In many ways, Mario epitomises my most inspiring memories of almost two decades living and working in South America. Mario lives in one of the poorest areas of Asuncion, the capital city of Paraguay. He is a bricklayer by trade, and the father of a young family. I first met him when I was invited to take on the role of part time parish administrator in an impoverished, but enriching, community of 20,000 people.
Mario is a lay leader in one of the parish’s many sub-communities. It is common throughout South America for people to organise spontaneously in order to construct a small chapel, or ‘capilla’, which then becomes an important place of worship and celebration for the local community. Baptisms, weddings and funerals are all celebrated in these little chapels. Lay leaders, like Mario, arrange Bible classes and sacramental preparation. Usually, the local communities also organise networks of social assistance, with visits to the sick and elderly and assistance for families experiencing exceptional hardship.
In order to offer support to lay leaders in the local communities, many dioceses have formation centres with classes in theology, biblical studies and pastoral practice. Each year, the local communities are invited to choose several people to participate in these formation programmes. When Mario’s community invited him to participate as their representative, he seemed taken aback and, initially, he declined. Chatting with him, it became clear that his own lack of formal education made him fearful about venturing into the world of study, even though he had a huge thirst to learn more about his Christian faith in order to be a more effective member of the community. After some reassurances, he finally agreed to give it a try.
Several weeks passed, and I assumed that Mario was making good progress with the classes. Then, one evening, another member of the community asked to speak with me confidentially. She told me that, indeed, Mario was enjoying the theology classes and was faithfully attending the two weekly evening sessions. However, she explained, a slump in the construction business meant that Mario had been let go from his job on a nearby building site. He was earning what he could as a casual labourer, but was struggling to feed and clothe his young children. He was absolutely determined to make the most of the opportunity to enhance his Christian formation. So, in order to save on bus fares, he was walking to and from the diocesan formation centre two evenings each week. That meant a journey of about ten kilometres each way. Mario did this without complaining, and he had forbidden his friend from saying anything to me, hence the confidential chat.
We quickly sorted out some bus fare funds for Mario, which he eventually accepted, reluctantly but gratefully. This made his twice-weekly journey a lot easier. But it was clear that he would have carried on regardless. His own Christian faith and his commitment to the community far outweighed the hardship of having to journey on foot across the city and back again. By comparison, my own years of study and formation seemed ridiculously easy. Mario was an example and an inspiration, and he was just one of many.
In the most literal sense, Mario walked in fidelity to the Gospel. During my years in South America, I witnessed this kind of example repeatedly. On occasion, I saw tens of thousands of people propelled by their faith to take to the streets. Usually, these public displays of faith were celebratory. There were noisy and colourful religious processions, especially during Holy Week. Each year on December 8th, the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, huge crowds walk from all over Paraguay to the national Marian shrine at Caacupe. The annual spectacle of thousand of pilgrims trudging along the nation’s highways and byways was truly amazing. But besides the explicitly religious celebrations, Christian people occasionally took to the streets in order to protest against violations of Christian values. The celebrations and the protests were parts of a seamless whole, a consistent living out of the Gospel that began with the sacramental and other activities in the small local communities, but extended beyond the humble chapels to encompass all aspects of life.
In Ireland and elsewhere in the supposedly developed world, we can surely learn from the example of Mario and countless others throughout South America who ‘walk the walk’ when it comes to living in fidelity to the Gospel. Too often, we allow the communal expression of our faith to be corralled into church buildings and institutions. Even worse, frequently we are too ready to allow ourselves to be browbeaten into treating our faith as a private matter that should never be mentioned in public for fear of wounding politically correct sensibilities. But genuine Christian faith can never be confined or hidden away in this manner. Belief in the teachings of the Gospel necessarily leads to action. If not, it is sterile and doomed to wither and die.
Thankfully, there are inspiring examples closer to home. In organisations like the Society of St Vincent de Paul, heroic volunteers quietly walk the streets of our towns and cities, offering consolation and material assistance to those most in need, the forgotten and abandoned members of our society. But the needs are many, especially in these financially challenging times, and active Christians are all too few. It would be wonderful if every single parish made a commitment to visit isolated sick and elderly people, or offer practical support to homeless individuals and families. If the millions of people who regularly attend Church mobilised in order to create a more caring and just society, the effects would be nothing short of revolutionary.
The Pope’s intention this month invites us to pray for the Church and the people of South America. But it should also encourage us to examine our conscience and ask ourselves how we can follow the example of people like Mario and translate our faith into a daily commitment to build the kind of world God intended.