I wanted to ask the brothers I met in Hong Kong why there were such beautiful bonds between the missionaries and their people. One of them, visibly moved, told me: «It’s not us, it’s the Chinese Catholics. They are our hundredfold”
«[…] When my burden is light on me
Grant me the shipwreck Lord
Of that young day at the first cry”
Giuseppe Ungaretti.
Hong Kong is a modern city, indeed, very modern, and it has a lively, or rather, very lively, Church within it! I recently had confirmation of this. Invited to preach the annual retreat to the clergy of the diocese, I stopped in that “scented port” from November 4th to 16th, well received by my PIME brothers, by the clergy who participated in the retreat and by their four bishops, among of which two cardinals, the emeritus mons. John Tong Hon and the current Msgr. Stephen Chow.
For about a week we were accompanied by an image: the Deposition by Michelangelo Merisi, known as Caravaggio. The canvas, painted between 1602 and 1603, shows in the foreground the dead body of Jesus just taken down from the cross, embraced and supported by two disciples, John the apostle, and probably Nicodemus or perhaps Joseph of Arimathea who had had the ‘daring to ask Pilate for the body of the Nazarene. It is therefore not a scene of glory but of death, not of a beginning but of an end. I had chosen this icon at the last moment because I was fascinated by just being at Jesus’ bedside; that having in your hands nothing more than his dead body, inert, so different and far from performance to which he had accustomed his disciples during the years of his life. Yes, those were years of intense preaching and prodigious miracles. Thats enough! In his hands, only the absolute impotence of a “cadaverous obedience” – as Von Balthasar calls it – which would have brought Jesus, for the love of the Father, to the human underworld.
By fortuitous circumstances, the retreat not only began like that, but also ended with that same helplessness. On the night of the last day I received the news from Italy of a father completely helpless in the face of the drama of his drug-addicted son, after yet another relapse. Then, in the last Eucharist of our retreat, I didn’t know how to do anything other than make everyone participate in that same impotence, that same “cadaverous obedience” that was bringing that father into hell as his son. And we with him: in our hell, in the hell of our children, whatever their name, Giulia, Filippo, Chiara… Jesus.
In the same canvas, in the foreground, in the centre, we can clearly see the face of one of the two disciples in the act of carrying the dead Jesus. Critics agree in recognizing in that face the features of another Michelangelo, Buonarroti, sculptor of the Pietà and painter of the Sistine Chapel. It is a tribute by Michelangelo Merisi, known as Caravaggio, to the first Michelangelo, Buonarroti. Not because the latter was better (perhaps!) but because Caravaggio wanted to symbolize the Word in John, author of the fourth Gospel, and in Michelangelo Buonarroti the art, that art. Therefore, the evangelical Word and art, together, can bring us Jesus. And with Him, Light in darkness and Life in death, descend into our hell.
However, shortly after retiring, I realized that the final destination of my trip was not just Hong Kong. Something was pushing me far beyond, to the bedside of a man I didn’t know. In the last few days, in the company of Father Fabio and Father Paolo, we walked around the city, looking for other brothers and their communities or friends who had worked in Cambodia. Well, only by arriving at Saint Teresa’s Hospital did I understand that the final destination of my journey was indeed another and I was about to reach it.
For a few days they had hospitalized an elderly missionary, Father Vincenzo Carbone, ninety-four years old and originally from Nola (NA). I had never met him before. Precisely for this reason, being in the area, between one visit and another, Father Fabio wanted to take me to his bedside. It was the evening of Saturday 11 November. We entered the room expecting to find him alone, at that time and on that day. Instead he was surrounded by a small group of people. In need of respirator, semi-conscious, panting, e.g. Vincenzo did not speak nor was he able to make any gesture. Father Fabio approached him, face to face, and spoke to him, seeking contact, not so much to be “understood” but to be “felt”.
On that occasion, among those present, a young woman more than others had immediately attracted my attention. With a little English and with p. Fabio, I understood that it was a friend in her forties who had met Fr. Vincenzo when she, a little student of just ten years old, attended a Catholic school where, one day, Fr. showed up. Vincent. It was in that moment, in that meeting and from that listening, more than thirty years before, that a friendship was born that lasted over time, right up to the bedside, before my eyes. The way that young woman spoke to p. Vincenzo, his being close to her and caressing now her hands, now her feet covered by a sheet, introduced me to something certain. More certain than death. That bond, a bond like this, is the meaning of the mission. What look he must have had, what words he must have uttered. Vincenzo that first time, in «that young day at the first cry»? What did he put in that little girl’s heart to the point of arousing her faith in her and now being close to him Like this, thirty years later? The beauty and purity of those gestures and that bond transformed that moment into a beginning of eternity, into a deeper and more certain way of living. Here’s the mission: bonds like this! I also think of those experienced by another recently deceased missionary who I did not know, Fr. Gianni Giampietro, whose funeral was attended by around 2000 people…
On the last evening with the confreres I wanted to ask why there were such beautiful bonds between the missionaries of Hong Kong and their people. One of them, visibly moved, told me: “It’s not us, it’s the Chinese Catholics! They are our hundredfold!”. I think of these bonds as the best response to the changes taking place. Bonds like this are the substance of the mission, even if they were to demand that “cadaverous obedience” so well depicted by Caravaggio.
Oh, «When my burden is light / Grant me shipwreck Lord». But let the landing place still be that “scented port”. So be it.