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Just
learned that the second national rural congress will be convened
by our bishops sometime this year. The first one was held,
hold your breath, 41 years ago!
When
the announcement came in a priestly gathering recently, I
could not help but detect traces of a defense mechanism trying
to cover and make up for the apparent neglect.
Could
it be that our Church had been indifferent to the plight of
our rural poor?
I
have my doubts. Even if we have been committing all sorts
of mistakes and our inadequacies are too obvious to belabor,
to think that we have been indifferent to the rural poor would
not be quite right.
We
have been with everyone. We may have our deficiencies and
excesses, still the fact is that we have been enjoying and
suffering life with everyone.
We
have been in all this together. Let's never forget we are
all members of the same body, the same family. This should
be the given from where to start this second national rural
congress.
We
should just tackle the proposed agenda with sobriety and thoroughness.
As it is, it's already a tall order: "to facilitate the
opportunity for the rural poor to voice out their concerns
and their experiences of rural poverty and be heard by the
Church."
We
have to be wary of the temptation to turn the occasion into
a binge of blaming the usual suspects: the rich, the government,
the powerful, etc. This way of resolving problems should be
a thing of the past. It's largely useless, making more enemies
than friends.
We
have to guard against the tricks of ideologues and the media
who will try to make capital out of this event. We have to
be ready to pacify the waves of hype, flimflam and gamesmanship
that will likely accompany this conference.
Most
relevant in this kind of collective exercise is the virtue
of prudence, one that always goes with sobriety, that seeks
to know everything needed to be known, and that blends the
demands of charity and justice well.
It
is the prudence that goes with restraint, patience, discretion
and good manners. It requires studying, consulting and dialoguing
about possible options and scenarios, focusing more on what
unite rather than on what divide, on what build rather than
on what destroy.
Never
to be forgotten is the distinctive contribution of the Church,
which is to relate whatever social issues and problems we
have to our ultimate supernatural calling. This can never
be considered irrelevant.
It
is to echo what St. Paul said: "I have learned, in whatever
state I am, to be content. I know how to be abased, and how
to abound. In any circumstances I have learned the secret
of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and want. I can do
all things in him who strengthens me." (Phil 4,11-13)
All
of us have our own personal experiences of rural life. In
my case, I consider it as an unforgettable part of my growing-up
years. Summers were spent in a fishing village, my father's
birth place.
We
used to hike some distance to reach it from where the bus
would drop us off. It was then a place with no running water,
no electricity. I had to help fetch water from the well, gather
firewood, do laundry in a nearby spring, tend the chickens
and pigs.
My
friends were all sorts, the normal and the not-so-normal,
since many had handicaps, if not physical then mental. I had
friends who were hunchbacked, hare-lipped, cross-eyed, retarded,
etc.
But
we were all happy. Hardly anyone felt like an offender because
hardly anyone felt offended. Our conflicts and mistakes were
settled spontaneously.
Poverty
was all around, and yet everyone worked hard and was always
hopeful.
Occasional
heartbreaks occurred as I lost some friends just because of
common illnesses like diarrhea, flu, chicken-pox.
The
folks treated my father like a demigod expected to solve their
problems. I heard and saw them cry. And yet when I would ask
what was wrong, they would just smile and spare me the details.
There's
God and an afterlife, they would say, giving me a glimpse
of their faith. It is this faith that has to be protected
at all costs, whatever the social condition.
**********
Fr.
Roy Cimagala is the Chaplain of Center for Industrial Technology and Enterprise
(CITE) in Talamban, Cebu City. You can email him at:Email: roycimagala@boholchronicle.com | 
