Fr Bernard Healy
Cebu congress hears that the Eucharist offers something to all cultures, writes Fr Bernard Healy
As I leave Cebu after the 51st Eucharistic Congress, I realise that that it was the catechesis given by the irrepressible Cardinal Luis Tagle of Manila that best reflected my experience as an Irish pilgrim here in the Philippines.
In his presentation on ‘The Eucharist and the Dialogue with Cultures’ he explored what cultures are, what happens when they meet and how the Eucharist itself carries with it a culture that can offer something to all cultures.
We might consider a culture to be the characteristic ways of feeling, thinking and acting that are shared by a society that give meaning and belonging, and indeed are the fundamental characteristics by which the members of that society survive and flourish. We see the effect of cultures in the way that physical space and language are used, who the heroes and villains are, what actions bring reward or punishment, what rituals are important, what and how food is eaten, and how time is used.
Time
The cardinal wryly noted that when he spoke at the congresses in Quebec and Dublin he was reminded of how much time he had to speak, but that in Cebu, instead of watching his time, he felt he could take his time, because the organisers “would not dare” tell him to shut up!
One could hardly summarise in a few words the many ways in which the Filipinos revealed their culture to us during our time of pilgrimage here. The friendly cries of “good morning” and “good afternoon” greeted us at every turn, and nothing was ever too much trouble to make things right for a guest. Food and song accompany every celebration, there is a palpable joy in welcoming the visitor. We Irish pride ourselves on our friendliness, but one suspects that the Filipino welcome is innocent of that reserve and suspicion which our own history has knocked into us!
More objectively one might recognise in the Filipino culture a bridge between different worlds. The Filipino people are Asian, but they also also carry in their culture the influence of decades of American presence and centuries of Spanish colonisation.
Christianity too is part of the Filipino culture – almost uniquely among Asian countries it has a Catholic majority, and in many parts of the world (as papal legate Cardinal Bo noted at the opening Mass of the congress), a Catholic presence in many countries means a Filipino presence.
Because of this, many of the speakers of the congress such as Bishop Robert Barron of Los Angeles pointed out that in many ways now is the time for the Filipino people and the Filipino Church to shape the destiny of the Church Universal. Cardinal Bo, during his homily at the Statio Orbis Mass, made the same point.
In Asia she is uniquely positioned to play her part in the dialogue between Catholicism and the non-Christian societies of that continent. In the Western world, the life and faith of the Filipino people who make their homes among us is something that can invigorate the ailing Churches of Western Europe. The vibrancy of the Filipino Church was evident at so many points of the congress.
The purpose-built congress venue which holds thousands is a testament to the ability of the Filipino Church to rise to the challenge of hosting a Eucharistic Congress. The thousands of volunteers – many of them young – who stewarded the crowds who converged on Cebu point to a Church that can call on the goodwill and spirit of volunteerism of people of all ages.
The lively, but reverent liturgies and processions, and in particular the Eucharistic Procession that jammed the streets of Cebu on Friday night, give testament to a Church where devotion is strong. The cultural events at the congress and throughout the city show an engagement between the arts and the faith.
Various testimonies such as that of youth worker and former street child Maria Georgia Costas who spoke about outreach initiatives to street children bears witness to a Church that invests in giving help and dignity to the poor and excluded. However, the fact that huge inequality and poverty are still very much a part of Filipino life means that this last challenge is one where the Church can and must, as Cardinal Tagle pointed out, do more.
Western speakers such as Belgian catechist Marianne Servaas sounded a note of warning – even though she herself was brought to a deep Eucharistic faith by the Filipino people, she fears that just as formerly Catholic missionary countries such as Belgium have grown tired of Christianity and have placed their faith into museums, so the people of the Philippines must take care that they keep their strongly Eucharistic faith fresh and vibrant.
The congress in Dublin four years ago was an international event, and so is the congress of Cebu, but with a different flavour. Instead of hearing Spanish, Italian and French being spoken around us, here in the Philippines we hear Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, the various Filipino languages and other Asian tongues.
This is very much an Asian gathering of the Church, with the clergy and laity of these countries engaging with societies in which Christianity is not simply a minority religion, but the surrounding culture has never been Christian in the way Western cultures were.
Amongst the several Asian speakers were the doughty Cardinal Zen of Hong Kong who reminded us of the testimony given by modern and present-day Chinese martyrs, and India’s Archbishop Menamparampil who emphasised the Eucharist’s role in provoking and sustaining dialogue with sincere adherents of other faiths.
It was encouraging to find that the ‘Irish brand’ has a positive cachet here in the Philippines. On Wednesday the Irish and Nigerian pilgrims were hosted by the Redemptorist Parish of Our Mother of Perpetual Help in Cebu.
The parish was established by Irish Redemptorists, and Irish priests still serve there. Many Filipino laity and clergy (to say nothing of pilgrims from further afield) approached the Irish pilgrims and recalled the ministry of Irish clergy and sisters in their parishes and schools. Although one Filipina student told me that she imagined that Ireland was “like Harry Potter land”, not a few of the locals spoke of having family and friends living and working in various Irish towns and cities.
Despite very much being foreigners in the Philippines, and being a distinct minority amongst our Asian brothers and sisters, we Irish in Cebu never felt ourselves outsiders at the congress.
Quite apart from the welcome given us, a Eucharistic Congress always carries with it the culture of the Church, a culture which, at its best, Cardinal Tagle pointed out is Eucharistic. When so much of our world is alienating and individualistic, one of the many beauties of the Eucharist is that it is an experience of ‘convocation’ – of being called by God to share in his sacrifice, his presence and his banquet as brother and sisters who may be very different to us, but are brothers and sisters nonetheless.
That is part of the culture of the Eucharist, the way of thinking, feeling and acting that is the Church at her best, and having experienced it so powerfully in the liturgies, activities and fellowship at Cebu, the challenge is for us to discover how to make that Eucharistic culture more vibrant and alive back in Ireland.
And where will the congress be next? At the Statio Orbis Mass which brought the congress to a close, a video message from Pope Francis revealed that the 2020 congress will be a lot closer to Ireland.
Cardinal Erdő and his Archdiocese of Budapest will be the hosts – a chance, perhaps, to ponder afresh the mystery of the Eucharist in a Central European context in the second city of the Hapsburg Empire, the capital of the proud Hungarian people and a country where the memories of communism and heroic resistance to the same are still fresh.