Mukai - Vukani No:79

Mukai -Vukani No.79 | December 2020 |

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From the Editor

Merry Christmas Dear Reader,

Merry Christmas to you, your loved ones and those under your care!

Covid-19 continues to remind us about the need to care for others as well as ourselves with faith that under the auspices of love and hope that the Lord in his good time and way will bring the world lasting relief.

Drawing from St Henry Newman, this Christmas is an occasion to improve with regards to our ability to live out the distinction between notional and real assent of faith. By so doing we each grow in grasping the meaning of the Christian life which is rooted in Christ. St Paul goes so far, and rightly so, as to say that “now the life you have is hidden with Christ in God” (Col 3:3). This is the truth for those who believe. God’s kingdom of love and peace, which is brought

by Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace, through his nativity that we celebrate this Christmas, is not of this world, even if it has its seed in the world in

the form of the Church. Therefore, let us not despair. Recall that even though the people of Jesus’ time did not have room for him in the Bethlehem lodges, still the angels sang “Gloria in Excelsis Deo” to the poor shepherds who were yet men of good will. Joy in the Lord cannot be inhibited by chaos in the world.

It is my hope that the reflections and thoughts of each of the writers, who made a contribution for this edition, will help you gather various facets concerning the meaning of life in the face of the Covid-19 crisis. The pandemic cannot totally stop the celebration of Christmas albeit in a transformed manner.

Merry Christmas and may God bring you safely through this pandemic into the New Year!

Fr Emmanuel Gurumombe SJ

Mukai -Vukani -Vukani No.79 No.79 || December December 2020 Mukai 2020 ||

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Mukai-Vukani No.79

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Jesuit Magazine for Zimbabwe-Mozambique Province

No.79 December 2020 Publisher Jesuit Communiations (JesCom) Editorial Team: Fr Emmanuel Gurumombe SJ Kudakwashe Matambo Layout and Design Frashishiko Chikosi Distribution Frashishiko Chikosi

Contents

2 Editorial- Merry Christmas 4 Christmas 2020 - A Personal Reflection 6 The Incarnate Word: A Remedy To The Human Longing

For Meaning 8 The Church In A Classroom And In Exile - Case of Covid-19 11 Searching For Meaning From The Human Rights Lens 14 An Online Hope Filled Future 16 Facing Up To Abortion 18 Searching For Meaning In Christ 20 Christ Our Meaning Of Life 22 25 27

A Christmas Like No Other !

Covid-19, A Call to Depth in God who is Christ Life is Meaningless

Go Social

The views of the authors of the articles do not necessarly reflet the opinion of the editorial Board

Office : 37 Admiral Tait Rd, Marlborough, Harare, Zimbabwe Email: jescomzim@gmail.com

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Website: www.jesuitszimbabwe.co.zw

Mukai -Vukani No.79 | December 2020 | Mukai -Vukani No.79 | December 2020 |

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Christmas 2020

-A Personal Reflection Fr Jose Julio SJ St Ignatius College, Chishawasha

In the Roman Catholic Tradition, Christmas is a solemnity preceded by the four week Season of Advent that mark the beginning of the new liturgical year. The solemnity rouses emotions of joy its preparation motivates people to celebrate and enjoy their spiritual and material life, even though the latter is secondary.

But why such excitement? What makes Christmas different from other feasts?- Christmas is about the Life of God – God becoming one like us in order to save us!

Christmas expresses the presence

of God incarnate: Jesus Christ, the Only “Begotten Son of The Father” as John expresses it: “…and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth” (Jo.1,14). Christmas celebrates the birth of Jesus and the concrete reality of the incarnation. Without the incarnation of God in Jesus Christ Christmas would be a figment of the imagination. The incarnation is the starting point for the meaning to Christian life, which is exercised through human existence.

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Some people contest that 25 December is not the actual day of Jesus’ birth. True enough! The “Church’s Year’ is “the sanctification of the secular year by a succession of religious festivals” (Klauser, 1979, 6). To put into clear perspective let us note that “in the fourth century, side by side with the Easter festival and its weeky repetition, i.e. Sunday, a new kind of feast of Our Lord was introduced which was no longer concerned with the end of Jesus’ redeeming activity, but with its beginning at the Incarnation.

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This was the feast of the Nativity.

Its purpose was to put right out of Christians’ mind a major heathen festival, which was celebrated on the same day, namely the ‘Birthday of the Invincible Sun God’, the principal deity in the imperial religion of late antiquity” (Klauser, 1979, 87).

This pagan feast had been endorsed in the year 274 by the Roman emperor Aurelian. The ‘sun god’ was considered the protector of Roman soldiers. Then, when Constantine became the First Christian Emperor of Rome, and after officially allowing Christianity to freely be exercised without persecution as had been the case before he became emperor, he declared 25th December as Christmas Day of the Great Sun, “the Light of the World” (Jn.8:40). Constantine considered Jesus Christ as God giving life to the Romans; therefore he declared Jesus as the “Great Sun” of the Ancient Great Empire.

The exact date of Jesus’ birth is not known although the era is known according to the Gospels (Mat.1:18-25 and Lc.1:26-38) and historians like Josephus. However, Jesus’ name is proclaimed all over the world. People accept Him as the Saviour and they find in Him the meaning of their human existence, in response to their individual and community existential problems.

So, Christmas is about Christ Himself and not material things. He is God Incarnate and Begotten of the Father.

His mission was, and is, to reveal God’s love for humanity which he bestows eternal life on believers.

