Statistics are mesmerising. For example, there is a fascination bordering on obsession if you watch American sports like baseball and football. St Francis Xavier provides a useful illustration of how captivating the statistics can be. For example, he ranked second to St Paul as his missionary expeditions carried him across a wide swathe of Asia. In this part of the world, he laboured for about 10 years and converted about 3 million souls to Christ.What has this obsession with statistics to do with our Triduum?
It provides a clue to the working of a modern mind. In fact, as a science of numbers, statistical science is relatively young. It emerged with the rise of the modern nation-states which at their initial founding discovered a need for demographic or economic figures to base their planning on. In fact, both “statistics” and “states” share the same root-word. Useful as it may be for good governance, distorted statistics has also served the purposes of many despotic regimes. [But, that is not our concern here].
In general, we gauge the efficiency of our enterprises, projects and ventures by the numbers they generate. Profit is a number that reveals the viability of a business. The case of St Francis Xavier, a missionary who converts 3 million over a period of 10 years, presents a staggering statistic that we know may never be repeated. However, a pertinent question to ask is if he was efficacious. What was the quality of the conversions he made?
Perhaps you know what I am getting at. We measure efficiency by numbers. The Catholic Church counts more than 1 billion believers but statistics alone is not enough for it often does not disclose the full picture. On the one hand, we may be proud that Catholics form the biggest religion in the world. On the other hand, poor catechesis has resulted in many also leaving the Church for Evangelical and Pentecostal sects in Philippines and Latin America. Likewise in local terms, this parish has the highest number of baptisms in the Archdiocese if not the country. But, what about those who have departed, disappointed or disgruntled?
Thus, a better but difficult measure is denoted by efficacy. It is a qualitative measure that directs our attention to how the Jubilee can be celebrated. In our apostolic planning, we need to consider if our endeavours are both efficient and efficacious. Efficiency focuses on the ease, the speed or the convenience with which an objective can be met. Efficacious asks if what we do has achieved the desired result.
Written within the DNA of this parish is a philosophy which ties in with how we can celebrate Jubilee. It is called excellence. [1] As a quality, excellence is an expression of Ignatian spirituality. For example, at the solemn profession of a Jesuit’s final vows, there are 5 vows he makes not in the eyes of the public. Privately and after Mass, in a side chapel or a sacristy, the Jesuit will vow amongst other things never to change anything in the Jesuit Constitution about poverty--unless to make it stricter. In the matter of chastity, Ignatius has very little to say except: “Be like angels”. In the matter of obedience to the Pope and his superiors, Ignatius says a Jesuit is to be well-disciplined and he describes this well-disciplined indifference using the analogy of a cadaver.
The vows are a description of a word know to Jesuits: “magis”, encapsulated in the motto you know too, “ad maiorem Dei gloriam”. For the greater glory of God is an invitation to excel, not under the mode of efficiency but rather in a spirit of efficacy. The vows are meant to free us to be more efficacious in our ministries and because efficacy is qualitative and not really quantitative, it is often qualified by nuances. As such, we might not always choose the most efficient manner of doing things because the end result is to achieve that which gives God the greater glory. [2]
On the final day of our triduum, the readings can be tied together under the theme of efficacy. The first reading paints a scenario where God’s word is successfully grafted onto the hearts and minds of people. The second reading invite apostles who would be bearers of the word. The Gospel removes all barriers of time and space; no one is excluded from hearing God’s word. In the context of our parish, the readings invite us to ask a difficult-to-quantify question: how efficacious has our parish been for the last 50 years? What is the quality of our preaching and living the word of God? It is a question which quite easily veers us toward the number game.
The change we want for the Jubilee is to be found in the quality of our lives. It is never a measure of what we want to do or how much we have achieved. The Jubilee is hard work, if you like, much harder than staging a play or a musical. It is much easier to think of a number change than to make a qualitative difference. Let me speak a bit about our altar servers by way of illustration. We have tried to modify a mindset which thinks in terms of punishment and a behaviour that responds to fear. The result is nothing but painfully slow. Each server has been given a personal cassock. Not many parishes do that. In almost all parishes, the cassocks worn, if it were symbolic of the worship of God, in truth, it is actually an insult of God. Why? The cassocks are dirty but what is sadder is that the wearing of them reflects an apathetic attitude—that God does not deserve the best of what one can give. What has happened to the individual cassocks? Some boys take reasonable care of their personal cassocks and the rest? Go the sacristy and sometimes you find cassocks and cinctures strewn on the floor.
You would think that I am criticising the servers. Far from it, my point is simply this: I cannot tell you how to be efficacious. I cannot dictate excellence as a mode of behaviour for our servers. What is the point I wish to make, if not to criticise the servers?
First, I am not criticising the servers because similar scenarios may just apply to any individuals and to groups like choir, the lectors, commentators, the Sunday School catechists and the priests. What about you as a parent or a husband or an employer or an employee? You are not free from the demands of excellence.
Second, I have, in relation to the Jubilee, touched on the issue of fallowing in the last two days. The fallowing, the allowing the fields to rest and for the poor to collect the left-over harvest is a form of levelling that removes class division but it is not a Judaeo-Christian form of Marxism/Communism. Instead it is decidedly upward in its character because the fallowing of the soil is a form of preparation for the 100-fold harvest. The Eastern Christians provide us with a powerful theological vision of this 100-fold harvest in which Man is Christified or Deified and thereby God is glorified.
To summarise, this vision cannot be dictated. It is not a statistics and certainly not a number game. It can only be described because the point of reference is God. God wants us to be like Him. Thus, the question to ask is not like what the elder brother of the Prodigal Son parable: “How much more”? but rather lovingly “What more can I do”? Excellence is the appropriate response to God’s grace and the Jubilee is an invitation to live the highest of vocation of Man because he is created to praise, revere and serve God our Lord, and by this means to save his soul.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] The spiritual equivalent for this is “perfection”. However, excellence is a “term” which the secular world will understand.
[2] One can go to the hospital and anoint as many as possible. But what about spending time with one who is suffering. Sometimes the choice to spend time with the sick will result in conversion and reconciliation. The result might not be favourable numerically (spending more time with a sick = less people I can anoint) but certainly it is efficacious.
