Let us not allow any separation from our Shepherds!
Fr Zbigniew Suchy
The sincere disciples of St John the Baptist, concerned for their future, fulfil his request, which they cannot understand, and approach Jesus. No, they do not want to see a miracle of liberation; they want to have their doubts explained, ‘Are you the one who is to come, or should we look for another?’ (Matthew 11:3). Jesus reveals his messianic mission in his simple answer, based on the prophets’ promises.
But there are different situations in Jesus’ life – the Pharisees and Sadducees, not intending to see the truth but wanting to manifest their knowledge and power, shout to the crowds, ‘Who gave you this authority?’ (Mathew 21:23). They know who has given him the authority but they cannot let him reveal their superficiality, their philosophy of whitewashed tombs.
‘The key to weaken and then eliminate the Church from public life is the attempt to divide her or to make people believe that the Church is divided […] the fundamental question is whether the critic wants to promote himself, his «good» or the good of the Church’ – these two statements of Archbishop Jozef Michalik of Przemysl, giving an interview for ‘Nasz Dziennik’, evoked rankling fury of the media. Not because his words are aggressive, stupid but because they are true. An ordinary conversation evokes a shower of invectives, aggression.
All these things accumulated in the television judgement over the Church, and especially over the intellectual indolence of the bishops who need ‘brainwashing.’ Unfortunately, the clergymen, deluded by their pharisean concern for the Church, joined the choir of whippers almost on Christmas Eve. Only a layman showed his live of the Church. If someone had doubts concerning the truth of Archbishop Michalik’s words about promoting oneself, conducted by ‘those concerned’, this programme showed their horrifying confirmation: Fr Pawel Burzynski and Fr Kazimierz Sowa did not only look for another confirmation of their intellectual powers and straight fervent love of the Church – but they also legitimised the apostasy of their fellow brother, priest, sitting down with him to destroy the Church. The sadness of the believers and the astonishment of the clergymen I met today are understandable. They reveal the words of the psalmist, ‘If an enemy had reviled me, that I could bear; If my foe had viewed me with contempt, from that I could hide. But it was you, my other self, my comrade and friend, You, whose company I enjoyed, at whose side I walked in procession in the house of God’ (Ps 55: 13-15).
If such a spectacle of fight against the Church begins just before the holiday of peace and unity it does not give fair promise for the coming year. Dear Readers, we have already begun a new year. Let us not allow any separation from our Shepherds. Perhaps we do not always understand them; perhaps we do not agree with their opinions but let us remember – without them we do not reach heaven. Christ made such a decision and orders us to love them as we love our parents. As strings of the lute, each of us separately but included in one tune, let us praise the glory of our Lord.
"Niedziela" 1/2011