Throuugh Christmas, the personal manifestation of the life of God among human beings becomes a reality. The revelation of the glorious loving care of God shown by Jesus Christ during three years of humble ministry became historical.

God humbled himself through Jesus Christ, and by so doing he gave and still gives meaning to human life.

Hence the saying by St Athanasius, “What has not been assumed has not been redeemed”. This means that everything that has to be redeemed had to be assumed by Christ. He took all of humanity and that is truly good about humanity to Himself, saving, redeeming, restoring all that is truly human. At a General Audience on 8 August 2007 Pope Emeritus, Benedict XVI, said, “The best part of it all is that having become a man, Christ gave us the possibility of becoming, in turn, like him.” This resonates with Gregory Nazianzen also taught: “Let us seek to be like Christ, because Christ also became like us: to become gods through him since he himself through us, became a man. He took the worst upon himself to make us a gift of the best.”

The birth of Jesus, “Son of God” (Mark 1:1) is the beginning of the qualitative restoration of the World; it is also a guarantee of human salvation. However, Jesus remains a sign of contradiction since his birth.

The great people of his time like Herod, Pilate and the High Priests did not understand him because his life has something better to offer and it provokes anger, jealous and conflict from those who are not Pro-Life.

Can Christmas mean something to human life in time of Covid-19?

People who find themselves in a situation of hopeless will always pose this question: “Why suffering?”

(Magnante, 1997). The question can be difficult to handle, but it can be answered by the meaning of Christmas. Can Christmas offer hope to those who are hopeless, suffering hunger, injustice, wars (like people of Mozambique in Cabo Delegado, Sofala and Manica), people of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sudan and so on, where children and women are abused; the elders are abandoned by their relatives because they cannot run fast when enemies come to attack the villages; and those ill and quarantined, because of the Mukai -Vukani No.79 | December 2020 |

Covid-19 pandemic, and those who are in the hospitals or in prison? “Why Suffering?”

Human experience shows that it is possible to respond positively to the question ‘why suffering?’ because the incarnation, as Edward Schillebeeckx ( God Among Us, 1982) pointed out, becomes “God’s ‘visitation to his people”, a visitation that gives hope and life to humans. But for the unbelievers, their reaction to the incarnation of God in Jesus Christ is negative because they do not have the faith that makes the incarnation affect them positively and effectively.

We acknowledge the presence of two realities: suffering and relief. We are all involved with these two experinces and our involvement with the second makes our lives meaningful, creative and satisfying, because we accept Jesus Christ as the meaning of life and the fundamental solution to suffering.

Christmas becomes the alleviation of human suffering; the hope of the hopeless, the solution to all human existential problems and restoration of human dignity, as Jesus said: “I am resurrection and the life.

Whoever believes in me, though he dies, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die” (Jn.11:25-26). It is here that the meaning and reason of Jesus’ incarnation and his eventual redemptive death can be found. We can say that the death of Jesus on the cross is the fullness of the incarnation.

Christmas is always celebrated because it is the beginning of the new life, full of meaning and important implications for the human race.

Finally, in this time of Covid-19, time of suffering and death, Christmas should still be welcome and understood as the continuity of the action of God’s grace among men and women. Paul says “where sin abounded, grace did much more abound.” (Rom. 19.21). It Therefore, where there is so much suffering, near hopelessness and death, the Life of God remains in abundance.

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The Incarnate Word:

A Remedy to the Human Longing for Meaning Precious Nihorowa CSSp Tangaza University College, Nairobi, Kenya

When word broke from Wuhan

in December 2019 that there was a new and delicate infection that was detected, it all seemed like it would be one of those health crises that would be managed easily. However, with the passing of time, the coronavirus pandemic slowly found its way out of the confines of Wuhan to the rest of the world. It was then that the World Health Organisation declared the outbreak a pandemic and hence proposed that proper measures be taken to contain the spread of the new virus. Within a blink of an eye, social lifestyles all over the world

changed drastically with adoption of lifestyles that discouraged human physical contact. Tougher measures were later adopted which included banning of all social activities and gatherings, and later on, lockdowns.

Since then, every day, there have been reports of people succumbing to the virus with panic being initially reported in health centres, clinics and hospitals. Even first world countries such as China, the United States of America, France and Italy, with all their sophisticated health systems, still felt overwhelmed by the pace at which the virus was taking lives.

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“Faith begins when we realise that we are in need of salvation.

We are not self-sufficient; by ourselves we founder: we need the Lord, like ancient navigators needed the stars�

-Pope Francis

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With the halting of the busy world at large, human beings at once found themselves panicking in the face of death and daily uncertainties and begun asking themselves the very existential questions that humanity has always grappled with throughout history. People lost their loved ones, job opportunities, and businesses that sustained them. In addition to all this there has been a surge in suicide cases that have been reported during the pandemic period as many could no longer see the meaning of life and could not cope amidst all the unprecedented tribulations. In most circumstances, human experiences such as pain, suffering and death bring human beings to their knees and push them to ask crucial questions about life that are often neglected out of being busy with daily schedules of life or rather being preoccupied with their own egos. For instance, after the Second World War and later the Jewish Holocaust during which a multitude of lives had been lost, the Austrian psychiatrist, Viktor Frankl, devoted his career to pursue a meaning-centred psychology through which he intended to ascertain the meaning of life especially in times of suffering. Writing his first book called The Unconscious God, Frankl noted that all human beings unconsciously long for God. And, because he also established a link between psychology and religion, he later contended that a mature involvement with a religious group increases a sense of purpose in life.

