One of the first challenges a missioner faces overseas is learning to communicate in a different language. Scripture gives us ample warning that to communicate the love of Christ to all peoples, we must do a lot of “dying” to ourselves. We are “strangers in a strange land” (Exodus 2:22), and in a new place, missioners will make linguistic mistakes and even babble senselessly like babies during those first strenuous years of learning a new language.
Saint John the Baptist modeled the new way for us: for Christ to increase, we — that is, our egos — must decrease. Returned Maryknollers love to share stories of how our fumbling in a foreign language at least gave people a good laugh, if not the profound theological insight intended.
But these little embarrassments turn out to be mini lessons, not just for missioners but for all Christians and even all people. Like it or not, everyone alive will eventually experience the unavoidable limitations and diminishment that are an integral part of life.
Maryknoll Lay Missioner Donna Wienke, though blind, parlayed her handicap into a teaching tool. The cleaning woman at Sogang University in Seoul, where Wienke taught, watched spellbound as Donna read braille with her fingers. Turns out, the cleaning lady’s daughter was also blind. “I never realized blind people could do anything,” the mother confided to the missioner.
Anglican missionary Rev. Michael Lapsley fought for years to overturn apartheid systems in South Africa and Rhodesia. For his efforts he received a letter bomb which exploded, destroying both of his hands and an eye. Afterward, Lapsley concentrated his energies on creating and running the Institute for Healing of Memories in Cape Town. In his book Redeeming the Past (Orbis 2012), Lapsley says, “I think I can be more of a priest with no hands than I ever was with two hands.”
Truth is, every one of us is wounded and handicapped either physically, emotionally or spiritually. We learn, often the hard way, that we are no longer as young and perfect as we once — if ever — were. The older we get, the larger and darker the shadow of the Cross touches our lives.
“Old age is not for sissies,” an adage goes. It’s the one “handicap” that befalls everyone lucky enough to live that long. It manifests itself often in small, maddening ways.
Once accustomed to jogging three miles several times a week, I’m now “lucky” if I can walk to the corner. Ten years ago when I got hearing aids, the technician was surprised at how enthusiastic I was about getting them. “I’ve worn glasses since I was 7, I had a quadruple bypass in 2002 and got a pacemaker a year after that,” I said. You can call me a bionic priest.
Unfortunately, many times the shadow of the Cross does not portend an improvement in the quality of life, but a harsh, albeit subtle limitation. For many, it is hard to accept the loss of freedom, manifested when they are forced to surrender their car keys. For others, the physical changes their bodies undergo can threaten their identities.
Yet here is where we might all have one last mission: to show the world we can live as fully as possible and not be defined by our diminishment, whatever its form. Here we might come to a fuller appreciation of the wisdom of Saint Paul: “I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ” (Colossians 1:24).
Lent prepares us for just such a revelation. The shadow of the Cross may indeed increase and darken every year, but that’s only because the light of the Resurrection radiates more brilliantly with each passing day.
An elderly woman prays fervently during Mass at a Catholic church in Tianjin, China. (OSV News photo/Kim Kyung-Hoon/Reuters/China)
