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The Cyrenean, a man from Africa: from refusal to service
Palm Sunday Year B - 05.04.2009
Mark 11:1-10
(procession) Reflections The entry into Holy
Week, the great
week of love right
up to the extreme consequences (Jn.13:1) is marked this year by the
story of
the Passion and death of Christ as narrated by the Evangelist Mark.
(Gospel). The Passion is not just
the story of
the past: the
same things happen today. The In this way the Cyrenean becomes the brother of the Good Samaritan, of Veronica and people like them, who labour, out of pure love, along the countless sorrowful ways of the victims of injustice of all times. Two authoritative voices reach us from Africa – both from Cameroon – with a comment on the icon of the Cyrenean: Fr. Mveng and Benedict XVI. Fr. Engelbert Mveng, a Jesuit from Cameroon, theologian, poet and artist, assassinated in 1995, can be heard from the pages of his “Way of the Cross” with typical designs from his laboratory of African art. At the Fifth Station Fr. Mveng presents the Cyrenean as “a man of Africa” with passion and fraternal admiration: « A poor, tired man; coming in from the fields; he is a man of Africa! And in his head, the tiredness of the day is a long chorus; the oppression of the day weighs like a big stone on his wavering steps, on his trembling lips, on the anguish of his heart that can put up with no more... A poor man of Africa… He is not an MP; not a Councillor, not an important man who is listened to in traditional circles, and no soldiers spring to attention before him! Nor do passers-by wish him a “Good evening, Sir!” He is a poor man of Africa, with timid steps, who carries over himself a kind of firmament of mystery… One of those men whom nobody understands, and who do not really understand themselves, who carry on their backs a burden of silence where God sings melodies unknown to other men….
And here they grab hold of him, shake him, drag him, And here they force him to carry the Cross of the Condemned man… And Jesus, standing, awaited him like a brother... This poor man of Africa who did not understand things very well, Who was tired, and the last thing he wanted was the Cross of a condemned man… Jesus awaited him like a brother, and in his heart, bleeding with exhaustion and love, his hand signed the great pact of the Call to the crossroads of their lives… On the horizon of the gaze of Simon, a man from Cyrene, a man from Africa, broke the Dawn of the Redemption of the world. My Jesus, You are waiting for me too: With Simon, the man of Cyrene, here I am!» (E. Mveng).
Benedict XVI, during his journey to Africa, met the world of suffering on 19th March 2009 at Yaoundé (Cameroon): and he addressed it, inspired by the icon of the Cyrenean:
« History tells us that an African, a son of your continent, took part, at the price of his own suffering, in the infinite suffering of the one who ransomed all men, including his executioners. Simon of Cyrene could not have known that it was his Saviour who stood there before him. He was “drafted in” to assist him (cf Mk 15:21); he was constrained, forced to do so. It is hard to accept to carry someone else’s cross. Only after the resurrection could he have understood what he had done… Only the Lord’s final victory will reveal for us the definitive meaning of our trials. Can it not be said that every African is in some sense a member of the family of Simon of Cyrene? Every African who suffers, indeed every person who suffers, helps Christ to carry his Cross and climbs with him the path to Golgotha in order one day to rise again with him. When we see the infamy to which Jesus was subjected, when we contemplate his face on the Cross, when we recognize his appalling suffering, we can glimpse, through faith, the radiant face of the Risen Lord who tells us that suffering and sickness will not have the last word in our human lives. I pray, dear brothers and sisters, that you will be able to recognize yourselves in “Simon of Cyrene”. I pray, dear brothers and sisters who are sick, that many of you will encounter a Simon at your bedside ».
In the steps of Missionaries - 5/4: St. Vincent Ferrer (1350-1419), a Spanish Dominican priest, one of the greatest itinerant preachers of missions in Western Europe. - 7/4: St John Baptist de la Salle (1651-1719), educator, founder of the Brothers of the Christian Schools. In 1950 Pius XII proclaimed him special patron of all teachers. - 7/4: World Health Day, organised by UNO and WHO. - 8/4: World day for the Rom and the Sinti (Travellers). - 9/4: Bl. Thomas of Tolentino (ca. 1260-1321), a Franciscan Missionary in China and India. - 9/4: We recall Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945), A German Lutheran theologian, symbol of the resistance to Nazism. He died in the concentration camp of Flossenburg. - 11/4: Memoria of Tertullian of Carthage (Tunisia, 155-220 ca.), apologist and theologian: he demonstrated the injustice of the persecution of Christians. One of his sayings is: “sanguis martyrum semen cristianorum”. - 11/4: S. Stanislaus, Bishop of Cracow and martye, killed (+1079) while celebrating the Mass. He is the Patron of Poland.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Compiled by Fr. Romeo Ballan, mcci - Comboni Missionaries (Verona) Translated by Fr. J.M. Troy, mccj Website: www.euntes.net “The Word for Mission” ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ |
persons of then (Caiphas,
Herod,
Pilate, Pharisees, priests, Peter, Judas, the Cyrenean, devoted women,
soldiers, the Centurion, Joseph of Arimathea…) are all
emblematic of what
happens today with regard to Christ and those who suffer, with
whom He
identifies himself (cfr. Mt 25:35s). Every single person can recognize
him- or
herself in one or other of the persons in the Passion of Jesus. Each
one can, like
the Cyrenean, be a character dear to Mark the Evangelist, who
describes
his meeting, strange and brief, with the condemned Man: “They
enlisted a
passer-by, Simon of Cyrene, father of Alexander and Rufus, who was
coming in
from the country, to carry his cross.”