GOLDEN JUBILEE TESTIMONY
Fr. Mervyn Carapiet Place and Date of Birth: Calcutta, 10
July 1933
My Testimony to the Word
I have learned to live with pain.
I have also learned that it’s no use trying to please people; I only serve
them as Jesus would. Basically that means breaking the Word to them even if
it is often very challenging and displeasing to certain people, especially
priests. My talents lie in my knowledge of the Word and my communication
skills that have been praised wherever and whenever I have broken God’s Word
to the people. Apart from this God has given me the talent to sing and write
books and articles even up to the old age that I have attained. Old age in itself
is a great gift when I consider the vast numbers of fellow humans who have
died in their prime. How could God allow me to live this long if it were not
to use his gifts for others, gifts that I have described here. With the short
span left to me it would be sinful not to exercise them while I am still
alive.
Canon 545/2 states: “An assistant
priest may be appointed either to help in exercising the entire pastoral
ministry, whether in the whole parish or in a part of it or for a particular
group of the faithful within, or even to help in carrying out a specific
ministry in a number of parishes at the same time.”
The spirit behind this canon is
encouraging and applies to me. People should espouse the spirit of this canon
and encourage me to use my talents of preaching the Word, affording me the
opportunity wherever available. I am retired, yet more than retired. I am an
assistant pastor, yet more than that. My gifts urge me to go forward beyond
the limits of any one parish. God-given talents transcend parochial
boundaries. Jesus said, “I have other sheep too that must listen to my
voice.” The “other sheep” are eager to hear me. They have told me so and are
envious of those who hear me on a regular basis. Why bind me down to local limits,
to standing beside the main celebrant like a glorified altar boy, to singing
some lines that could be done by a lay person or simply recited, to
distributing Holy Communion that could be done by Eucharistic ministers, when
I can devote myself to more substantial actions like celebrating the
Eucharist and preaching the Word?
Within the brief time left to me I
am constrained to be baptised with a baptism that will mark the ending:
preaching the Word...with my dying lips.
Rules and formalities do not
matter to me anymore. It is not that I break the rules and regulations but
that I go beyond them to fulfil their meaning and spirit. Regulations and
rules are but illustrations and channels of our intimacy with God which is
precisely what I intend by my preaching the Word.
John’s gospel sums it up well,
“Night is coming when no man can work.” So let me work the Word while there
is still light that for me is fast fading. Evensong is sounding its way to
Compline.
My Testimony to the Eucharist
Every
priest has one day off each week. He can go for a round of golf, visit
friends and stay with his relatives, go to his club and have a few drinks
with his fellow club members. In short, a priest can do what he enjoys most
on his day off. Where I am concerned, my day off is Sunday, and my most
enjoyable activity is celebrating the Eucharist and preaching the Word. After
fulfilling my pastoral duty of hearing confessions and celebrating the holy
sacrifice of the Mass, I still have a lot of time-space on Saturday-Sunday to
enjoy my favourite activity in any other church that gives me the
opportunity, knowing full well that people enjoy my liturgy and preaching.
Of all the activities possible to man, and
that he is capable of, the most sublime and beneficial is the celebration of
the Eucharist, which is exactly what I enjoy doing. My enjoyment produces
goodness and wholesomeness in the world. So I do only the very best that is
the Eucharist by way of contemplation and celebration. I cannot think of a better way of spending
my time. Give me the chance and I’ll give you the Mass.
My Leave Taking
|
| So where do we go from here, from home? T.S. Eliot once said,
"Home is where we start from." That's true again in mid-life. The
second-half of life, just like the first, demands a journey. While the
first-half of life, as we saw, is very much consumed with the search for
identity, meaning, self-worth, intimacy, rootedness, and making peace with
our emotions, the second-half has another purpose, as expressed in the famous
epigram of Job: "Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked I go
back." Where do we go from home? To an eternal home with God. But, to do that, we have first to shed many of the things that we legitimately acquired and attached ourselves to during the first-half of life. The spiritual task of the second-half of life, so different from the first, is to let go, to move to the nakedness that Job describes. What does that entail? From what do we need to detach ourselves? First, and most importantly, from our wounds and anger. The foremost spiritual task of the second half of life is to forgive -- others, ourselves, life, God. We all arrive at mid-life wounded and not having had exactly the life of which we dreamed. There's a disappointment and anger inside every one of us and unless we find it in ourselves to forgive, we will die bitter, unready for the heavenly banquet. Second, we need to detach ourselves from the need to possess, to achieve, and to be the centre of attention. The task of the second-half of life is to become the quiet, blessing grandparent who no longer needs to be the centre of attention but is happy simply watching the young grow and enjoy themselves. Third, we need to learn how to say good-bye to the earth and our loved ones so that, just as in the strength of our youth we once gave our lives for those we love, we can now give our deaths to them too, as a final gift. Fourth, we need to let go of sophistication so as to become simple "holy old fools" whose only message is that God loves us. Finally, we need more and more, to immerse ourselves in the language of silence, the language of heaven. Meister Eckhart once said: "Nothing so much resembles God as silence." The task of mid-life is to begin to understand that and enter into that language. And it's a painful process. Purgatory is not some exotic, Catholic doctrine that believes that there is some place in the next life outside of heaven and hell. It's a central piece within any mature spirituality, which like Job, tells us that God's eternal embrace can only become fully ecstatic once we've learned to let go. |
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