My blogs seem to focus around my Sundays even though I post on Wednesdays but, whatever…again, another Sunday that I think makes for some good reading (humble opinion that…)

I’ve moved towns again…now I’m in a city in the middle of Congo with the paradox of direct international flights to Nairobi, Kenya and yet a population of bicycles and motorbikes that must be 50 fold the population of vehicules…bizarre.

Anyway, as expected, I only had to ask one team member “Whose Catholic and could point me in the right direction for Mass on Sunday?”

“Ah, talk to the driver Jimmy, he’s a regular…” Jimmy is more than pleased that I ask such a favour and he offers to come to the base on Sunday morning to pick me up so we can go to the parish ‘just around the corner’. “Mass is at 9am…I’ll pick you up at 8.20 so we can be there for 8.30…” “Thank you, though why do we have to be there at 8.30?” “To get a seat of course!” You’d think it was Christmas Eve midnight mass…no no, just a regular Sunday folks.

“And between 8.30 and 9am what happens?” I enquire. He looks a little confused “We wait for Mass to start…” Ah, I should have guessed that one…people wait here, they’re not instantaneously and occidentally impatient! Ok, mental note, pack latest papal reading (by the way JP II’s Apostolic Exhortation “Christifideles Laici – Vocation and Mission of the Lay Faithful”…suuuper good…) for some reading.

Sunday morning I wake up feeling rather not on form (still adjusting to the new cook and the dodgy water), and not in any position to squish myself in the middle of a pew with no rapid exit strategy in case of emergency (if you get my gist). I call off the generous offer of Jimmy hoping I’ll be a little better later on.

A couple hours of ‘molo’ as they say here (gently does it) and I’m confident that I should be alright. Jimmy had said there was another Mass at 11am so, lacking a vehicle and relishing newfound freedom thanks to less strict security rules, I venture out on foot to find the parish ‘just around the corner’ for 11am Mass.

The heat of the day has already assumed it’s dominating role here…I’m charmingly soaked in sweat within minutes.

After asking for directions a couple of times (and receiving glances of utter confusion “what? A white person, walking?” I’d estimate there’s less than twenty muzungus in the whole city excluding the bolshy, sleazy military from one Anglophone country that will remain nameless…) I find something of a parish but there’s no Mass at 11am. Go to the Cathedral for twelve…ok jonny, on y va.

From my initial perceptions of the town layout, I think I have a reasonable sense of the direction of the Cathedral, in any case…it’s along the river…somewhere. I set off, without any bottled water which is not smart…and finish up making a grand circuit of the town until I finally rest my eyes on the relatively elegant cathedral.

On the way I buy a bottle of tonic because I can’t find anywhere selling water. The lady selling the drink insists I bring back the glass bottle (ironically recycling of glass bottles seems to work better in the Congo than I’ve seen in NZ…). I’ve already paid her almost double the price of the tonic cause I don’t have the change and she insists I shouldn’t miss out on my 5c extra that one receives for returning the bottle.

I enquire to some police if I’m on the right route and they say “No, you cant pass by here, you have to go in that direction…but you have to give me your tonic too…” Oh really? Which piece of local legislation demands that any half-drunk tonic must be given to police upon demand? Caught drinking and walking? No constable, there’s no gin in there… sigh, even in the littlest things it seems like the entire aim is to trump any gullible person possible…corruption sucks.

I arrive to the cathedral to see crowds pouring out from Mass just finished and note that it’s midday…if Mass is just finished it can only mean one thing here, another Mass is about to start…perfect timing.

My energy levels have taken a dive with the hour’s trek around town in the heat, and the tonic while refreshing didn’t particularly quench my thirst…so it’s a struggle to keep up with Mass, nevertheless so very content to have made it!

The choir sing Gregorian chants with the ‘background accompaniment’ of whistles blowing from the local Catholic scouts outside practising whatever scouts practice. Catholic scouts are huge here…all dressed like you imagine scouts…a bit of a blast from the past but too cool at the same time.

I am a little disturbed by the priest’s homily where he says, to paraphrase, to the parents of the congregation – “You shouldn’t give anything of poor quality to God. Choose your most intelligent child, and he or she is the one you should consacrate to God in a religious vocation…” Sorry, what??!! First of all, can I name the number of saints who struggled to get through their theology degrees…and secondly, what about the call of God? It’s not just an offering of sacrifice, but a response to a call. Anyway, it was one of the more explicit examples I’ve seen in my time here of some of the ‘interesting’ attitudes that can arise in the context of the Church here in Congo (remembering that the presence of Church is always intricately linked with the culture in which She inserts herself).

