BEING A CHURCH OF WONDER

REFLECTIONS FOR LENT

SimonMary Asese Aihiokhai

I owe gratitude to a spiritual friend of mine, Andrew Craig, one of the organizers of The Church for the Twenty-First Century (C21) at Boston College, for the inspiration for this reflection. As he wrote to me, Fr. James Martin, S.J. once wrote about how Mary of Magdala became a symbol of the entire church as she ran from the empty tomb to go and share with the disciples of Jesus the Good News of the resurrection. Such an excellent image to behold.

The fullness of the church is both instantiated in the fellowship of wonders and in the unique expression of wonder that is incarnated in each of us. In other words, to be a Christian is to embody wonder and it is in this mode of being that we gather and form a fellowship of life that the very word, ecclesia manifest. If this is understood at its foundational core, we will know then that we ought always to move away from distractive views that limit our ability to see how being church is itself a trans-institutional reality. 

Wonder is by its nature trans-boundary because it is produced in the domain of freedom and surprise. Its content comes always as a source of gift through which an existential disruption is produced in one. It is surprise itself because it is unfamiliar. Yet, its unfamiliarity is itself the locus of its beauty that holds one’s imagination captive. This type of captivity is itself a pathway to freedom from the old ways of being in the world. Take for example, you have been living in the desert and have never been to a rainforest. All your cognitive abilities are shaped by the landscape of the desert. Then one day, you get lost, and you find yourself in front of a forest. The forest is alien to your cognitive world. Its unfamiliarity is what holds you captive because it pulls you closer. It disrupts the familiar in you. It makes you to see beyond the world of language. In fact, language becomes a distraction to you. You cannot speak that which is beyond the familiar. This whole experience is itself the catharsis for wonder to be birthed forth in you. You begin to see the world and yourself in a new way. The encounter with the forest evokes an existential disruption in you. It is not always a fun experience. But it is an experience that must evoke saturated possibilities in you.

Wonder cannot become our reality unless we first allow ourselves to experience an existential emptying. But such emptying never occurs in a moment. It is gradual. It involves a journey of life. Tomorrow will be Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent in most Christian traditions. The fact that Lent lasts forty days evokes the meaning of the gradual process of conversion that must occur in each of us if we are to embody the Easter grace, which is the grace of wonder. All transformations begin gradually and then have their crescendos. So also is the Lenten season. Today, we shall eat and be very merry before the journey of allowing the hangover of our old selves to be abandoned. As we enter Lent, we each begin to walk slowly away from our respective deserts and heading towards the rainforest of Easter. As we get closer to the rainforest, we begin to experience the windy nights and cool breezes that the forest exudes and we experience less the dryness and heat of the desert. Because we are still dressed up in clothes meant for the desert, we begin to feel unbalanced and may become chili. This radical shift in body temperature and the discomfort that it evokes in us is equivalent to the end of the Lenten season. In fact, that is what Holy Week is about.

As we eventually get to the front of the rainforest, we experience a complete breakdown within us. We are held captive by what is completely new. It is a new world to behold. Yet, all that we embrace and hold on to in our lives are now useless. We need complete transformation. We need a new language that can describe the realities of the rainforest. We need new cognitive trainings as well. Our senses must now be retrained as well. Our modes of encounter must now be transformed. We are forced to die to ourselves. We are new creatures. Only as forest creatures can we behold the rainforest. This is what Easter is all about. Only as creatures of resurrection can we behold the gift of the resurrection. Only as ecclesial beings can we be witnesses of the church. Said differently, to be a witness of the church, we must first be the church in its totality. In this way, we must let go of all false and unhealthy restrictions that create centers and peripheries.

Now, by being a church of wonder or a rainforest being, we realize that community is central. A tree cannot be a forest. To be a forest, there must be a community of trees. To be a church, there must be a community of ecclesial beings. To be a resurrected being, there must be a community of resurrected beings. This idea is at the heart of what Jesus did to Mary of Magdala. As she became a resurrected being through her encounter with resurrection itself, she was tasked with the mandate to go and become a witness and to bring members of her former community to the place of resurrection so that they can also become resurrected beings. Metaphorically speaking, the former desert creature, having become a rainforest being, must go back and share this new life with their former desert community so that they also can experience the rainforest and become rainforest beings themselves. It is this process of returning to one’s former home in order to bring one’s former community to experience new life that is at the heart of wonder. 

 Wonder evokes sharing with others all that one has become. A church of wonder cannot but share the good news of life that Christ instantiates in it. This process cannot be done by putting restrictions on who ought to experience such wonder. Wonder is a gift freely received and must also be a gift freely shared with others.

During the period of Lent, we cannot forget that our journey to the place of wonder that will manifest itself in and through the Easter experience is a process that has the responsibility to be a witness to others as well. As we are being transformed to become Easter creatures, let us also share this transformation with those who may need it in their lives as well. 

Wishing you all a solemn Lent!

Reflection – February 13, 2024.