Words Ann Rennie

Our Church’s mission, in Australia and overseas, is about multiplying hope by hope.

Recently I read The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie. It is narrated by a teenager marooned on a Spokane Indian reservation surrounded by poverty, dysfunction and cultural dislocation. A maths teacher talks to him about his prospects and he finally understands; ‘I had to add my hope to somebody else’s hope. I had to multiply hope by hope’. That, it seems to me, is the mission of the Church.

In a world where mission can become clichéd and corporate and begin to sound like soulless spin, it is important to be reminded that the Church’s mission is founded on the ministry and message of Jesus. This is the Jesus who did his Father’s work, who preached and walked and dined amongst the poor and outcast, those whose lives were lived at the fringes or out of sight. In spreading the good news of salvation Jesus provided hope for those who had none.

In our affluence we have hope to spare; abundant hope to share with others.

In my homeroom the girls are collecting for Project Compassion. They have set themselves a reasonable target. Twenty cent pieces, the odd note and even a week’s pocket money are adding up to a handy sum that will aid Caritas Australia in its work abroad. It might be that they manage to help a village community set up a viable small business. In this simple way they are beginning to participate in the mission of the Church. What they learn now, in this collective generosity, is what they will take into the future of the Church and how the next generation of mission will be played out. And each Friday there is much excitement when the Mission Reps count out the gold coins and silver shrapnel and do the maths. Their hope is being added to someone else’s a world away.

Last year Caritas featured the work of the Sisters, Faithful Companions of Jesus, who work in the Philippines. This missionary work is done in the slums, on rubbish tips, in places with little sanitation, endemic poverty and lack of opportunity to break the shackles of fate. The hard fact is that one out of every seven people in the world live in conditions like this; one billion people live in shanty-towns and their life chances are compromised because of ill health, malnutrition, lack of employment, amongst a multitude of deficits that deny such chances. The Sisters provide grassroots practical assistance in developing education and health programs and in providing housing for youth. This is the hard, unrelenting, daily immersion in the real lives of others that many religious and lay persons undertake to alleviate the plight of the poor in our region.

Contributing to the good causes of our Catholic agencies means that we are acting in hope. We are bringing, as Jesus did, good news to the poor and doing our bit for the global mission of the Church.

Pictured: FCJ Sisters in the Philippines. Photo courtesy Caritas Australia. 

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