Which reminds me, the other weekend in Goma, there was the installation of the new bishop – the old one was granted retirement by the Holy Father. The installation was of course a grand affair – a huge open air Mass of no less than 5 hours (I must admit I wasn’t there for the entirety…). And I was fascinated by the way they called it the “Passation de pouvoir” (Passing of power…). Rightly so, there is sort of passing of episcopal power, clearly, but it seemed rather striking (and again, reflective of the culture here) that this event was primarily identified with power.

In any case, I still returned the empty tonic bottle after Mass – just to reassure the lady who sold it to me. As for the interaction of Church and culture in the Congo, that I’m still getting my head around…

Here’s something for ya’ll to consider…Good Friday is one of the last remaining public holidays in New Zealand where the percentage of practicing Catholics is something below 5% of the total population (can’t find the figure exactly). However here in DRCongo where the Catholic population is 40% of the total population (and all Christian dominations reach 80% together)…Good Friday is not a public holiday.

Unless you work for certain UN agencies. Ironic huh? The usual weekly security briefing (hosted by the UN) was cancelled without notice because the office was closed for Good Friday and the UN flights office was so minimally staffed that it contributed to the grounding one of my colleagues here for another week.

I mean, you can imagine I’m certainly far from ‘anti’ Good Friday as a public holiday, quite the contraire of course…but it did make me wonder if I should be working for the impartial, non-religious-affliated UN?

In any case, as the rain poured down, I popped out of the office just before 3pm and got to the parish to find it near empty…uh, ok. Now, don’t tell me I got the time wrong…I mean, if there’s one Mass time that’s been fixed the world over, it’s the one focused around the hour of Christ’s death. Sorry, no excuses there folks.

As if working on a JetStar booking approach of the Church being full enough before starting the liturgy, it was 4.15pm before things got cracking (no pun intended).

As I mentioned before, the “muzungu” (white fulla) presence in Mass here is close to nil, therefore there’s little reason to say Mass in French…so I had the privilege of my first Good Friday liturgy entirely in Swahili…generously more than 2 hours. I’m exceptionally glad I had brought with me the readings for the day and JPII’s encyclical on God’s mercy…like a little kid too young to understand, I would find myself caught out during the homily as everyone laughed or stirred at something the priest said and I’d be buried in my encyclical. No chance of getting the jokes…

Easter Saturday night vigil, I was already prepared…stuck without any secure and permitted means of transport I had no choice but to walk in 45 minutes late…pas de probleme it seemed. Things were only just getting going.

A healthy three hours long, I tell you the sense of celebration was almost edible. While I’m no liturgy expert, and I’m not just for ‘whatever feels cool’ or ‘whatever livens things up’, I have to admit I’m very taken by the liturgy here. There’s no rush…there’s plenty of time for roof-raising praise, and dance and clapping is by far the most common (not claiming ‘natural’ – in support of Gaston Helman and his book “Je suis noir et je n’aime pas le manioc”) means of praising God here. It’s important to understand that these actions play vastly different roles in a context like DRC than in a Kiwi parish where the youth group wants to do a “nice liturgical dance” to “fill in” after Communion. (Creative dance has it’s place to praise God, it’s a wonderful thing, just not in the Mass…sorry, not budging on that one)…

While the churches may lack the richness of physical beauty that you’d find in Europe…it’s not because of some conscious effort to digress from what is naturally beautiful to the human eye, it’s cause this is possibly all they can afford. If you can look past the economic lightbulbs, the exposed wiring, the very funky coloured vestments in some places, the dusty concrete floors, the hard wobbly wooden benches and the slightly kitsch chinese rug underneath the altar, you remember that this is still a house of God as sacred as any other where a tabernacle rests guarding the real presence of our Lord Jesus Christ. And funnily enough, while such elements of the décor might strike as a bit ‘profane’ to a Western eye, you can almost guarantee that the vessels for communion are made of precious metals…it’s tiny things that seem to speak of an underlying consciousness of the nature of faith, of God, of Christ and of His Church that is often lost amongst the many voices of our “more” “developped” societies…maybe?

This may sound like a rather shocking statement, but in recent weeks I’ve become particularly conscious of the fact that I’m not perfect. More to the point, I’m a rather long long way from perfect. Sounds positively laughable when I actually write it down. It’s lead to the occasional moment of semi-despair, however I have a funny feeling it’s all been part of how the Spirit has wanted to speak to me this Lent. It’s been a necessary realisation to go deeper in my experience of His Divine Mercy.

