able to integrate traditions and signs of time. It is through this integration
that we can be able to bring life in the church.
Ecumenism
(Alfred Kimaryo 11079T)
Ecumenism is a dialogue between the
Christian denominations for the purpose for bringing them closer to each other.
Before Vatican II the Church had to some extent looked on herself alone and
either ignored other denominations (Christian in particular) or regarded them
with hostility and suspicion. Now we have a different understanding, that we
are all searching for the same God. The fact is that the Catholic Church does
not have a monopoly of truth and therefore sees the possibilities in others for
its development and completion. As the Degree on Ecumenism says (n. 4) “the
church herself finds it more difficult to express in actual life her full
catholicity in all its aspects”. With
the emergence of Protestantism there were further ruptures in the church that
was one, but significant unity is still preserved because we share many
fundamental things in common, such as the Scriptures, some Sacraments, a formal
liturgy, belief in the Trinity and many other elements. It is true that we are
all Christians but there are elements, a number of fundamental importance, that
differentiate churches. Thus we talk of things like valid orders, the
understanding of the Eucharist and so on. When Martin Luther and the other
reformers emerged they did not intend to form another religious body but sought
the reformation of the church. According to them, the church had gone astray,
therefore something had to be done. However, the way it was done and the way
the Church responded led to the divisions we have today; which in turn have
continued to develop as the Protestant or Reformed branches of the Church
continued to fragment. Of course, arguably a far greater split took place
several centuries before Luther, between the Western (Roman) and Eastern
(Orthodox) churches; indeed, developing relations with the Orthodox has in many
cases been regarded as the most urgent - but at the same time the most
difficult in practice, because of its ancient roots of enmity - to achieve.
The debates in the beginning brought
out the Church’s view that these other Christians could not bring salvation to
their members; but today the understanding is different. That is why the
Catholic Church refers to them as separated brethren rather that Protestants,
which has a negative connotation. Due to this kind of understanding today we
can sit and discuss and develop many good elements of the church’s teaching,
such as the great emphasis on scripture, the vernacular liturgy and so on. The
Church has allowed greater communion with various reformed churches in
different areas, such as joint worship though with, inevitably, some
reservations. Practically and in terms of Christian witness, other matters
pertaining to the dignity of the human person, such as campaigns for peace,
justice, feeding the poor and so on have seen joint ventures and mutual
encouragement.[1] In general the Church has
made considerable efforts in being itself closer to our brothers and sisters.
On the other hand the
understanding on the ground level and with some particular churches, usually,
but not always, smaller evangelical churches, sometimes can degenerate to what
seems like unreasoned hatred. There are clear theological divides, but the
attempt has been to made to reduce these and to understand differing
viewpoints. What ecumenism has brought about is conversation rather than
confrontation; and even if some people’s hopes in the years after Vatican
Council II of full communion have never come about – in many cases these were
unrealistic to start with – it is clear that inter Christian relations are on a
much better basis than they were sixty years ago. This does not change the
Church’s most important mission to evangelise; but it does bring people of
Christian goodwill to operate together in as many ways as possible while
respecting diversity, even if that diversity is seen as in some sense flawed –
a view that is shared by all sides in the discussion. The results of this
approach can be seen especially in terms of social action, in the desire for
peace, justice and reconciliation and in working to maintain the centrality of
Christ’s message, often through common prayer meetings and services.
Ecumenism has had many successes
and many disappointments: but it has brought Christians, generally, closer
together and more open with each other and helped to heal the scandal of
division, as well as permitting a common Christian view on matters of great
social and moral importance in various societies.
The Inculturation of the Gospel and
Evangelization of culture
Alfred Kimaryo 11079
The Pope Benedict xvi addresses the
two issues very well in his post-synodal Apostolic exhortation “Africae Munus”.
Inculturation is the adaptation of the Gospel into the different cultures of
the world whereas evangelization refers to the spread of the Christian message
to all the people, that is the Good News. Today Africa in general faces a
problem of dichotomy between the Christian values and the African traditional
values. This has been the practice since the coming of Christianity. The church
is now advocating for discernment of the cultures so that the good elements may
be taken and use them in our Christian life while leaving apart the ones which
are not compatible with Christianity. It is a fact that all the cultures are
not perfect they need to be perfected and this is through Christianity which is
the perfect culture so to say. The Gospel can be inserted in any culture. On
the same note thinking of the inculturation the concept of evangelization
necessarily comes in. Today as we address the issue of inculturation another
problem comes in that is erosion of the cultures especially in Africa.(Cf. AM
36,37,38,92)
The dichotomy exists because the first
missionaries did not consider Africans as religious people. They thought that
the African people did not have any idea of God or creator which was not true.
Every human being has an idea of God or a creator someone who is above the
creation. Since there was a denial today people live a double life. On the
other hand we cannot blame so much the missionaries because that is what they
could do and it was also the understanding of mission in that time. Moreover
coming back to we Africans since then there has not been much efforts in
dealing out with this problem. We are all most content with what we were given.
For instance today we have only two African rites that is the Congolese and Cameroonian
rites which sound African. Up to this time I think we could have done much more
than this. If we look on the Theology we do not have many African writers who
could put the theology in our African context which could help so much in our
understanding of Christianity. Also we have the synods and many other meetings
that have been held in different places and times. They came up with good
resolutions but they have not been implemented fully.
In conclusion I would say that we
still have a long way to go but we need to add more efforts and make people
aware because most of our Christians practice this dichotomy but they are not
aware of the implications. Therefore we need a Christian education which is
connected to our way of life
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