Writing again some years later, in his famous book called Man’s Search for Meaning, Frankl acknowledges that the search for meaning is the primary motivation of humans.

According to him, the true meaning of life is discovered in the world rather than within man or his own psyche. He termed this constitutive characteristic “the self-transcendence of human existence.” It denotes the fact that the being human always points, and is directed, to something

or someone, other than oneself—be it a meaning to fulfil or another being to encounter. Thus, in short, Frankl acknowledged that the true meaning of life is found in pursuing the Other—the Supreme Being.

In secular and sacred sciences as well, one of the burning questions is the problem of evil and suffering.

These two human phenomena lead to an inquiry about the existence of God and what kind of God he is. St. Augustine of Hippo presents in a practical way how man labours in vain to seek happiness and answers to the mysteries of life especially when he relies on his own powers.

After his conversion, St. Augustine’s writings, especially The Confessions, point to a soul that expresses regret over how it had wasted time singlehandedly wandering about in search of answers. This is summarised in his famous axiom “our hearts were made for you Oh God and they will never rest until they rest in you” (Confessions Book I).

As Pope Francis noted in his Urbi et Orbi address on 27 March 2020, “The storm exposes our vulnerability and uncovers those false and superfluous certainties around which we have constructed our daily schedules, our projects, our habits and priorities.” In other words, the COVID-19 pandemic and its aftermath overcome our false perceptions that we can manage life apart from God. Human advancement should not be a temptation that takes us away from God but should rather continuously bring us closer to him.

Above all, times of adversity such as these should help us reflect on our need for God and how all human longing only ends when we find God. The Christmas event, which commemorates the love of God who humbled himself even unto becoming incarnate in order to identify with humanity, presents experiences that point to the fact that the true meaning Mukai -Vukani No.79 | December 2020 |

in life is found when man searches for meaning in God. For instance, when the Wise men from the East lost sight of the star, even Herod with all his power could not quench their hunger to see the new king who was born until they reclaimed the sight of the star and fell prostrate before the child Jesus (Matthew 2:1-12). Simeon too, having waited until his old age to see the consolation of Israel, exclaimed “at last all-powerful you may let your servant go in peace according to your word” (Luke 2:29). Similarly, when the parents of Jesus lost possession of him in the Temple, their hearts could not rest until they found him seated among the elders (Luke 2:46). All these events that decorate the infancy narratives remind us how life can be very futile if lived without God. In moments such as these, we become aware that it is faith in God that can sustain us. No human power can suffice to see us through.

As Pope Francis reminds us again, “Faith begins when we realise that we are in need of salvation. We are not self-sufficient; by ourselves we founder: we need the Lord, like ancient navigators needed the stars” (Extraordinary Moment of Prayer 27 March 2020). And for St. Paul, faith is not just a set of particles of church doctrine that we subscribe and adhere to. Faith includes to a greater extent, total trust in the Master of the wind and total abandonment to his care.

Christmas is a season that reminds us of a God who is not detached from humanity. He is a God who chose to identify with human beings in all things and experiences but sin. He suffers with us, experiences all human pain, lived among us so that he brings to our awareness our need for him. He constantly reminds us to come to him when we labour and are burdened for, he is the only one who is capable of granting us true rest (Matthew 11:2830), calming down our fears, imparting meaning to our lives and fulfilling all our longings.

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The Church in a Classroom and in Exile - Case of Covid-19

Tanaka Cyril Mashiche SJ Hekima College, Nairobi, Kenya

In the heart of all this distraction

and confusion to our normal lives, we may find ourselves feeling a bit purposeless and wondering. One questions what meaning we can find in the face of all this devastation.

Many people around the globe are asking themselves existential questions about the Covid-19 pandemic consequences: spiritual, political, medical and economic.

“Science will reveal more to us about the reasons for the Covid-19 pandemic in due course, but it is left to all of us to ask now about our own existence in the midst of this crisis and the way in which we

decide to act in it, as individuals and as a society” (Online Journal of the Jesuits in Britain, September 17, 2020). It is this questioning about meaning that the Church as an institution is asking itself from the hierarchy to the small Christian community in rural of Chirumhanzi.

The world has found itself questioning itself the very questions that Albert Camus sought to answer in 1947 when he published a novel entitled The Plague. Covid-19 has challenged us to ask ourselves about our deep existential identity as Christians and Catholics. The highest teaching authority of the Church, Mukai -Vukani No.79 | December 2020 |

i.e., the Pope and the Bishops were not expecting the current events of the pandemic just like everyone else. The new normal is not just characterized by face masks, social distancing and washing of hands; for the church is having to find new ways of evangelization while individual Catholics have to find enhanced personal ways of praying. Families have to do the same.

Camus in his book The Plague describes the effect of a shutdown on the general public, as we experienced earlier, like living in exile “Once the town gates were shut, every one of us realized that all, the narrator

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included, were, so to speak, in the same boat, and each would have to adapt himself to the new conditions of life” (Camus, The Plague, 1947, 67). No one expected that Holy Mass will be banned and celebrated by few or watched online. This is what Covid-19 brought. Just like the disciples, Easter came and found them locked in their houses because of fear. The pandemic, which is a sort of Good Friday experience, brought with it certain confusion rather than the consoling presence of Christ.

