During the second week of Easter, the Church proposed to us a reading from the Acts of the Apostles that gives a picture of the life of the first Christians: “None of the members was ever in want, as all those who owned land or houses would sell them and bring the money from the sale of them, to present it to the apostles; it was then distributed to any who might be in need” (Acts 4,34-35).

Scripture scholars tell us that this Christian Communism described by Luke is not to be taken literally. The situation was not so idyllic, although they saw to it to help the poor and took up collections even in faraway places to help them.

A few not so exemplary situations also existed. Jewish Christians wanted to impose the Mosaic Law onto the Christians coming from paganism; there were disagreements among them, and other faults. Paul and Barnabas, who had journeyed and worked together, disagreed and parted ways.

It is not difficult to see that the situation has not changed much in our times. We often read about scandals involving Church members, paedophile priests and religious, Church authorities protecting them, misconduct and, sometimes, even cruelty in orphanages and schools for indigenous children run by the Church.

If we revisit our expectations of the Church we will not be scandalised

On the other hand, the Church also runs institutions in which lots of care and love is shown towards those under their protection. Limiting ourselves to Malta, we are all aware of the care and love shown to the disabled at the Siġġiewi home or that shown by the Ursuline Sisters, by Caritas, by the Jesuit Refugee Service, and others. Such caring Church institutions are not limited to Malta but exist wherever the Church is present.

All this helps us to get to know our Church as it truly is, saint and sinner at the same time. Many are scandalised at the sinfulness of the Church – ‘scandal’ means, literary, to stumble, as happens when someone walking stubs a bump in the street and falls.

In a way this is understandable, but it happens mainly because we expect the Church to be pure, forgetting that Christ founded it on the rock, Peter, who had disowned him only a few days before, and that the Church is made up of fallible and fragile human beings.

Some may be temped to somehow get rid of the bad ones, under the illusion that we are just, and not saints and sinners like the Church itself. Our Lord had a different solution: “Let them grow together,” he told those servants who wanted to pluck out the darnel from the wheatfield. In this world we all live together. In the Church it should be the same. Judgement comes only at the very end.

Pope Francis calls the Church a field hospital. In war, people get wounded and need immediate medical help. A field hospital sees to this. All of us, that is, all members of the Church, are wounded sometimes. The Church offers healing and consolation.

If we revisit our expectations of the Church we will not be scandalised. It’s not that we approve evil but, like the Lord of the parable, we let the wheat and the darnel grow together in the hope that conversion will happen, because God does not write off anybody.

 

Fr Alfred Micallef is a member of the Society of Jesus.

 

ajsmicallef@gmail.com