This past Sunday I attended mass at St. Matthew Catholic Church and the priest who officiated, Father Raphael, was visiting from Tanzania, a remote country in East Africa. He talked about his missionary work in this remote region of the world. The more he talked, the more I thanked God for His blessings. There are so many things that I take for granted that the majority of the world lacks: a hot shower, a soft bed to sleep at night, enough food to feed me and my family, a microwave to warm up the leftovers, electricity to power up all my appliances, computers, telephones, television, a grocery store that provides all sort of foods, a car that I just need to make sure has a full tank of gas and most importantly, security and peace of mind that I am safe in my home.
We hear in the news how Christians are being persecuted and killed in other countries and we tune it off because it doesn't affect us. We think that because is happening far away from us we don't need to worry. Our little corner of the world is safe. Even though it may not affect us directly, it certainly affect us indirectly. As Christians, we are one body, the body of Christ, and what is happening in a remote country in Africa, in a poor country in South America or in the Middle East, should move our hearts because those are our brothers and sisters in Christ and they need our prayers and support.
Father Raphael told us that we are very blessed that we can go to church to celebrate mass without fear that someone is going to walk in with a weapon and kill us (even though that happened not too long ago in Charleston, NC). But most of the time, we are not afraid to go to church. We are not afraid at night that someone is going to break into our homes and kill us simply because of the faith we profess. But that is not the reality for the majority of our brothers and sisters in Christ.
After mass we went to the beach and as I was walking with my husband by the seashore (another blessing), we were talking that the majority of us are never going to have to die for our faith. We are never going to be placed in a position where we will have to choose between Christ or our life. Yes, it's very easy to say "I will choose Christ" when you don't have a gun pointed to your head, but the reality is that unless we are in that situation, we don't know what we would do. Would we go to mass if our life was threatened? And how about if our family was threatened? Would we still go to mass?
In our country a lot of churches are empty not because of fear but because we are losing our faith. In Africa a lot of churches are empty because of fear that they could lose their lives. Here our churches are being closed because there are not enough priests. In Africa, they have plenty of priests whose lives are at risk every day, but they stand true to their faith. And what amazed me the most is that Father Raphael told us that even though in most cases they don't have the means to keep all these churches open, they don't close them because their people depend on the church to provide them with the most basic needs: food, shelter, clothing, education for the children and health services.
These missionaries serve God without worrying whether they will be alive the next day and whether they will have the means to serve their parishioners. They place all their worries at His feet and they leave it all in His hands. They know that He will provide the means. What an amazing faith. By the end of mass I was wondering who was truly blessed, me or these missionaries?
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