Before the pandemic people were concerned about their own struggles rather than the common suffering of others, but now we realize that we are all experiencing the same distress in this universal exile, “All these people found themselves, without the least warning, hopelessly cut off, prevented from seeing one another again” (ibid, 63). Like the disciples confused at the arrest of Jesus the Church was never prepared for what the pandemic brought. The Church is experiencing a prolonged lent somehow.

their houses. One of the characters in The Plague, a Jesuit Priest, Fr Paneloux, speaks to his congregation disassociating himself from his flock. He blames the pandemic/ exile on God punishing people for sins. His is a discourse from a privileged, distant position of power and superiority (The Online Journal of Jesuits in Britain) without understanding the context that he discovers himself in. This may be true of many priests and religious who speak from a privileged position without a contextualized reflection as encouraged by Stephen Bevans.

As a Church we should reflect on the context so that we can understand the pandemic and be transformed by it. One lesson learnt from this exile of Covid-19 is the vice of clericalism. Many Christians had to learn to be alone without their priest as many priests closed themselves in their houses because of fear, and the Church had to go back to days of the early church and also to new forms of evangelization especially using modern technology.

The Church’s mission includes the service of the poor and vulnerable.

The priests and the religious were caught in a conundrum of either being of service to the sick and the poor or to lock themselves in

How then do we convey authentic consolation to our grieving world?

Hanvey says, “I believe that the gospel opens up paths of encounter with our world, especially those who are lost, abandoned, and forgotten

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(‘In Times of Darkness’ in The Online Journal of Jesuits in Britain, accessed September 17, 2020).

There needs to be new possibilities of conversation for the Church, which is the possibility of transformation that brings new life and new beginnings. According to Oran “Covid-19 has exposed the fragilities and the illusions, the inequalities and the failures of our systems. It has also revealed the many faces of generosity; humble and heroic faces of service and self-sacrifice even to the point of death. Lives put at the service of others barely known except in their desperation and need” (ibid).

Due to Covid 19, the season of Advent and Christmas are likely to be very different this year and unique as numbers are beginning to rise again. With news coming from the United States of America about the vaccine, Advent will be truly a time of waiting in hope of good news.

The message of Christ to us will be not to lose heart as much as we have felt hard done by Covid related corruption. When the Zimbabwe former health minister Obadiah Moyo misappropriated money meant for medication and other needs in the health sector we were tempted to lose hope as the government seem

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not to care for the poor, marginalized and the vulnerable. We can only put our trust and hope in the poor and vulnerable baby Jesus who knew how to resonate with the poor and vulnerable. Advent, as a time of patient, hopeful waiting and longing, will have a particular resonance in these times, while we anticipate the much- needed joy of Christmas.

This Advent it may also be time to pray for our leaders to be open hearted to receive Christ during Christmas so that conversion from corruption can ease the suffering already experienced by people from the consequences of Covid 19. Pope Francis, in his encyclical Fratelli Tutti, presents the example of the Good Samaritan and urges us to draw close to the most vulnerable of our brothers and sisters throughout the world especially at this time of Christmas. We are conscious that the pandemic has seriously impacted the livelihoods of many Zimbabwean families. The plight of the poor, the homeless, the needs of our elderly and vulnerable have increased exponentially.

Covid has also reminded us of our common vulnerability as humanity, the same vulnerability and poverty that Christ was subjected to in Bethlehem at his birth. It is this vulnerability that the whole word has experienced which beckons humanity to focus on the essentials.

Just like Joseph and Mary many families have learnt to be together in the same space for a long time.

The 2020 Christmas will not be full of fireworks and much fanfare, but most likely it will be a reminder of that silent night in Bethlehem. It will be a silent night of the heart, which waits with hope for a better 2021.

The once commercialized Christmas will be replaced with meditation on the mystery of the birth of Christ. As a Church in exile and on a learning curve, the lesson the of mysteries of Christmas can be an occasion for conversion to faith and hope, which

the baby Jesus brings with him.

Father Paneloux experiences an inner rupture and a deep transformation as he witnesses the pain and senselessness of the death of the most vulnerable as a consequence of the plague (‘Beyond the Pandemic: Believe Everything or Deny Everything?’ | Thinking Faith: The Online Journal of Jesuits in Britain, accessed on September 17, 2020). It is this rapture that Church is called to in this context.

We are called to look at the eyes of the vulnerable as much as we have to protect ourselves by staying indoors to be our brothers or sisters keepers to flatten the curve. The Church in Covid-19 exile is called to conversion from clericalism, commercialization of Christmas, re-examine the role of women in the Church, rigid sacramental life, towards structures of the Church which are rooted in small Christian communities and the adoption of increased serious introspection on word of God and more use of modern ways of evangelization that encompass those in remote areas.

Covid-19 has manifested that even the Pope and the hierarchy of the Church have no answer to every situation but collectively with Christ we can conquer. This has been a cross and a sort of lenten penance that we did not expect, and certainly one we would never have chosen to experience (‘The Church Must Die Before It Can Rise Again’ accessed Mukai -Vukani No.79 | December 2020 |

September 17, 2020). The example of Jesus, Mary and Joseph in the manger is a reminder of the essence of family togetherness without being bothered by the surroundings. When Christmas comes possibly we hope to be like the shepherds who rush to see the baby Jesus with joy and proclaim to others the good news through meaningful outreach.

BIBLIOGRPHY Albert Camus. The Plague. New York: Vintage Books, 1947.

“Beyond the Pandemic: Believe Everything or Deny Everything? | Thinking Faith: The Online Journal of the Jesuits in Britain.” Accessed September 17, 2020. https://thinkingfaith. org/articles/beyond-pandemic-believeeverything-or-deny-everything.

“In Times of Darkness | Thinking Faith: The Online Journal of the Jesuits in Britain.” Accessed September 17, 2020. https://thinkingfaith.org/articles/timesdarkness.

