A Thanksgiving Mass for the 91st anniversary of the PL’s foundation was celebrated on Tuesday. In the fully-seated Our Lady of Victories Church at Mellieħa, the auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Tiranë-Durrës in Albania, Mons. George Frendo, delivered an outstanding homily to which practically everyone wholeheartedly applauded at its conclusion. What was special about it?
According to bishop Frendo, the Thanksgiving Mass for the PL’s foundation unravelled two important reflections. First, it showed that prejudices between the Church and the PL could be overcome and both sides can courageously undergo a purification of the memory as well as approaching each other with a genuine smile. Thus, Cardinal Suenens put it: “To smile is to look at others with the eyes of God. A smile is a luminous ray from the face of God.” Second, the Mass was celebrated at a Marian Sanctuary. Mary’s canticle at the house of Zechariah is, in bishop Frendo’s words, “a programme of social justice that has inspired hosts of movements of Christian inspiration that work on behalf of the outcasts, the poor and the victims of injustices”. Mary praised the Lord for “put(ting) down the mighty from their thrones, and exalted those of low degree” (Lk 1, 52).
Furthermore, this message has been highly accentuated by the Lukan Gospel reading of the Good Samaritan. This parable stresses on the pivotal virtue of mercy. Thus Jesus asks to the lawyer: “Which of these three, do you think, proved neighbour to the man who fell among the robbers?” The lawyer replied: “The one who showed mercy on him.”
Jesus retorted impatiently: “Go and do likewise.” (Luke 10, 36-37). Bishop Frendo highlighted the sad reality that the virtue of mercy is seriously being neglected. Contemporary man and woman erroneously think that they are auto-sufficient. The exaggerated emphasis on rights renders mercy and forgiveness impossible to be implored and freely given. Modern forms of legalism are creating an anonymous society. No wonder why Charlie Chaplin, in his film, The Great Dictator, said: “We think too much, but we feel too little.”
Showing mercy to the needy ones is the most eloquent and persuasive mode to make Christ present in this fragmented world. In fact, in his social encyclical which speaks about the integral human development in charity and truth, Caritas in veritate, Pope Benedict XVI states that “testimony to Christ’s charity, through works of justice, peace and development, is part and parcel of evangelisation, because Jesus Christ, who loves us, is concerned with the whole person” (§ 15). Was this not Blessed John Paul’s II view that if we want peace we must work for justice? Did not Jesus tell us to “render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s?” (Luke 20, 25).
On its own, politics is unable to fulfil such a healing ideal. It desperately needs the urgent support of what Francis Fukuyama dubbed as “social virtues”. For the latter, such virtues “make communities liveable” because they are able to create what Robert N. Bellah termed as “moral ecology”. In this intriguing and complex political spectrum, the Church’s insight is absolutely essential. In his social encyclical on the progressive development of peoples, Populorum progressio, Pope Paul VI said that “human society is sorely ill … (because of) the weakening of brotherly ties between individuals and nations” (§ 66). Fortunately, the 91st anniversary of the PL’s foundation Mass showed that such brotherly ties between the Church and the PL are being strengthened. May this fraternal bond extend to every political party in Malta.
■ Fr Mario Attard OFM Cap