81. At a time when we most
need a missionary dynamism which will bring salt and light to the world, many lay people fear that they may be asked to undertake some apostolic work
and they seek to avoid any responsibility that may take away from their free
time. For example, it has become very difficult today to find trained parish
catechists willing to persevere in this work for some years. Something similar
is also happening with priests who are obsessed with protecting their free
time. This is frequently due to the fact that people feel an overbearing need
to guard their personal freedom, as though the task of evangelization was a
dangerous poison rather than a joyful response to God’s love which summons us
to mission and makes us fulfilled and productive. Some resist giving themselves
over completely to mission and thus end up in a state of paralysis and acedia.
82.
The problem is not always an excess of activity, but rather activity undertaken
badly, without adequate motivation, without a spirituality which would permeate
it and make it pleasurable. As a result, work becomes more tiring than
necessary, even leading at times to illness. Far from a content and happy
tiredness, this is a tense, burdensome, dissatisfying and, in the end,
unbearable fatigue. This pastoral acedia can be caused by a number of things.
Some fall into it because they throw themselves into unrealistic projects and
are not satisfied simply to do what they reasonably can. Others, because they
lack the patience to allow processes to mature; they want everything to fall
from heaven. Others, because they are attached to a few projects or vain dreams
of success. Others, because they have lost real contract with people and so
depersonalize their work that they are more concerned with the road map than
with the journey itself. Others fall into acedia because they are unable to
wait; they want to dominate the rhythm of life. Today’s obsession with immediate
results makes it hard for pastoral workers to tolerate anything that smacks of
disagreement, possible failure, criticism, the cross.
83.
And so the biggest threat of all gradually takes shape: “the gray pragmatism of
the daily life of the Church, in which all appears to proceed normally, while
in reality faith is wearing down and degenerating into small-mindedness”.[63] A
tomb psychology thus develops and slowly transforms Christians into mummies in
a museum. Disillusioned with reality, with the Church and with themselves, they
experience a constant temptation to cling to a faint melancholy, lacking in
hope, which seizes the heart like “the most precious of the devil’s potions”.[64] Called
to radiate light and communicate life, in the end they are caught up in things
that generate only darkness and inner weariness, and slowly consume all zeal
for the apostolate. For all this, I repeat: Let us not allow ourselves to be
robbed of the joy of evangelization!
84.
The joy of the Gospel is such that it cannot be taken away from us by anyone or
anything (cf. Jn 16:22). The evils of our world – and those of
the Church – must not be excuses for diminishing our commitment and our
fervour. Let us look upon them as challenges which can help us to grow. With
the eyes of faith, we can see the light which the Holy Spirit always radiates
in the midst of darkness, never forgetting that “where sin increased, grace has
abounded all the more” (Rom 5:20). Our faith is challenged to
discern how wine can come from water and how wheat can grow in the midst of
weeds. Fifty years after the Second Vatican Council, we are distressed by the troubles of our age
and far from naive optimism; yet the fact that we are more realistic must not
mean that we are any less trusting in the Spirit or less generous. In this
sense, we can once again listen to the words of Blessed John XXIII on the memorable day of 11 October 1962: “At times we have
to listen, much to our regret, to the voices of people who, though burning with
zeal, lack a sense of discretion and measure. In this modern age they can see
nothing but prevarication and ruin … We feel that we must disagree with those
prophets of doom who are always forecasting disaster, as though the end of the
world were at hand. In our times, divine Providence is leading us to a new
order of human relations which, by human effort and even beyond all
expectations, are directed to the fulfilment of God’s superior and inscrutable
designs, in which everything, even human setbacks, leads to the greater good of
the Church”.[65]
85.
One of the more serious temptations which stifles boldness and zeal is a
defeatism which turns us into querulous and disillusioned pessimists,
“sourpusses”. Nobody can go off to battle unless he is fully convinced of
victory beforehand. If we start without confidence, we have already lost half
the battle and we bury our talents. While painfully aware of our own frailties,
we have to march on without giving in, keeping in mind what the Lord said to
Saint Paul: “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in
weakness” (2 Cor 12:9). Christian triumph is always a cross,
yet a cross which is at the same time a victorious banner borne with aggressive
tenderness against the assaults of evil. The evil spirit of defeatism is
brother to the temptation to separate, before its time, the wheat from the weeds;
it is the fruit of an anxious and self-centred lack of trust.
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