“The Church Must Die before It Can Rise Again.” Accessed September 17, 2020. https://international.la-croix.com/ news/letter-from-rome/the-church-mustdie-before-it-can-rise-again/12159.

Stephen Bevans. Models of Contextual Theology (Revised and Expanded) Maryknoll: Orbis, 2002. (taken from: Knox, Peter. “AIDS and the Ancestor Cult: Toward a Contextual Theological Conversation in the “New” South Africa.” PhD Thesis. Faculty of Thelogy, St Paul University, Ottawa, 2004.)

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Searching For Meaning From The Human Rights Lens Tendai Mbanje University of Cape Town

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Introduction

The year 2020 has been challenging for many people. The right to life and health have been at risk for the human family. We have learnt not to have control but to rely on faith. We have seen and experienced a deadly disease, deaths, extensive suffering, if not us directly but some people we know or heard of. COVID-19 has affected all humans regardless of their colour, sex, gender, age, creed or any attribute one would think of. Believers or non-believers have been hardest hit.

This uncomfortable human experience has brought about questions about humanity and its relationship with God, for instance, questions such as: Where is God in all this, is this the end? Why does God allow suffering of this nature?

Does God care about this incurable disease? And what is the meaning of all this? Many conspiracy theories and false news have also not spared us and

how we feel as believers.

Since March 2020, when African states started reporting COVID-19 cases, critical governance concerns began to rise especially those relating to balance between upholding democratic governance, respect for human rights and effectively addressing the spread and impact of COVID-19. In societies like Zimbabwe we have witnessed tensions resulting from COVID-19.

These have constrained state-society relations. The rise of Zimbabwean Lives Matter, protests and political unrest are a manifestation of these tensions. As believers we have been confronted with double challenges, the challenge of dealing with the pandemic and the challenge of dealing with lack of peace in the country. One could ask where is God in all this?

with fear that has often threated the faith of many believers. The citizens have feared not only the disease, but also the already existing social and economic challenges in the country, that would have a more devastating effect than the disease itself. For instance, fears of hunger and starvation as highlighted by the World food Programme 2020 (WFP) and World Hunger Index 2020 (WHI) that at least more than 7 million Zimbabweans are at risk of hunger is worrying. Concerns about unemployment, lack of access to basic services and the collapsed health system to mention a few have been a major worry than the disease itself. The sense of despair that emerges from these facts evokes reflections on the meaning of life, and a search of God who comforts amid the pandemic.

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Questions immerging during COVID-19.

In the case of Zimbabwe, there has been a question whether there is hope during and after this pandemic.

Feelings of anxiety and uncertainty have been clouding the society.

The general mental health of the average citizen has been severely affected. These questions arose because citizens look up to the state for protection and that protection has not been adequately offered. These feelings inevitably called for a deeper yearning for protection. The poor cried and the Lord heard them (Psalm 34;6).

According to international human rights law, the state has a responsibility to protect, promote and respect the rights of its people. The state is also the primary bearer of the responsibility to govern, to provide political, social and economic goods and services to its people. Therefore, as we have seen, during COVID-19, people’s livelihoods have been interrupted and citizens have had to rely mainly on the state to cushion them against devastating effects.

People have expectations for the state to take necessary measures to arrest the impact of a crisis and ensure effective service delivery, while at the same time maintaining good state-society relations. However, in Zimbabwe this has not been the case. Despite the already existing socio-political challenges, the state has not provided enough cushion for many of its people. Groups such as the unemployed, children, pregnant women, people living with disability, indigenous and minority groups, people living with chronic illnesses amongst others have been hardest hit. Since there have been challenges for the state to adequately provide, people have inevitably questioned the place of God in these rough situations. Where is God and is God the provider? Why can’t God make instant miracles? Surely COVID-19 hunger challenges required instant

answers, such as that of feeding the 5000 as provided in the gospels, Matthew 14:13-21. Why does God seem to be silent? Thus, it has been difficult when the last hope is in God, but God seems to be silent when instant answers are required.

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Reflection on governance deficit and its impact on ordinary people As reported by the Africa Peer Review Mechanism (APRM), in states such as Nigeria, Kenya, Zimbabwe and South Africa, the pandemic has revealed an underbelly of governance deficits, illustrated by allegations of rampant theft of COVID-19 funds and resources, violation of human rights and impunity of security forces deployed ostensibly to keep the peace and maintain law and order (APRM 2020). Faith is severely challenged in the face of suffering (Job 1:8ff).

To practice faith in situations where there is no leadership that cares is even more difficult. Governance deficits are equally detrimental to faith in as much as the disease is. This is because governance negligence has the potential to kill and destroy in the same manner the disease does. Reflecting back and talking to people on how they have managed to keep faith in the midst of the pandemic is purely an act of grace. People have made conscious decisions to remain believers.

Christmas is time for us to renew our hearts, even in the face of the pandemic, in order to spiritually see God who sustains us through the rough situations. May we be reborn with baby Jesus and emerge stronger in faith than before. The desolations of the pandemic and the consolations of Christmas should equip us with better understanding of what God wants of us in our faith journey.

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Reflection on state-society relations during COVID-19 The Christmas season is a time Mukai -Vukani No.79 | December 2020 |

of peace and reconciliation. So it should be for all Zimbabweans. It is time to correct the tensions of the past. COVID-19 has illuminated the importance of state-society relations and the need for trust between citizens and their government.

