Bro. Hans Eigner MCCJ
If the spark of faith catches fire, the church flourishes. This is what Brother Hans Eigner believes in. He shares with us his thoughts on “faith” in today’s world.
Faith is a personal decision based on experience but first of all it is a grace of God. I had to learn this fact that faith becomes strong if it is experienced in community. My experience with the Small Christian Communities (SCC) in the parish of Kariobangi in Kenya shaped me greatly. There I noticed a “special ability/capability to believe in God” by the people among whom I had lived and worked. Turning to western world: Shortly before being killed by the Nazis,the Jesuit Priest Alfred Delp described modern man as “incapable of believing in God” 80 years ago.
Heaven on Earth?
Our life in general has changed enormously during the past 50 years. This process affected also our faith. If it was obvious up to the recent past to believe in God, in the omnipresent God, today however faith is considered as one option among many. Can I say that we became religiously non-musical or in a way homeless while living in homes that are more comfortable? New generations are not any longer introduced to Christian faith and we witness the silent exodus of many from the church. The explanations for that are many, internal and external ones. Many consider more internal causes of the church, I, instead, want to write about external conditions of faith. Something has changed for everyone: For those who believe in God and for those who no longer (are able to) believe in him.
We were possibly too busy over the past decades with growing in prosperity, well-being and self-optimization(e.g. body-positivity). With material progress and feasibility people settled comfortably down in this world. We tried to control the world, perhaps out of fear of missing out on something during our short lifespan. In the past while people eventually have been consoled with eternal life to come, today all is sought in worldly comfort. Heaven must happen here and now, since there is none to be expected.
I consider this “development” misleading. I am not talking about individuals, but about society as a whole. We interpret the world according to the pattern of modern society. The world is therefore at our disposal, it can be controlled and everything is attainable. We developed many means to “redeem” ourselves but in this process, heaven is locked up and the world fell silent. As we no longer believe in heaven, we strive to create heaven on earth. However, we often overstrain others and ourselves; as a result, we cause chaos in the world. Just looking in this context at climate change, terrible wars and social injustice.
Hartmut Rosa, a sociologist from Freiburg, says: “We live in a society that gets stable and steadfast only through moving dynamically. Thus, we need constant growth and acceleration to sustain ourselves. This forces us into a multiple relationship of aggression: such as a, aggression against nature; b, aggression against our fellow human beings through envy and competitive thinking and aggression against ourselves through the phenomenon of self-optimization”. However, faith in God does not work that way. We cannot find God through our learned “aggression mode”. God is not available like the goods in a supermarket. Faith is an open response-relationship.
God Is Here and Goes With Us
My experience in East Africa taught me something important. In Kenya, I became aware that the visible and invisible world forms a unity and that the world is open up to haven. No area is exempted. In addition, the experience of belonging is shaping the person, according to the proverb: “I exist because we exist” or “I am because we are.”
This means that I do not have to be the best, to be rich, to be the most beautiful; I do not need to constantly compare myself with others, but I belong to a community that supports me and offers me dignity and identity. As people feel referred to God and dependent on each other, they shape their lives with hope and confidence, despite all hardships.
A procession of the Way of the Cross in Kariobangi parish in Nairobi/Kenya on Good Friday expressed above mentioned very touchingly. At nine o’clock in the morning, we left the parish church carrying a big wooden cross accompanied by a small group of people. At each Station of the cross, right through the slum, more people joined us and towards the end – after about five hours – more than a thousand people had joined the procession. Catholics and non-Catholics, Christians and maybe non-Christians. People felt to be taken seriously by Jesus’ way of the cross, because even their way of life is ultimately a way of the cross. The comforting words in the gospel of Matthew “Come to me, all you who labor and are overburdened…” (Mt 11:28) became reality. The community that came into being under the cross shaped my being as missionary.
