Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Honiara (Agenzia Fides) – The experience of Saint Paul is a call to “radicality” for the entire Church. This is what various members of the Church in the Solomon Islands have been reiterating in reflecting on this Year of Saint Paul that the Universal Church is celebrating June 28, 2008 – June 29, 2009.
Various talks have been given on this topic and have been published and distributed by the Catholic magazine on the Solomon Islands “Voice Katolika.” They have, in turn, been used as discussion topics in parishes, schools, associations, and various Catholic groups on the islands.
Dominican Father Henrio Paroi, Vicar of the Dominican Province of Oceania, in a talk entitled “Paul, a radical missionary,” placed the emphasis on the need to be inspired by the Apostle in order to take on that “character” of a radical missionary that should characterize all the activities of the local Church and every movement of each one of the Christian faithful in their daily life. “We have to rediscover the motivations of Saint Paul, his personality, his mode of acting, because they can be of great help in the Church's work on the Solomon Islands,” said Fr. Paroi, recalling “the Apostle's preaching; his sober dealings with money (which he oftentimes did not accept); the contribution to the growth of the local Churches.”
In another article, Fr. Frank Vargas, Lazzarist missionary, affirms that the radicality of Saint Paul makes him a model for our apostolate.” Explaining what it means to be “radical disciples of Christ,” he recalled the passage from the Letter to the Romans (Rm 14:8) that affirms: “In both in life and death, we belong to God,” which was lived out by Saint Paul in his own life. This spirit, he said, accompanies him in sickness and weakness, in persevering in his preaching, in his total gift of self to the work of evangelization. And the faithful today are called to make these sentiments their own.
Fr. Cor Hoomayers, Chancellor of the Archdiocese of Honiara, said that Saint Paul was radical “in the sense of delving into the roots of his faith,” which for him meant going back to his encounter with God on the road to Damascus. Saint Paul encountered “Christ naked, rejected by his people, rejected by his own community.” Saint Paul, he said in conclusion, teaches us that “love is the basis of Christian life: let us ask ourselves whether this is true in the lives of our Church communities.” (PA) (Agenzia Fides 15/1/2009)