The extent to which government directives are adhered to depends on the extent that society and the population (i) believe and trust their government, (ii) participate and feel included in their government’s decision-making processes and (iii) feel there is fair and just accountability for transgressors, irrespective of their socio-economic and political status.

We all know that COVID-19 has left the Zimbabwean Society broken, wounded and in need of healing. As pointed out in a preliminary report on Africa’s governance response to the COVID-19 crisis, the African Peer Review Mechanism observed that most citizens of African states including Zimbabwe, did not consider the quarantine and lockdown measures to be legitimate (APRM 2020). Yet, to be effective and resonate with beneficiaries, governance measures must be trusted and inclusive, and have empathy for those who are governed. Therefore, as broken as we are, may we be healed by the birth of our Lord Jesus during Christmas season.

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Reflection on the capacity of the state in service delivery Most importantly, this Christmas season is a time for us to see God who comes to provide for his people.

Despite the challenges, hunger and poor health systems, people have made strides to survive. COVID-19 as we have seen in Zimbabwe, highlighted capacity constraint in the delivery of essential public goods and services in the country.

The pandemic has impacted people’s livelihoods as resources are diverted to address the spread of the virus. This has adversely

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affected infrastructure, security, public order, health, social protection and assistance, education, housing, labour, and indeed every element of societal well being. Tremendous economic downturns and job losses have exacerbated inequalities.

Education and much needed skills training have been deferred in most countries. The resulting skills gaps, capacity deficits and lost jobs and economic opportunities will require that states be creative in governance in the future (Jayaram et al. 2020).

Therefore, the dawn of Christmas could be an important opportunity for us to reflect on every aspect of our society and see how we can best encounter God in the midst of the challenges. It is also an opportunity

for us to reflect and see how God has sustained those social elements of our societies.

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Emerging lessons for believers The overarching lesson that we learn from our collective suffering during the COVID-19 is that the true measure of a society is how it treats its most vulnerable populations, including women, children, youths and persons with disabilities. We can reflect on the moral fabric of our society especially on how the above have been treated in the face of the most challenging times in the history of our country.

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Conclusion

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May the Christmas season help us to pray and reflect on true governance (servant leadership), reflected in the life of Jesus. May we reflect on our treatment of the poor and most vulnerable and may we pray for our leaders to have wisdom from above. Finally, may our process of answering the difficult questions posed by the pandemic be guided by the thinking of Christ. May we pray for healing and peace in our country.

Most importantly, may we thank God for the tough lessons we have learnt during the pandemic. May these tough lessons help us to connect with God deeply in sincerity and truth.

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An Online Hope Filled Future Fr Tendai Elton Matare SJ St Ruperts’ Makonde, Chinhoyi

Deconstructing the common

narrative The notion of ‘single dimensional concepts’ deters progress of divergent views. The world’s progress is built on the confluence of a multiplicity of opinions and interpretations.

This also applies to religion in general and more specifically to Christianity but particularly to Catholicism. Catholicism’s long history is developed on the continued and deepening of interpretation and further re-interpretation of the Bible. For the Good News to remain relevant to the current times, the interpretation of the Gospels and the message of Christ demands a new packaging of the message. The major Biblical events elicit a new model of translation given the current cultural setting. This Christmas there is need

to engage a relevant interpretation of the Christmas message. One scholar who has demonstrated this is Canaan Banana in ‘The Gospel According to the Ghetto’ (1981). He reinterprets the Lord’s prayers challenging our conventional method of praying and perceiving it: “Our Father, who art in the ghetto, degraded is your name.

Thy servitudes abounds, Thy will is mocked, As pie in the sky. Teach us to demand, our share of gold, forgive our docility, as we demand our share of justice. Lead us not into complicity, and deliver us from our fears.”

Canaan Banana further argues that “the gospel of Jesus Christ, is a whole gospel to the whole man. It seeks to redeem man in his totality… the bleeding wounds of our moral, Mukai -Vukani No.79 | December 2020 |

social and economic and political ills of our age (3)”. The issues breaking the moral, social, economic and political fibres of all societies need redress by challenging them. The birth of Christ restored the dignity of all peoples. The failure of any form of leadership compromises and injures this dignity. The youth are challenging this narrative and a ‘youth revolution’ demanding a share of gold and of justice is being realized.

Youth as agents of change The birth of Christ gives develops to a new meaning of life every Christmas. This too impacts on the youth who are on a perpetual search for the meaning of life as espoused in the life of Christ. This

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resonates with the Youth in their search for Christ and a hope filled future. In response to this, the Jesuits launched the 10-year plan on how to respond and accompany the Youths. The year 2020 and before have seen a rise in ‘youth revolutions’. Across the globe and in particular on continental Africa, most countries are experiencing a surge in discontent in civic leadership’s failure to address societal ills. Youth have been sidelined. It is from this vantage point that they seek to become their own agents of social change by demanding participation and accountability from their leaders.

The youth today seem disoriented because of lack of opportunities and inclusion. This has driven the youth into wanting to create their own hope filled future shaped by gospel values.

This hope filled future needs the guidance of the Church as the moral authority and compass in bringing direction to their synergies.

African youth are facing many challenges. These challenges take away their chance for a hope filled future. The lack of co-ordinated efforts in directing their synergies stifles their efforts.

The challenges that affect them impacts negatively on their lives.

The online actions by the Youth are explicitly carrying loud messages in the hashtags seen across the continent. The popular hashtags this year are #ZimbabwenLivesMatter (Zimbabwe), #StopGBV (South Africa), #Endpolicebrutality (Kenya), #AnglophoneCrisis (Cameroon), #RapeNationalEmergence (Liberia), #ShutItAllDown (Namibia), #EndSARS (Nigeria) and more recently #CongoIsBleeding (DRC).