There’s four particular ‘means’ by which I sense the Spirit has been trying to raise my consciousness about this…and just maybe it’ll be worth sharing with you guys, fellow Bfers…

1. The Word of God of course, the Sunday gospels, and the accompanying meditations that I receive by email each day. Here’s an extract that really hit home for me from the meditation on the gospel of the adulterous woman brought before Jesus by the Pharisiens: “Experiencing our weaknesses is necessary before we’ll be capable of accepting God’s mercy. The more we come to know our profound weakness, the more profound will be our experience of God’s mercy. There is no experience sweeter, or any deeper joy, than the absolution, the reconciliation by Christ the Redeemer – “I don’t condemn you.” Our deepest egoistic fears disappear and we realise that in fact we’ve been haunted by the ghosts of our own pride and vanity. Let us awake to the reality of God’s mercy…”

2. The 1980 encyclical by JPII Dives in Misericordia (On the Mercy of God) – well worth a read during Lent! – “Believing in the crucified Son means…believing that love is present in the world and that this love is more powerful than any kind of evil in which individuals, humanity, or the world are involved. Believing in love means believing in mercy. For mercy is an indispensable dimension of love; it is as if it were love’s second name, and at the same time, the specific manner in which love is revealed and effected vis-a-vis the reality of the evil that is in the world, affecting and besieging man, insinuating itself even into his heart and capable of causing him to ‘perish in Gehenna’.” I felt quite a strong link between this statement and…

3. The Holy Father’s recent letter to the Catholic Church in Ireland – some might accuse me of just simply being a ‘loyalist’ to the Holy Father, but I’ve certainly sat wondering where on earth a genuine response from the Church could possibly begin with such a tragedy as the clergy abuses. Indeed there may be criticisms to his letter that I myself cannot identify, but for the moment, I have to say I’ve been deeply moved by his message. I feel it be truly a response planted in a profound sense of the link between justice and love – i.e. mercy, as Dives in Misericordia explains. It’s a message of a loving shepherd to his flock, painful but honest, painful and therefore sanctifying, and it implicates every one of us who profess to believe in one holy catholic and apostolic church. At a crisis moment, in sincere humility, he has implored the flock entrusted to him to reflect very deeply and very honestly, in the spirit of mercy as “love vis-a-vis such tragic human failing”. In a moment where both sinner and victim could easily be lead to despair , I feel his letter is an extraordinary witness to Hope grounded in realism.

4. And the final means by which I’ve become so acutely conscious of God’s mercy and my need of it has been much closer to home. Things can get pretty stressful at work, not to mention the frequent language barrier, vast cultural differences, living with your colleagues and frustrating everyday realities. It’s far too easy to fall into the traps of slander, intolerance, resentment and barrier-building as ‘survival tactics’. More so, everyone talks…about everyone. And it’s precisely at this axis that I’ve realised the power of my words – to harm, to heal, to build up and to tear down – this is possibly the most crucial litmus test of my Christian witness. Is my witness, in the last count, genuine and sincere, or merely superficial practice? It’s a relief to realise that I’m not perfect – and that neither are any of my colleagues – indeed, there’s a certain relief in being unqualified to “throw the first stone”. Look long enough and hard enough and you’ll find plenty to drive you bonkers about each other. The only response therefore is one of mercy, of compassion and ultimately of love.

The times when my good intentions or my inability to express myself adequately have been misconstrued have been quite painful. But more painful have been then moments when I know for sure that I’ve just plain ol’ lost my charity, that my heart has been hardened and I’ve let it show – and in that moment I find myself desperate for others to be merciful with me. I’m realising the powerful witness this can be when you really, honestly and humbly seek to settle your differences with another. Personality clashes and conflicts are a natural part of human functioning, most noticeably in a work context…and I’d be hiding behind my own egoism and pride if I think I’ll sail beyond such things – indeed, I’d be quite a Pharisee to think so. Thus it’s precisely at these uncomfortable, ego-slashing moments that our witness to Christ’s healing mercy and love becomes truly authentic and transparent. I’m more and more convinced that it is how we handle these sorts of sticky spots that speak most loudly of the sincerity of our faith in Christ and his mercy.

I just pray for the wisdom to recognise those ‘sticky’ opportunities of grace…kick out my egoism Lord, that I’ll be humble enough to see others through the eyes of Christ, to be merciful and accept the mercy of others as reflections of your infinite mercy.