This year, on November 25th of this year, ten years have passed since the moment when the unfathomable and infinite mercy of our Lord placed me as a bishop to minister the ministry of the Apostolic Work in the Holy Metropolis of Cameroon. I do not consider the ten years of my ministry to be enough to draw conclusions and be considered an expert or to consider them as an occasion and an object of celebration. But I find it a great opportunity for reflection and self-criticism on which the steps of the next five years and – God willing – perhaps even ten years should be carefully planned. The experiences of this decade are many and compressed. Some articles which have seen the light of day from time to time in various missionary journals I would describe as attempts to ‘de-compile’ these experiences and more importantly attempts to create a dialogue in all ecclesiastical and non-ecclesiastical directions.
In the end, all this, I believe, remained on the borders of a monologue with a charm that is more due to the harsh beauty of the African landscape, to the harsh reality of the all-encircling death and to the image of the wandering -in it- face of the priestly order… There were people, either individually or organized in associations, who throughout this decade have supported the work with faith and trust and to whom belongs “the just praise of the Church” which they will receive from the adamant Judge and donor Lord. But my deepest motive was never to become a writer of travel impressions, nor a scholar-anthropologist, but to define to the Church which sent me the measures of my “Georgia” and the unique opportunity which is given to us in our chaotic time to preach Christ, to enter a society primitive and at the beginning of its formation according to the European model and to place Christ as its basis and foundation, embodying in all its splendour the silent and comforting love of the “Good Samaritan” and correcting the indifference and frivolity of the “priest” and the “white man”, which always bears the bitter taste of “absinthus”…
In these ten years, God has filled me with manifestations and gestures of touching love from ordinary people, but always with constant, exceptional “flavours of absinthe” -with few exceptions- from people who I still believe that we serve the same purpose, namely the Gospel, but perhaps in some other expression of it, which I persistently miss…
It is an undeniable fact that modern societies are tired and old from the compression of time and the over-consumptive way of life to which they have been forced by a long indifference and absence they have shown for “the common”… Some professional and shameless demagogues have increased and exploited this indifference, ruined and collapsed “the commons” and the consequences of this situation we are living as a crisis and illness, waiting for the recovery or the intervention of a mechanical “economic god”… But what I cannot understand and conceive is the “lethargy” of the guardians of the Gospel and their complicity with the demagoguery of the day! And of course soup kitchens and social groceries offer a lot but they are not a solution…
The charity which a Mission offers is necessary but cannot be considered a primary purpose… The purpose is only Christ and his will, i.e. the Gospel, and this is not the offer of an idea or a worldview… It is “light” and “truth” and “the way” and “the life of the world” and that is how we should speak of Christ and live with Him.
But always, Christ thus spoke to the world in a way that no one else had ever spoken, and in effect opened the eyes of the world to a different ethos and not to another moralistic form of life. That is why He did not hesitate to criticize every form of authority and every form of faith of His time and every hierarchy of His world… I would say with certainty that this critical view of His world He tried to transmit it to His contemporaries in the ordinary world and not only to their disciples, wanting to make them smarter against the secularization of the people of religion and the greed of political demagogy… Of course, the reaction of His society was the Cross… But the continuation of the Cross was the Resurrection, the Ascension, the Pentecost and the tangible blessing that comes for believers and unbelievers from all this… For such a transmission of the Gospel will we wander around the African continent and forcibly consume ourselves, believing that what we do is aimed at the glory of the Church and may be heard after our crucifixion… But how many wondrous things could be done, if the Church that sent us were to intervene in philanthropy to strengthen and assist our humble work? How many wonderful miracles would we experience if some clergymen had the courage to come out of the “national monism” of their faith and join us in the ways of the nations and in the depths of the world of human beings?
How different would the image of our Church in the world be if we believed in the Apostolic work “to all nations”?
These are the things I dream of on long, rainy, tropical nights and from the beauty of these dreams I draw courage and hope to continue on this long solitary path, knowing in my heart that probably some other generation of workers of the Gospel, after many years, can realize and live them… Thank you, Lord! My love to all the nostalgics of the surface of our Lord.
† Cameroon Gregory