By starting these hashtags, the young people want to restore a future with hope. This message resonates well with the message of Christmas. We celebrate the birth of Christ who came to challenge the status quo and brought in hope for humanity. The online “ghetto

gospel’ by young people brings in new hope, with it carrying a new message of redemption. When the Zimbabwean Bishops wrote their pastoral letter, the Youth joined their voices and started the hashtag #TheMarchIsNotEnded. The march for young people into creating a future with hope is not ended. It is a march for everyone just as Christ was born for everyone including those who reject him.

Online Hashtag Evangelisation The birth of these hashtags gives birth to renewed interest in the Gospel for the birth of Christ always carries a new meaning. The birth of a child brings new hope and joy into the family. This same notion is adopted by young people giving new birth to new ideas of shaping their future. The hashtag is a new way of evangelisation. The social gospel embodies in a new way and packages differently, the social media evangelization which is synonymous with youths. The new born Christ must give hope to young people in a way they can relate to and assimilate.

COVID-19 gave rise to online liturgies. Young people adapted easily to this ‘new’ phenomenon.

Evangelisation is not limited to quoting scriptural verses, it is a cause for new ways of thinking resulting in change of attitudes and actions so that people model their thoughts and actions by aligning them to Christ’s way. Henceforth the hashtags should be interpreted not merely as social media noise or online activism but as part of the Matthew 23 “woe to you”. The ‘woes’ were warnings by Jesus to the Pharisees, Scribes and Sadducees. These three groups of leaders were in charge of running the Temple and City. Jesus’ ‘woes’ were a means of communicating displeasure and asking for change of attitudes and behaviour on the direct individual. The ‘woes’ can be equated to the hashtags as they express displeasure and warning.

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Woe to you public leaders, you are too distant and out of touch with the people you lead. Woe to you public leaders for you lack compassion towards the people who elected you into office.

The current situation of young people is that of peer sharing of the Gospel through social media as a tool. This raises awareness of the gospel message at the individual and community level. The hashtag #TheMarchIsNotEnded was adopted

by Catholics, other Christians and some people from other faiths and those without. The message of the Bishops’ letter was further echoed through solidarity letters and messages published by different youth bodies. The hashtag became a tool for propagating the message of the Bishops “woe to you our leaders, The March Is Not Ended”, the message of the letter of the Bishops as interpreted by the youth through the platform of National Movement of Catholic Students (NMCS) carried with it a message of hope to other young people and roused in them a new model of evangelisation.

Social media is a tool for evangelization. The hashtags started in different countries and attracted continental and international attention. The youth of similar minds supported each other’s hashtags and pushed forward their concerns through online media. This method of spreading information and creating awareness and campaigns can be adopted to spread the message Christ born at Christmas. The hashtag can be a platform for accompanying young people in their daily struggles and providing an occasion for youth accompaniment. Youth spend a great percentage of their time on social media, so this then becomes the new meeting place where issues of evangelisation and matters affecting the young are discussed and tackled.

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Facing Up to Abortion Fr Stephen Buckland SJ Arrupe Jesuit University, Harare

When talking and thinking about

abortion, it is probably not helpful to begin by asking: is it morally acceptable? There is, of course, a place for that. But labels such as ‘pro-life’ and ‘pro-choice’ can blind us to the actual situations of the many women – often young, sometimes very young – who are so intimately involved. Moral reflection must start from facts. For instance, how common is abortion, actually, in Zimbabwe? Few of us speak openly about such things, so accurate numbers are not easy to come by.

Fortunately, two major studies of abortion and post-abortion care in Zimbabwe came out last year from the Guttmacher Institute of New York, with Zimbabwean researchers from the UZ College of Health Sciences and the Ministry of Health and Child Care. We now know that,

in 2016, one out of ten pregnancies in Zimbabwe ended in induced abortions. There were 66,800 such abortions that year, which is 18 per 1000 women between the ages of 15 and 49. Other countries in the region have higher rates than this, some much higher, but no one will get pleasure from these figures.

Abortion in Zimbabwe is governed by the Termination of Pregnancy Act dating from 1978. It allows abortion, but only to save the life or physical health of the woman, or if the child to be born will suffer serious mental or physical damage, or in the case of rape or incest.

With the state of our health care system, combined with bureaucratic inertia, even these legally permitted abortions can be difficult to obtain, and there are growing calls to revise the law. Most abortions in Zimbabwe are unregulated and Mukai -Vukani No.79 | December 2020 |

illegal. Many are not performed by trained health professionals. A significant proportion end in medical complications. Some, certainly, end in the death of the woman (and all abortions involve at least one death). We must face this: abortion is a feature of Zimbabwean society, of our society. Its roots – social, economic, political – go deep between and among and within us.

It’s a part of the fabric of our national life.

But it is women in particular, especially young and impoverished women, who are affected most.

No one gets pregnant on their own, but only the woman carries the child; and she does so on her own. Plenty of others, especially men, can feel that they are better off as a result of an abortion, but only a woman can undergo one.

The Guttmacher studies reckoned

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that about half the 25,500 women treated for complications in 2016 had undergone unsafe induced abortions: that would be about 19% of all abortions that year, nearly one in five.

