POOR THING During my seminary training back in Bambui, Cameroon, there was this old man close by whom the seminarians had used to call ‘Pa Poor Man’. One day, he surprised one of us when he addressed him with that name. He responded in broken English: ‘whom do you call ‘poor man’? I have house, I have pikins (children), I have wife and I have house.’ Coming to the UK in the 1990s, I remember being addressed several times as ‘poor thing.’ If I say I was happy with this term, I would be telling a lie. But I was the cause of this because I was complaining a lot about the new situation I found myself in. There were so many things I had to adjust to: my faith, social life, living quarters, food, studies and vocation, not to talk of the weather. I came in with lots of expectations since we had been made to understand during my schooling that the Western world was too good for a fault. When I discovered the contrary, I became so disappointed both with myself, the whole place and the church that I became so embittered. It made me so negative. And each time I told my story, my hearers just said towards the end, ‘oh, poor thing’. This made me angrier. But I was so blind to see I was the one making people address me that way. Like that old man bordering the seminary, I also unconsciously wondered, how could I be a ‘poor thing’? Though not from a very rich financial and material background, there were lots of things that made me to know I was really better off: I was from a family with eight siblings; we ate well and had our own landed property that made us look comfortable in life; we were all healthy. Had my parents not given birth to nine of us, with all the financial repercussions, I wondered which westerner would be as rich as them. I blinded into thinking they were calling me poor thing because they did not know my background; I saw myself very privileged than most of them when I saw the human poverty most of those calling me ‘poor thing’ found themselves in. Then my idea of ‘poor thing or poor man’ drastically changed when Pope Francis began leading the church. When he was asked why he decided to live in the two rooms apartment in the Santa Martha Residence, his response was that living alone in the papal apartments would not be truthful for his human nature. He needed a community around him for his own welfare. Yes, by creation, we have a poor human nature; a nature that, though all the time wants to be free and independent, must necessary depend on others to have meaning and happiness. God in his all wise plan, because of that poverty of humanity, gave each person a family to be borne into and nurtured; a family that would prepare every individual to integrate him or herself in the wider human community. Today, the Feast of the Holy Family of Nazareth, reminds us of the necessity of the family since all of us are really ‘poor things’. God too decides to become a ‘poor thing’ among us… depending on others for his existence and growth. Without our mother’s womb, how would we have developed after conception? Had there not been parents, relatives and friends to be around us, how would we have managed those first vulnerable years of our lives when literally everything was done for us? Our human nature is essentially made for dependency and collaboration and not for independence and self-centred interests. What makes the Holy Family of Nazareth different? It is not just because they were privileged to have the Son of God as their child. What marks them out of other families is that the Jesus, Mary and Joseph lived a life, not for personal or individual interests, but for others. It was a family where each member sacrificed his or her own needs for the other. They took as a life plan the words we hear all the time recurring in scripture: here I am Lord, I come to do your will; my food is to do the will of the one who sent me; I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be done to me according to thy word. We all know the story of Mary and that of Joseph, how they came together and all the inconveniences they went through begetting and nurturing Jesus. We too all know the life of Jesus, who right at the age of twelve was already conscious to why he came into the world. Each saw his or her responsibility to the other family members with the eyes of God and not with selfish interests. By supporting the other according to the plan of God, helped take away all the tensions and personality clashes that could have made their lives unbearable. Since they were all rooted in the word of God, brought up on the foundations of Deuteronomy 6:4-9, they fully reaped the harvests of peace, happiness and unity of hearts. As poor things, we need to understand that living a fulfilled life can only be achieved by living for others. It is by dying that we rise; by losing that we gain; by denying that we receive in abundance. Our will powers can be so strong; strong to a point that we can kill in order to get our personal desires. And that is why many families are fractionated; why so many now even fear to get married and beget children; why we do not even know how to care for our children, husbands, wives and parents. Although we have taught cats and dogs how to live together, we find it too hard to enjoy the company of others – constantly in arguments, tensions and quarrels and many at times we do not even know where these come from; we are too pruned to see negative rather the positive qualities of others; fast in condemning weaknesses and failures and so slow to praise and appreciate the good in others; arguing and quarrelling over what we shall abandon tomorrow; fussy over the future of children based on economic, social or political might and then they end up being dysfunctional both in the family and the neighbourhood. Today we need to ask how the plans for our children, parents and spouses are based on the Word of God; how we treat our family members following the will of God. A bad tree cannot bear good fruit; by your fruits, we shall know you. These words of the gospel should help us see that we are responsible for how our family turns up to be. Let us stop blaming circumstances and people for failures. Lastly, differences among family members need to be celebrated and not to condemned. Collaboration and co-dependency are founded on the rock that we are different and need each other to melt out these differences. What I lack, you provide and vice-versa. Enjoy the variety in humanity and learn to understand that unity respects diversity or differences. I can only unite with you if only I enter into the relationship as me and you as you. It cannot be less or more and this is a life principle. I have always functioned on the principle that ‘put me in a pit toilet and perfume will come out’. I have lived this based on the verse I took for my ordination to guide my ministry: ‘But by the grace of God I am what I am: and his grace which was bestowed on me was not in vain; but I laboured more abundantly than they all: yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me’ (1 Cor. 15:10). No matter your family situation today, you can recreate one if you depend on the grace of God. Just accept that you are a ‘poor thing’. This will help you depend immediately on God and on others and will take away all the complexes that hinders you from relating and enjoying the beautiful natural and extended family God gave you at birth, the one you decided to form on the day of your marriage, the families around the neighbourhood and the work place and, last but not the least, the family of God’s people, which is the church. May the Holy Family of Nazareth intercede for us. Have a blessed Sunday!
Posted on: Sun, 28 Dec 2014 07:40:18 +0000
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