‘I’ve got HIV!’ An unlikely start to a comedy sketch aimed at school children. As the plot unfolded the children were certainly enjoying themselves, and while I was not able to follow the dialogue, Joseph, my friendly local translator helped me to keep track of things.
Sitting in the car with the acting troop earlier that morning I knew that they would be dealing with the issue of AIDS, but I had not even begun to figure out how they might do it. How do you tell four-year-olds about AIDS? Is it even right to do so? As I watched the sketch about this clown-like character who had HIV, it was impossible not to laugh with everyone else. It was also clear that each member of the audience, ranging in age from four to fourteen, was taking it all in, each at their own level. I was a speechless and admiring observer.
A few days later, in another part of the parish, I was following Ben as he brought me to the place where he and his friends were making bricks. There was a big pile of blocks made of dried mud, with a gap at the bottom of the pile in which they were preparing a fire which would turn the dried mud into red brick. Ben, when he was not making bricks, was one of the local AIDS care workers and he proudly wore a tee-shirt to this effect. He had been elected to this position by his neighbours. He was also rearing his younger brother, who was fifteen. He himself was only a few years older and, as we spoke, he made it clear to me that he would dearly love to live a more care-free existence. But he was doing what needed to be done, and he found his faith a real support in doing it.
That evening I was sitting with the parish priest as he explained that the best way of limiting the spread of AIDS was to help people to overcome the shame associated with the disease. When people are ashamed of something, they try to hide it but they also ‘act out.’ They become obsessed with that which makes them ashamed and, as a result, it takes over their lives. Furthermore, when people overcome the shame associated with a disease like AIDS, others are both less likely to see them as sexual partners and more likely to be supportive in a constructive way.
I did not hear anyone speak about the attitude of Jesus to the lepers in the gospel, nor was I inclined to ask anyone if that particular example inspired them. Somehow, I sensed that it would have been disrespectful, just as, when I met up with Ben, I had very little to say to the people around us who had come to collect the medicine to keep their illness at bay. At the same time, I could not help wondering what it might have been like to have been ‘a leper’ when Jesus was alive, and what it must have been like to be treated as a fellow member of the human race by the preacher from Nazareth. When Jesus insisted that they tell no one about what he had done for them, he was telling them that they mattered, that they weren’t just ‘an example.’
The Word cannot be proclaimed by word alone. Proclamation is an act which certainly begins with the reading of the Word in the assembly of the faithful – what we call ‘the church’ – but if it goes no further than that it is dead. Proclamation is word carried into action in a manner which transforms everyone with whom it comes in contact. That is how you can tell that it is proclamation.
This month we are invited by Pope Benedict to pray that, in less developed parts of the world the proclamation of the Word of God may renew people’s hearts, encouraging them to work actively toward authentic social progress. On my trip to Zambia a few years ago I came into contact with people whose faith and good works proclaimed the Word. Any contribution by me to what they were doing must begin with gratitude and prayer.