TAKING THE RISK OF JOY
Written on the occasion of the Centennial of the Foreign Mission Society of Quebec, these lines are addressed to women and men, believers or not, lay or religious people, who, by risking joy, look forward to making a success of their lives.
For a hundred years, quite many young people let down their security belts and set off without any capsule, rocket
or rover in the direction of distant worlds. Arrived among peoples mostly unknown, and with no more luggage than what they carried in their hearts, they
sought to be close to them as Jesus himself would have done.
By rubbing shoulders with these peoples, the missionaries little by
little discovered their wisdom and beauties. Though until very recently these peoples seemed hardly existing, they soon took root in their hearts. With them the
missionaries grew up and cleared their way. Altogether they suffered, they built
important things, and they lived a true communion with a multitude of
possibilities.
All the missionaries of these hundred years have had the unique joy of
seeing so many faces light up when, by internalizing their faith in a God who
loved them and who believed in them, they discovered self-esteem and the
strength of a community, dared to think for themselves, started to be more
critical and to take initiatives, started to create, innovate and no longer
fear changes.
Over the years, the missionaries have seen them get rid of fears, excuses, and alibis that prevented them of making
choices and of taking control of their lives. They saw them run the big risk of giving themselves
the right to exist and raise their heads, the right to speak out and be freer. After years of patience and waiting, they were fortunate to see them born
to themselves as if they had passed from death to life. It was for the
missionaries the greatest of all joys.
That joy, the old missionaries like myself still savour it and no one
will ever take it away from them (John 16 :22).
But if they share it with gladness, they know that this joy is not their exclusivity.
On the contrary, they are now more aware,
according to an updated
theology, that their joy also belongs to all human beings who,
in one way or another, put themselves at the service of life. It belongs to men
and women of all nations and of every language and belief who protect life,
make it grow and fill it with sunlight wherever they are on earth. It is unique to all humans who, through their
daily activities or only through their way of being, contribute in a way to
make life less unjust and more humane.
Anyway, that
joy was for one hundred years the secret of the men and women who
wholeheartedly took the risk of going to live the Gospel far away from the nest
that had seen them being born.
Along the way,
they reaped great successes but they also experienced setbacks, failures,
exiles, internal and external conflicts, jealousies, constant tensions between
the status quo and the call for openness and change, and yet, despite wounds
and weariness, this joy has not died out. Far from weakening, it has grown
stronger. So much so that even nowadays, though faced with often unfavourable
winds, young women and young men, almost all born in other skies, in turn run
the fine risk of taking part in the same adventure.
«JOY», this word resumes in three
letters the inspiration that, one hundred years ago, gave birth to the tiny
rocket « Earth-Skies- Inter-Peoples » known as the « Foreign Missions Society
of Québec.» It was born in
the joy, which is none other than the joy of the Risen Jesus (John
15 :11).
We are not used to connecting a history like this to the Rising of Jesus . Yet, without the Resurrection, that history would not exist. It is
the faith in the Resurrection that brought the members of that Society out of their
refuges so as to send them on the paths of the «other». It is the dynamic of
the Resurrection that brought them closer to those who are usually seen as
foreigners. It is the Resurrection that pressed them to overcome real
«impossibles» so as to meet these peoples often so different and live them as a
part of themselves.
In reality,
the Resurrection is more that an olympic medal chiselled in a diamond that
would have been awarded to Jesus for his many merits. The Resurrection is
essentially the starting point and the arriving point of all Revelation and of
the entire Creation, including the Evolution. It is its motor, its central
pivot and its highest point. To read our one hundred years of mission without
connecting them tightly to it would be like separating a tree form its roots,
the river from its source or the human body from its proper heart.
Even when it
hides, the Sun does not stop keeping the Earth in its orbit and energizing it
with its rays. The same thing happens with the joy of the Resurrection which is
like the Sun in our nights. It is the cosmic and divine energy which flows in
our veins and in the veins of all humanity and will not be “complete” (John 17:13) until it reaches the confines of Creation after
irrigating on its pass the entire thickness of our terrestrial reality.
In the meantime, the Foreign Mission Society will cheerfully carry its
hundred years of life as a springboard and humbly continue to pursue its march forward by following the inspirations of the Risen One.
Jesus said: «I have
told you this so that my joy may be in
you and that your joy may be complete» (John 15: 11).
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