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Lời Ṭa Soạn: Số báo trước, ĐH có gửi đến độc giả bài phỏng vấn cha
Dominici trong một chuyến thăm cha tại Rome đầu năm 2002. Tuy nhiên
bài phỏng vấn được ghi lại từ băng cassette, thiếu đầy đủ, có lẽ
cũng hơi khó theo dơi. Chúng tôi gửi lại sang cho cha Dominici và
xin cha xem lại để có thể bổ túc & làm rơ ư nghĩa hơn. Sau đây là
bản cha gửi lại cho ĐH. Thành thật xin lỗi cha & bạn đọc. Những điều
cha chia sẻ rất quư đối với ĐH, tin rằng cũng rất quư với tất cả độc
giả của ĐH.
Q:
- When you were
in the Philippines, your life was once threatened, so that you were
forced to leave. At that time you were facing death by threat, now
you are facing death by cancer. Is there any difference between the
two cases?
A:
- Oh, yes! The
two cases are quite different. In the Philippines, the refugees were
studying English to prepare for going to the US. In the evening
some of the Filipino teachers used to invite their students to their
houses to see pornographic films, for business. Outside the camp,
other Filipinos were operating a place for prostitutions and
porno-films. One evening, during a party, I approached a Filipino
Official, who had authority in the camp, asking him to stop that
kind of business. But a few days later, I received a letter with
three bullets inside: I was asked to leave the camp, otherwise I
would be killed.
This threat was
clearly an injustice, a sinful act from their part; it was totally
against God’s will.
It was a little
also my fault, since I was rude with the Filipinos, seeing how they
treated the refugees. But fundamentally it was their fault. God had
no part in it!
Facing death
because of cancer is a totally different story. In this God is
playing the greatest part. Not in the sense that He caused my
cancer. God never causes evil, not even a physical harm. But in the
sense that He is using my cancer, which came naturally, to carry out
His plan on me; as the Father used the death of Jesus, caused by a
sin of men, to save humanity.
Beginning in
early 1997, I noticed that God started to put aside systematically
my projects and to replace them with His own projects. For example,
I was planning to return to the US to help with youth retreats,
while waiting to go back to VN, but God made my superior to recall
me back to Italy.
In early 1998,
I already had an air ticket for VN, invited there by the Jesuit
superior. But two days before leaving, I was hospitalized and
diagnosed to have a colon cancer. A week later I had a surgery.
This clearly
was not my plan, but God’s plan! The fact that my superior called me
back to Italy was His plan, not mine. But by recalling me back to
Italy, God saved my life: the cancer was in its early stage.
Why God saved
my life? I do not know.
I only know
that it was an act of His love. In October of the same year, 1998,
while doing my personal retreat, I heard in my heart something like
this: “Gildo, let Me love you my way!” Your way, my God? How is your
way of loving? Until Easter 2001, I saw God’s way of loving me in
the fact that he saved my life. But during a personal retreat in the
Holy Week of that year, I was considering the Passion of Jesus. In
the Garden of Gethsemany, Jesus asked the Father to be loved by not
letting Him die on the cross. That was Jesus’ way. The Father,
however, did not accept Jesus’ prayer and He loved His Son his own
way: by letting Him to be nailed on the cross. This was a blessing
for all humanity!
In this way I
understood that the greatest love of God for me was the cancer
itself. For man’s mentality, the greatest sign of God’s love is to
live in good health, to have a good job, a big bank account, a happy
family, a joyful life with as little suffering as possible. God’s
way of seeing reality, is different: the greatest grace he can
bestow on a human being is to make him similar to Jesus and to Jesus
on the cross, i.e. in his greatest act of love.
So I think God,
through my cancer, wants me to shift my attention from apostolic
activity to striving for becoming like Jesus Forsaken. This
consideration was confirmed a few weeks later, when in May 2001,
just one week before leaving for VN, it was discovered that I had
some metastasis on my liver. I had to give up my trip to VN. At
the present time it seems that God wants of me a spiritual growth, a
greater conformity to Jesus on the cross rather than apostolic work.
But I still feel to be a missionary and even more than before. This
because Jesus worked as an ordinary man for 30 years, preached the
Gospel for only three years, but he saved the world during the few
hours he spent on the cross!
The doctor says
that my cancer’s growth can be stopped by chemotherapy, but it will
be difficult to eliminate it completely. So I can live a few more
years, perhaps, but together with cancer, that means for me together
with Jesus on the cross. This is my way to be loved by God! The way
He wants me to live my consecration to Him, my “wedding” with
Christ.
