It’s not on top, it’s inside

Not only in Randburg, where I live, but in many places around the country there are massive road works underway. Some new roads are being built, resurfacing is being done, but certainly in our town the roads are being torn up and deep trenches dug where mysterious activities appear to be taking place by numerous workers behind multi-coloured barriers.

Out walking with my dogs one day I leant over to see what was inside the big hole on the corner of the street and was amazed at the maze of pipes criss-crossing below the ground. It kind of hit me that it’s not what’s on top but what’s inside that makes things happen: to the water (clean and dirty), electricity and telephones. We, on the surface, take all this for granted, while in the meantime there are hundreds of workers literally beavering away in trenches and below the surface. Yes, we do still have electricity power lines and telephone lines, but in the interest of security much more is being put underground, to minimise theft, especially of copper wire.

Readers may remember that very successful commercial of years ago for a well-known coffee creamer. As I remember it a desperate, insomniac husband gets up to make some coffee, finds his way to the fridge and not finding the milk yells for help. It’s not inside, it’s on top comes back the reply. That saying has entered South Africa’s vernacular, becoming a proverb, a slogan, a call to a new, broader, out-of-the-box way of thinking, not to look in the obvious place, or where you expect to find it. Lateral thinking they call it, and the school system is supposed to promote this for our children.

October is Mission month in the Church in South Africa, and October 19 is World Mission Sunday. The family life theme for the month is, Me, My Family and Mission.

Previously we have just put our money in the collection for the support of missionaries, those men and women who came from afar to bring the gospel to mission lands. The Vatican still regards our region as missionary territory are we still a mission land?

Pope John Paul II spoke of the missionaries of the new millennium as the laity, not strangers from far away, but ordinary men and women, local family people. The mission too is not to bring a message from far away, but to highlight a message that is ingrained deep inside us. God loves us, Jesus is God’s revelation to us of God’s love, and each of us in response to our anointing at baptism are called to share in the mission of Jesus, as priest, prophet and king.

That is a whole catechetical mouthful that needs to be broken down to bite-size pieces so that it can be assimilated easily. Otherwise it is all on top, in the head, rather than inside coming from the heart, the way parents should pass their faith on to their children.

We’re still and eternally will be grateful to those who did come from far away, who had the passion to commit their lives to bringing this good news to others. Is the passion wearing thin? We are all very aware that there are few vocations to the priesthood and religious life these days, but how many vocations are there to the lay apostolate and specifically the family apostolate? The lay apostolate is not just to mimic the priesthood of the consecrated priest or of the religious, but also to develop a greater understanding of the priesthood of the laity in their ordinary every lives, beginning in their families where their priesthood calls on them to sacrifice and pray, all day, every day.

Similarly the prophetic mission of the laity, speaking with knowledge, experience and insight about the affairs of our time to our own children and the wider community. The kingly, ruling, protecting, guiding role of the laity for the community might even inspire some local people to start family and community support groups in existing parishes or in informal settlements or villages far away from a church. Would this type of vision not be a suitable mission for the Church of this new millennium where Satan’s clutches, and secular and other religious ideologies or just plain indifferentism are drawing our people away?

At the same time corruption, immorality and dishonesty, not only theft of copper wire, happen around us. We see it as families, couples, grandparents and parents, as youth too, close to home and that is why it hurts inside, not just on top, in our heads. How will I respond, what will my mission be?