TO ENCOURAGE AND TO BUILD ONE ANOTHER
The theme for our reflection today is: To Encourage and to Build One another. The earthquake that occurred some time ago has damaged about 50 percent of the parish church building which has a congregation of five thousand Catholics. As a consequence, the church has not been used for a while. For repairing the building, the parish community has decided together that each family in the parish was to be a contributor of funds and building materials.
The discussion between the parish priest and his parishioners regarding the rebuilding the church from ruin ultimately led to two goals to be achieved together. The first is the physical repair of the church as quickly and well as possible so that the people would not stay too long in an emergency place of worship. The second was equally important that refers to the building up the Christian community, especially the brotherhood, fellowship and cooperation among them, after a number of frictions occurred due to differences in views and misunderstandings between them, especially regarding the self-support or not self-support of the people for the repair and improvement of the church building.
The more the improvement of the church showed its progress, the more it was realized that the building of the Christian community must be given a better attention. A Christian community which is positive, healthy and in fraternal spirit should be the basic conditions for the smooth process and success of the physical construction of the church. Regarding the issue of friction between the parishioners, the parish priest and his team from the parish council tried to provide mutual encouragement, advice and guidance for the persons and group concerned. These are actually the virtues that the Thessalonian Christian Community also fostered as stated in our first reading today.
The Local Church such as parishes are oriented towards empowering their congregations with one of its basic characteristics, which is to develop a self-support people of God and a sustainable Local Church. The style of pastor-center should already change into people-center. The parishioners are directed to be able to resolve their own issues, and one important way of doing this is to encourage and to build one another. Saint Paul says, God does not want us to experience wrath, but to be saved in our Lord Jesus Christ.
To be a self-support and sustainable Christian community is necessarily important to fight the spirit of waiting to be served or expect help to come. Similar to the pastor-center mentality is the “Santa Claus” spirit, where gifts are eagerly awaited. Prayers for miracles are so easy to do. If this is the real thing people tend to do, it could be meaningless to make any effort regarding to encourage and to build one another. As true believers, we do not seek miracles, but our true works as believers that make miracles.
Let's pray. In the name of the Father... Into Your divine power, Lord, we put all our desires and efforts, so that in You we may acquire a new lifestyle, namely to strengthen our unity and cooperation among us. Hail Mary full of grace... In the name of the Father...