I am happy with
this and said a big “Yes” to Him, because I believe all this is only
Love.
In conclusion,
it’s evident the difference between the two cases of my facing
death: in the first one God had no part; in the second, He’s the
conductor of the orchestra!
Q:
- Why do you
always speak of love?
A:
- Because the
reality is love! God is love! The world has been created out of love
and it is working out of love. The sun shines out of love, rain
falls out of love, rivers go to the sea out of love, flowers blossom
out of love… Man has been created out of love and God wants us to
become similar to Him: capable of loving! Loving has to become so
“natural” for us that it can be said that it is our “nature”, as
it is for God. We were born to learn how to love and at the end of
our life we will be judged on love. This is why Jesus left us only
one commandment: to love God with all our heart and the neighbor as
ourselves. This is the fundamental will of God on us : he wants
nothing of us more than love, since at his eyes nothing has value
except if done out of love (1 Cor 13, 1-3). Love is the meaning and
the purpose of our life. All other things are means, including
prayer and sacraments; only love is the end.
When I worked
in Galang refugee camp, in Indonesia, new catholic refugees, upon
arrival, used to come up to the Church to ask for a thanksgiving
Mass. Very good! But what about those who died on the sea? Were they
not loved by God? Everyone was, but in a different way. God loves
us both by life and by death, by joy and by suffering.
We are called
to be saints. But in what consists holiness? Certainly not in
becoming faultless, without defects. This is impossible for us, weak
creatures. So there is not “mine” holiness, “your” holiness. There
exists only one holiness possible for us on earth: that of Jesus on
the cross, the time he loved the most. During his passion, he was so
weak, so humiliated, insulted, made fun of, suffering… He stripped
himself of all his human and divine prerogatives or qualities. This
he did out of love for us! That means that holiness and weakness,
when lived out of love for God and the brothers, can go together,
are very compatible. When I feel weak, suffering, even when I have
to die, I live all that with joy out of love for Jesus, who endured
all this before me and for me. For a loving soul there is no greater
joy than this, as St. Ignatius says in his booklet of the Spiritual
Exercises n. 167. But we have to strive hard to reach this spiritual
level, so contrary to our human weakness and mentality.
Q:
- You were
sharing how we should teach youngster and adults about faith.
A:
- I am not a
master of evangelization, since my experience is limited to the
refugees. Even so, I feel that the way we usually teach catechism to
children, catechists and even adults in preparation for marriage is
not the best one. We usually teach faith as we teach mathematics or
geography, that means we give basic knowledge or information on God,
the Church, the Sacraments, etc. We teach the mind, but not the
heart of people.
What is the New
Testament? It is a tale, a narration of an experience: the
experience of the Apostles with Jesus. The four Gospels, the Acts of
the Apostles, some parts of St .Paul’s letters tell us how the
Apostles and the first Christians lived their faith and the Word of
God. When Peter speaks to the Jews after Pentecost, he tells them
the story of Jesus, inviting them to believe and to live the Word of
God.
I can be
mistaken, but I believe this is the method we should use today, too.
First comes life, then notions. The Word of God is life: the Gospel
is nothing else than the tale of how Jesus, while on earth, lived
our human life. Is there a better way to live our human existence
than that of Jesus? So I think we should teach faith by helping
people to live the Word of God, i.e. to love, while explaining it to
them. Explaining notions on faith is necessary, but notions and life
should go together. Since God is life, we understand Him through
life, by loving Him and our neighbor. This is the strength of Dong
Hanh: the movement helps people to meet God, to have an experience
of Him. It goes beyond notions and gives life.
Learning what
is love and how to love is the most necessary science on earth,
since from it depends our happiness both in this life and in the
after-life. But who teaches how to love? Very few people do that,
not only in the civil society, but even in the Church. The
consequence is a lack of evangelization about love: even Christians
conceive love as do the people without faith. For most people, love
is a sentiment, a mutual attraction, while for God love is
self-giving. Jesus on the cross is the master of love: he gave up
everything for us. Sentiment will last for a short time, then
disappears, killed by spouses' defects, which make life difficult.
If the spouses were not trained in self-giving from their childhood,
conflicts, separation and divorce will follow. So to prepare people
to marriage, a few lessons before wedding are not enough; what is
essential is to teach and help them to practice Christian love from
their young age.
What we really
lack are true Christian communities, who live the Gospel, the Word
of God. We need communities full of faith and love; we need real
Christians, whose mentality, logic, way of seeing things is that of
God and not that of the world; Christians whose only law is the new
commandment of love. I wish Dong Hanh to form such type of
Christians, such kind of communities.
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