Clergy and Pastoral Workers ConferenceSts. Peter and Paul Church Hall

16 September 2008

“Go, then, to all peoples everywhere and make them my disciples: baptize them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and teach them to obey everything I have commanded you.”

VISION STATEMENT ARCHBISHOP REECE

“The faithful of the archdiocese called by the Father and empowered by the Holy Spirit will aim at continuing to build together the Church, Body of Christ that is more VIBRANT, VISIBLE, VOCAL.”

How can the Church be Vibrant, Visible and Vocal?

Or How can we become

Missionary-Disciples in the Jamaican Contextual Reality?

NO. 32

Disciples and Missionary of Christ –

Concluding Document

“Our reflection on the journey of the Churches in Latin America and the Caribbean takes place in the midst of the lights and shadows of our age. . . We have received priceless gifts that help us view reality as missionary-disciples of Jesus Christ.”

To Understand the cultural reality of the Jamaica People

The Micro-context: Psycho-social dynamics of a so-called inner city community by Francis Madden

The Macro-context: Historical review of Jamaica’s social-cultural context

CONCLUSION

Disenfranchisement and marginalization of the mass esp. black males

Creation of social inequalities

Politics of colour

It suppresses the genuinely human and personal

It depersonalizes and dehumanizes

Creates Inequality among various social groups

Ways and means are employed to distort the truth about the dignity of persons, about the contextual reality and their genuine relationships.

For example: “Free Education,” “Jobs, jobs, jobs” or “Money jingle in yu pockets”

“Forced Context”

Professor Yunus of Bangladesh: “People are poor because the system made them that way.”

“Society only gives enough for us to fail”

“FORCED CONTEXT”

Unavailability of choices – Except for that which is given to individuals by the structures of exploitation

Understanding of Freedom – not in light of hope but despair

Non-essentiality of the human condition -

TO UNDERSTAND FAITH WITHIN OUR CONTEXTUAL REALITY

“Every faith develops theology”

Authentic Relationships

Authentic Relationships – A mode of relation to the other that promotes existence in the full sense.

What needs to be done?

Re-establishment of authentic relationships by the Church with those who find themselves in a “dislocated” & “forced” context

“In light of Christ, suffering, injustice, and the cross challenge us to live as Samaritan Church (cf.Lk.10:25-37) recalling that ‘evangelization has always developed alongside the promotion of the human person and authentic Christian liberation”

THE CROSS

A WAY TO LIVING AUTHENTIC RELATIONSHIP

EMERSION INTO THE ABYSSENCOUNTER WITH THE SOURCE - GOD

THE CROSS & RESURRECTION

FROM POWERLESSNESS TO POWER

NEWNESS OF LIFE

RESURRECTION

Resurrection as “yet”, in anticipation of the resurrection as “not yet.”

“Resurrection is not about a dead man/woman come back to life in the same old way, but a power at work that we cannot control, a power that makes human life surge with possibility in the very space where it has experienced failure and death.” (Diane Jagdeo)

OBJECTIVE - THREE

WHAT PASTORAL MODEL MUST THE CHURCH ADOPT IN ITS MISSIONARY WORK WITHIN THIS PARTICULAR CONTEXTUAL REALITY?

The

Questions

Name some pastoral principles in the Church’s missionary action that perpetuate an inauthentic relationship between the Church and the culture?

Given the context reality, name some guiding principles that would drive the pastoral model of the Church.