The Church Is Right to Honour Saints
- Category: Faith
- Date 22-04-2012
- 464 views
The exhumation of Msgr. Aloysius Ngobya and Sr. Amadeus Byabari, early this year, caused quite a debate. Various people analysed the event based on divergent perceptions. Some viewed the episode of possible beatification of the former Catholic clerics as a divine expression of God’s love for Ugandans and mankind generally. Others condemned the attention given to the two, Msgr. Ngobya and Sr. Byabari, as a clear reflection of the Catholic Church’s tendency for evil worship and wizardly because of constant association with “the dead”.
To begin with, Msgr. Aloysius Ngobya and Sr. Amadeus Byabari cannot be counted among the dead. They are not dead. In the Christian sense, believers never really die. J
Jesus Christ counsels thus, “Whoever lives and believes in me will never die” (John 11: 26).
It is inappropriate, therefore, to consider Msgr. Ngobya or any other departed member of the Church as a worthless dead object that is unfit to interact with. A Christian is much more than a physical being that rots.
St. Paul teaches, “...neither death nor life… will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8: 38-39).
Whereas one can scientifically suggest risks of contracting a disease through contact with a decomposing human body, the spiritual logic is that a Christian lives forever.
St Paul says further, “If we live, we live for the Lord. If we die we die for the Lord. Either in life or in death, we belong to the Lord” (Romans 14: 8-10).
The act of placing a human body in tomb cannot totally alienate the deceased from the community. Close earthly companions will still know the departed individual as their father, mother, brother, sister, friend, or someone. The character of a departed person can influence the behaviour of their families or communities for generations.
There is a precedent in Christianity. When Jesus was buried, his body was not avoided. His followers and friends went to the tomb again and again. They were not trying to find out if he had resurrected because they did not know that he would rise from the dead anyway. Apparently, they wished to take good care of the ‘dead body’ of the person they knew and loved a great deal.
At an appropriate moment, the women were informed by an angel that Jesus had arisen (Matthew 28). During his ministry on earth, Jesus did not avoid ‘the dead’. The case of Lazarus of Bethany is well known. Lazarus died and lay in the tomb for four days. His relatives believed that he was incurably dead. As tradition demanded, friends and neighbours profusely delivered condolences to the bereaved family. However, Jesus acted differently. On arriving at the home of the ‘deceased’, he proceeded to the grave and called Lazarus out of the tomb.
Jesus had actually told his disciples, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep....” (John 11). The Catholic Church behaves very much like Jesus Christ.
If the above incidents occurred today, many people would accuse Jesus of flirting with “the dead” by visiting Lazarus’s tomb! They would also accuse Mary Magdalene and companions of worshipping “the dead” by returning to the grave of Jesus.
It is not surprising that, after the resurrection of Jesus, the authorities tried to bribe the guards to deny the miracle of Jesus’ resurrection. They gave the guards a large sum of money, telling them to say that Jesus’ disciples had stolen the dead body while the guards were asleep (Matthew 28: 11-15).
Today, people who want to distort facts about eternal life, sainthood, or other church teachings can still act in the same way. Jesus Christ clearly articulated the concept of eternal life.
He said, “... in the account of the burning bush, even Moses showed that the dead rise, for he calls the Lord ‘the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’ He is not the God of the dead, but of the living, for to him all are alive” (Luke 20: 37-38).
The departed Christians, such as Msgr. Ngobya and Sr. Byabari, are eternal members of the community of the people of God. We must not and cannot isolate them. Scripture shows that earlier prophets, Moses and Elijah, died long before Jesus was born. In the episode of transfiguration, however, the disciples saw Jesus interacting with Moses and Elijah (Mark 9:4).
It takes great faith to recognise the lavish grace of God in both the ‘living’ and ‘departed’ members of our community. Do we pray to the dead? No, because believers live forever. And Christians never pray to each other. We pray with or for each other. When a Christian seeks to pray with his neighbour, priest or family member, it is not because God cannot receive an individual’s private prayers.
Yes, Jesus Christ tells us to pray privately, “When you pray, go into your room, close the door, and pray to your Father” (Matthew 6:6).
At the same time, Jesus tells us to participate in communal prayers, “Where two or three are gathered in my name, I am with them” (Matthew 18: 20).
We thus note that our earthly and heavenly brothers are abundantly at our disposal for communal prayers. In our worldly experience, we pray for our friends to get well when they are sick, to get jobs if they are unemployed, to get married if they are searching, to arrive safely if they are travelling, to pass if they are doing examinations.
We pray for our departed brothers to get eternal life and we can count on their prayers for us to overcome earthly troubles. In this way, we intercede for each other. The Bible nicely shows the effect of intercession.
At the wedding of Cana, Mary told Jesus, “They have no more wine” (John 2:3).
On Mary’s request, Jesus turned water into wine. Mary needed no wine for personal consumption. She interceded for the benefit of the guests who needed the wine. We are always guests of Jesus and Mary intercedes for us forever.
Scripture says, “So God created man in his image …” (Genesis 1: 27-28).
We ought to recognise God in other people such as Msgr. Ngobya and Sr. Byabari: “No one has ever seen God...! How can you say you love God whom you do not see, if you do not love your brother...? (1 John 4: 12-20).
In a nutshell, it is not wrong to think that that Msgr. Ngobya and Sr. Byabari are in heaven since that is the desired destination of every Christian. We should not, however, discourage anyone with specific objection to the beatification to lodge it; aware that man sees the outside while God sees the heart (1 Samuel 16: 7).
By Venansio Ahabwe
Source: Sunday Monitor