I lived and worked in Kariobangi for more than 10 years. To date around 200,000 people live there under inhumane conditions. Poverty has many, often dramatic, faces. One word, however I heard practically every day: “Mungu yupo”. This is a Kiswahili word and means: “God is there.” This is the whole and wonderful theology of Africa, the faith of Africa. With this attitude, many struggle through life and get the strength to manage their difficulties of everyday life. For the faithful God is always present and walks on their side. In this way the hope that things may get a little better at some point, increases. How else could broken families, single parents, unemployed people, street children, people suffering from various diseases face the strain and struggle of life?
How else can people live from day to day? Without a bank account, without social security, perhaps without knowing what they will get for supper today. However, there is the confidence that God is present and sooner or later things will turn out well – although with many painful cutbacks. This capability I consider resilience in the best sense.
Faith Re-experienced
I went to Africa for the first time in 1984 as a “do-gooder” and came back as a missionary. In Africa, the people taught me the deeper layers of faith. I like to say: A missionary does not fall down from heaven, but he becomes one by getting involved with the people and the word of God. I learned a lot from living with people and my faith was greatly deepened. We missionaries witness that wherever people accept the gospel with an open heart, life in society and community improves and becomes more human, thus, I experienced that the church was constantly reborn and growing. The parish of Kariobangi in Kenya has a huge church and some filial churches with few priests. However, the parish is based on 70 Small Christian Communities (SCC): Neighborhood groups of 30 to 50 people, which, in addition to the Sunday service, meet weekly for Bible sharing in their back yards or streets. People read the gospel of the coming Sunday and ask themselves in prayer what is going wrong in their own neighborhood or what should improve? They ask: Where are the sick waiting for a visit? Where do neighbors need help? Where are families starving or are unable to send their children to school because they cannot pay the school fees? Where do young people need guidance and support so that they do not end up as street children or as the garbage scavenger?
Strong Together
Every missionary is impressed by the power which the gospel develops in the hands of the poor and with how much imagination and devotion people live their faith. Therefore, it happened that a family that already had five or more children also takes in the children of a deceased neighbor. A lot of help and social work takes place in Africa without much fanfare, without publicity. Another example: Many poor people experience injustice as powerlessness. As individuals, they have no chance of reporting injustice to the police. The idea arose that every Small Christian Community should write down their experiences of injustice. Then the police commissioner was invited to the parish church to listen to the written complaints. As missionaries, we build on such and similar experiences. By this, faith becomes a feast that improves life and makes it more beautiful. The saying: “Shared sorrow is half sorrow; shared joy is double joy” became reality.
Understanding Church in a New Way: Mission in Europe
Every European parish is faced today with the question: How can we address parishioners in a new way? What must happen so that more people can come to church again? However, perhaps we have to ask the question in a different way: How do the Word and the divine values – namely Christian love – reach the people of today? In Europe, the number of candidates to priesthood will not increase in the foreseeable future. At present, a priest often “cares for” five to ten parishes so that for real time for pastoral work hardly remains. Pope Benedict XVI already emphasized in 2010 that “To look for new ways of preaching according to the appropriate present situation of human plight”. The laity has to come forward. The great idea of Bible sharing, which MISSIO started in many parishes of Germany 30 years ago, came to a standstill because the most important step – action – was not implemented. Maybe everything is too complicated and we are afraid to bear witness to our faith in today’s society.
Could not people of faith set up prayer- and Bible groups and other forms of encounter (with the blessing of the official Church)? Initiatives that do not get stuck in the “passive spirituality” but get into “action” among the people in their neighborhood? This is the way to build up a community of believers able to inspire the church anew. Where the gospel is taken seriously, it leads to the neighbor through empathy and concern. Moreover, as soon as the power of the gospel is experienced, the way to the church or to its community is not far away. Why do we not – with the help of Small Christian Communities – inject new life to our communities who hardly see a priest anymore? I have experienced that a Christian community comes to new life as soon as the Word of God, the gospel, is put into practice with joy and sincerity!
