People’s memory often tends to be short especially in today’s hectic Western world. Most probably many have already forgotten what happened in 1989, the year of powerful historical changes. Perhaps even the tragic 9/11 and its epoch-making consequences are already too distant for some minds.
On 5 June, 28 years ago, the events at Beijing’s Cangan in Tiananmen Square were immortalised for posterity by that famous photograph of the short Chinese man who stood alone to block a line of threatening tanks, defying the almighty Chinese Communist machine. This unnamed man became a symbol of whoever wants to move out from the conformist crowd in order to make a difference by one’s constructive action.
Conformism is an insidious virus in every age. It makes people feel comfortable, lost in the crowd and at the same time part of the common scene on life’s stage. Most are rarely disturbed and they seldom create a ripple – better let everything and everybody be: why rock the boat anyway? The wheel of life turns on mightily with or without them. To be a non-conformist is very often painful, and most “prefer the pleasures of illusion” (Aldous Huxley).
History, however, has been blessed by constructive non-conformists who defied the mass illusion and made a positive difference to the world, or at least in their corner of the world. Even if not all of them were conscious of the iron will or strong faith which pushed them to act differently, nonetheless life did not remain the same because of them; it became more colourful and more worth living.
Violent non-conformists were and, unfortunately, are still around, but their action is certainly not in favour of the common good –theirs is mostly an ego trip. True non-conformists act from an internal genuine inspiration of faith in humanity and, very often also in the Creator. Thus they become a powerful source of well being for peoples.
By the judgement of history, Fr Preca is surely one of the latter. He might not have been consciously aiming to act outside set forms and to be different. He definitely wanted to be coherent. He was absolutely not puffed up with self: he often insisted that he wasn’t worth a penny! Yet he came to be described as “the best personality of our nation” during the first 60 years of the 20th century (cf Dr Herbert Ganado, 1906-1979, first vol. Rajt Malta Tinbidel).
On 22 December 1906, in St John’s Co-Cathedral in Valletta, 14 deacons moved forward to be consecrated priests by Bishop Mgr Peter Pace. George Preca was among them. However, even before ordination, he had begun to edge out of the clerical mould. In 1904, a young deacon of 24 years, he knew that he came from a well-to-do middle class family. Yet he consciously decided to move out and meet the poor common folk in the harbour area and on the Church parvis. Among these common people he had the strong sensation that he was indeed “wedded to the Church” which for him was “the people of God” – even though this notion was a bit too modern in 1905.
Fr Preca was convinced that great ventures were not for him: health-wise he was weak. He felt that he had no natural gifts whatsoever. Moreover, it was almost by a miracle that he survived a serious lung malfunction just before ordination in December 1906. But his daily meditative contact with God’s Word moulded him into an attentive reader of the signs and needs of the time. He was led to realise that he had to “consecrate” himself for the people in the ministry of faith instruction. On that ordination day he became aware that consecration imparted to him the strength to be “new oil” for the new century. “For their sake I consecrate myself” (cf Jn 17, 19).
He was totally worthy of his calling: sacerdos! By conforming fully to the essence of his vocation with total self-giving, he became a benevolent non-conformist. In 1907 he started a movement with lay people, which even included women after 1910, dedicated single-mindedly to seeking holiness and for instructing themselves and others in the faith. In 1916 the Church’s Curia decided to thoroughly investigate this Society of laity that was so much far from the norm.
Much out of the mould too, but in a different sense, was and to an extent still is the level of religious instruction in Malta of yesteryear and of today. In spite of all sorts of efforts and initiatives along the years, ignorance is still a devouring contagion. Besides, Malta like the rest of Europe is taken over by “the dictatorship of relativism” – as Pope Benedict XVI calls it. Maltese society is generally alienated by a lot of noise created by broadcasting airwaves whose agenda seems to level down all opinions to a common denominator, whether or not they carry the rigour of study or the respectful listening to truth. We’re experiencing what Alice saw through her looking glass: “Words, words, words signifying nothing”.
The anti virus suggested by Fr Preca is still compelling. More than ever we need the enthusiasm of a formed laity and focused priests who truly believe the Word because they study and meditate it regularly, and who are able “to give it flesh” – to incarnate it by means of coherent communication.
St George Preca believed in the power of the word, and specifically of God’s Word. He delivered it forcefully in the language of the common people who listened. Without knowing it, in his teaching Dun Gorg was heeding Ludwig Wittgenstein’s dictum that “the meaning of a word is its use in the language”. The Dominican Fr Timothy Radcliffe in What is the Point of Being a Christian? emphasises the point that today it’s an integral part of Christian witness to revere words, and to be careful not to cheapen their true meaning in our daily discourse. This reverence is heightened first and foremost if we Maltese go on rediscovering the Sacred Word, for which Fr Preca risked so much in order to render it accessible to all, irrespective of background or schooling.
In line with this prophetic vision, we committed Catholics, laity and priests, must believe more in the power of the word, revealed and spoken. We have to go for substance in what we say and proclaim. Karl Rahner indicates the method: Orthodoxy speaks about our faith in ways that keep open the pilgrimage towards the mystery. Our two Bishops are both rooted in the tradition of fractio and contemplata aliis tradere – that enthusiastic sharing with fellow people of what one contemplates before God in faith. Otherwise the people of God would be fed just wind, and they remain “hungry sheep” looking up, as John Milton laments in his Lycidas (1637). Today, however, they wouldn’t look up – they just move to greener pastures.
George Preca broke many moulds in order to impart solid instruction to all and to empower every one, even the illiterate, to take pleasure in learning. It was in favour of the common citizen – child, youth and adult – that Dun Gorg trusted the laity with learning and teaching theology, Biblical study, and other branches of study including mystical prayer. That was surely very much out of form in the early decades of the 20th century.
His was an inspiring and compelling vision. It still obliges us forward in order not to be intimidated into silence by the conformist crowd. It’s true that our voice is one among many others, and sometimes we may feel like a voice in the desert. But we have to have the conviction that behind our voice there is the power of the only Teacher of humanity who spoke “with authority” and not like the conformist leaders of his time.
Dun Gorg prays that the Church, the fold of all the faithful, remains open to the touch of the Spirit who constantly endows her with the charity of agapè to go against all indifferentism and individualism, with the attitude of humility against all pride and posturing, and above all with the gentleness of meekness against all sorts of arrogance. These attitudes are still indispensable today if the Church, in each one of its members, is to remain “the expert in humanity” helping all peoples to seek truth through the perspective of eternity. Like St George Preca, we are relevant as long as we believe in the power of the veritatis splendor, the splendour of the Truth, which alone sets us free in deed.