A Lenten Reconciliation for the Syro-Malabar Community

 Hear us, our God, for we are despised. -Neh 4:4

As faithful Christians, we approach the Lenten period in respectful penitence, truly longing for the reconciliation that God seeks from each of us. Our individual challenge is formidable enough, considering that our selfish tendencies hold sway over our decision-making faculties for most part, leaving little space for reflection on God’s Word and His Way.

But now we face a much larger issue. We stand guilty of being an integral part of a community that has sinned against God, as a result of which we have literally lost our way in the desert. The Syro-Malabar community of Catholics in Kerala are in conflict. Unfortunately, the enmity is within its fold, dividing the Church into two warring factions. The issue is about the liturgical mode of offering Holy Mass, and the Ernakulam-Angamaly diocese stands firmly opposed to the Synod decision in this regard.

Divisions such as these are not new within the Catholic community. St John Paul, during his tenure as Pope brought out an Apostolic  Exhortation, entitled Reconciliation and Penance where he specifically pinpoints the source of these divisions as emanating from “a wound in man’s inmost self.” He explains it further as follows, “In the light of faith we call it sin: beginning with original sin, which all of us bear from birth as an inheritance from our first parents, to the sin which each one of us commits when we abuse our own freedom.” Thus the root of community conflict lies within each of its members. These divisions cannot be reconciled unless each individual renews his relationship with God with a sincere change of heart.

As longstanding members of the Syro-Malabar Church, it becomes our responsibility to take the first step to initiate our reconciliation with our Father in Heaven. Sin-Penance -Reconciliation—this spiritual path has not been easy to decipher. Our understanding of penance is usually limited to the few prayers the priest asks us to recite after our confession in church. But if we are truly penitent, we need to take  positive actions  to prevent repetitions in the same line. It could be a resolve to break a habit, or an unholy relationship, or even a decision to pray deeply for spiritual strength to resist evil temptations. The Holy Spirit helps us to humbly acknowledge our sins,  taking us to the final and most important step, namely Reconciliation.

Reconciliation is best explained through Jesus’s words to Nicodemus in John 3-“Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.” This ‘born again’ experience is seen in the most unlikely characters in the Bible. The thief on the Cross who won Paradise in his final moments of life, St Longinus who plunged a lance into the side of the crucified Lord— both of them underwent a change of heart that earned them the highest spiritual reward of eternal life in Christ! While we are unlikely to have similar experiences, our reconciliation must spell out a change from our former way of life to a renewed life in God’s grace.

If we can successfully navigate our personal journey of reconciliation, we are ready to achieve our final goal, namely the reconciliation of our community. A brief comment on the Syro- Malabar Church may be in order at this point.  The Syro-Malabar Catholics in Kerala have flourished in prosperity and heritage over the centuries, and have been generally considered as a cut above their non Syrian  counterparts. Commonly acknowledged as  educated, wealthy, upper class Catholics, they bear allegiance to the Syro- Malabar Church  that is honored and respected, and enjoys high status, power and prosperity. Church leaders are  recognised as great  institution builders and wield a great deal of influence in society. The community has been truly blessed with God’s grace and abundance over the centuries.

Somewhere along the way, our community has stumbled and fallen badly. The vices of the world have impacted our innate faithfulness to God and His Word. We now stand guilty of enmity, disobedience, unforgiveness, coercion, divisive strategies, and, above all, disrespect and desecration of the Holy Eucharist.  St Mary’s Cathedral Basilica , the seat of the Major Eparchy of Ernakulam-Angamaly has not been able to offer Holy Mass within its premises for the past three years. Negotiations between the two conflicting factions have not seen light. Too much has happened within and outside its premises that has been blatantly offensive to the Most High  God who was once worshipped and glorified here. Where do we begin if we have to reconcile with  the Lord as a community?

The Old Testament gives us the history of how God exiled the Jews from their land for seventy years,  for turning to idol worship and licentious living. Our present situation has some similarities, but here our punishment from God  has been a reverse form of exile that has left our community equally desolate and defeated. Three years ago, on Christmas Eve, the proceedings in St Mary’s Basilica reached the ultimate limits of irreverence to Christ the Saviour, even as the entire world was celebrating His birth. The mockery of conducting a relay  Mass by one faction could only be matched with the complete desecration of the Holy Eucharist on the altar by representatives of the opposing faction. Instead of punishing us as He did the Jews, Jesus simply left this corrupted house of worship, and has not returned till date.

The punishment may have been in reverse but its impact has devastated the whole Syro-Malabar community. We have applied every management principle in the book  to negotiate a truce and bring the Basilica back to life. But all to no avail. It is now time to go and seek a solution from our Lord and His Word. No solution is possible without a sincere reconciliation from the community. We can take a cue from the Jews who humbled themselves in penitence and reconciled with the God of their fathers, after their return to Jerusalem from exile. Nehemiah and Ezra led the community to make their peace with God, to repent of their sins and to bring the Word of God to the centre of their lives again.

“On the twenty-fourth day of the same month, the Israelites gathered together, fasting and wearing sackcloth and putting dust on their heads. Those of Israelite descent had separated themselves from all foreigners. They stood in their places and confessed their sins and the sins of their ancestors. They stood where they were and read from the Book of the Law of the Lord their God for a quarter of the day, and spent another quarter in confession and in worshiping the Lord their God”-Neh 9:1-3

Fasting and prayer was part of their penitence. The action of keeping themselves away from foreigners was a positive effort to keep themselves away from idol worship under the influence of their foreign connections. They spent their day reading from God’s Word, and confession and praise and worship.

We are in the season of Lent— a season already set aside for fasting and prayer. This would be the best time to approach God in confession and penitence, to pray that God’s Will may be done as we pray for our spiritually broken community and our dysfunctional Church. May the Lord pour forth His abundant mercy and grace on us as we meaningfully take up the task of rebuilding  worship and sacrifice  at the Holy Altar of St Mary’s Basilica.