Our maternal mortality ratio – the number of women dying in childbirth in Zimbabwe – is one of the highest in the world: 651 for every 100,000 live births, according to the National Statistics Agency Demographic and Health Survey for 2015. The WHO’s World Health Statistics 2018 gives a much lower, but still very high, figure of 443 (three times that of South Africa). These are shameful figures in a country like ours. Of course, by no means all maternal deaths are caused by induced abortions, but some certainly are. Women everywhere bear the larger share of the physical risk of reproducing our societies. But in Zimbabwe, it is especially girls and young women who shoulder disproportionality more of that risk.

According to World Health Organisation figures published last year, the number of births per 1000 teenaged women (i.e. 15 to 19) in Zimbabwe, was 110 – higher than the rate for Africa as a whole (99). Our own National Statistics Demographic Survey for 2015 puts

the percentage of teenagers who are pregnant or have given birth at 22% overall, and as high as 27% in rural areas. That is more than one in four. Girls in Zimbabwe have to learn very quickly that their bodies, merely by being female, make them vulnerable, even within their own immediate families, in a way boys are not. Girls must negotiate their lives and cope in a patriarchal social structure dominated by a toxic male sexuality that is all too often actually predatory. The desperate situation in our poorest communities places huge social, economic and psychological pressures on all. But pressure falls especially on girls and young women in disintegrating or disordered families.

All of this is part of what we call ‘abortion in Zimbabwe’. It is not just that poverty and desperation make so many see abortion as a solution. This is not about justifying the decisions to abort. It is rather a recognition that the injustice with which our society treats so many girls and women is part of abortion, and part of what makes it morally wrong. Those of us who see abortion as depriving a human being in the womb of her or his life must also see that in many, many cases, it is not just the Mukai -Vukani No.79 | December 2020 |

decision of a single (often young and impoverished) woman that brings it about or makes it morally wrong. It is also the kind of society that we in Zimbabwe and elsewhere have created and sustain: a society that places huge burdens on its poorest and weakest members, so many of whom are young women; a society that makes abortion seem almost normal. Abortion is wrong because it is a crucial part of the injustice, to born and unborn alike.

To be opposed to abortion, to argue and campaign against it, is – or should be – to argue and campaign also against the kind of society that places young women in such situations and then, largely, sacrifices them and their unborn children to their fate. It is to argue and campaign not just against one particular law but positively for a different kind of society – one which treats women, and especially young women, but also men and boys, with the respect that is due to all human beings. Key to this is our attitudes to sexuality, especially male sexuality.

Around this project, many of us from all ‘sides’ of the abortion debate could unite and cooperate.

(NB. This article has already appeared in NewsDay 26 July 2019)

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Searching For Meaning In Christ Theresa Sanyatwe

Searching involves action,

Arrupe Jesuit University, Harare, Zimbabwe

determination, patience, hope, and focus. I believe that searching for meaning in Christ also involves these elements. One would acknowledge that the coronavirus pandemic has somehow “forced� many people to reflect about their lives and try to find meaning in whatever they do.

Experiencing the smell of death surrounding us daily as a result of the pandemic awakened our conscience to reflect on our faith in Jesus Christ.

I believe some people have even questioned the existence of God and Christ’s presence in their lives.

Paradoxically, some people have found lockdowns and other restrictions set up because of Covid-19 as an opportunity to turn to Jesus Christ and try to search for meaning in Him. Despite the reduced movements of the masses the mind, heart and soul found their way to the centre stage where many people began to reflect on their lives and inquire into the meaning of their lives. Induced stillness of the flesh normally gives the opportunity for our inner being to confront the self and seek meaning as the history of spirituality testifies. For Christians in the past, periods of reduced activity due to persecution or retreat offered opportunities for reflection on the one who was sent by the Father to teach us how to live to the full. The coronavirus pandemic has caused revolutions in our personal lives and provoked redefinitions of who we really are on this earth. It has also made us to seek meaning and answers in Jesus Christ our Redeemer. Some nations, societies and families have set aside days of prayers and worship as a way of searching for answers and meaning of what is happening around them.

Stephen Bullivant (2020) has said that, when we are shaken, we seek by a very healthy instinct for that

which is ultimately stable, and for that ultimate cause that is not itself contingent, namely, God. The Covid-19 pandemic has drawn us to seek meaning in Christ through stock-taking of our life experiences.

Blaise Pascal, a seventeenth century Mukai Mukai-Vukani -VukaniNo.79 No.79| |December December2020 2020 | |

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French mathematician, philosopher and theologian, said that all of humanity’s problems stem from men’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone. As a result of the pandemic, lockdown experiences suddenly created plenty of time for people. While in some cases incidences of violence in family settings increased, many got out their Bibles and read them slowly, prayerfully and used the solitude and silence as occasions for prayer (Stephen Bullivant, 2020). There is scope in what St Augustine observed in the fifth century AD that we have been made by the Lord and that our hearts are restless until they rest in God (Confessions, 1,1). Therefore, the festive season of the Nativity of the Christ which we are approaching calls us to seek meaning in his presence among us. We should be knowledgeable and aware that what we celebrate at Christmas is not so much the birth of baby Jesus, as important as that is, but what is so significant about the birth of Jesus is that the Amighty God has chosen to dwell in the midst of humanity. This is the mystery of the Incarnation; that the Word of God became flesh.

John begins his Gospel by saying, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. (Jn 1:1)” Halfway through the prologue the evangelist John says, “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us” (Jn 1:14).

Christ Jesus dwells among us in order to give us a purpose to live and a meaning for existing. By becoming human Christ Jesus shows us that God dwells among us. God is not a God outside of human experience positive or negative, joyful or painful.

We never can be alone because God has chosen to enter into the orbit of our being. A relationship with Christ becomes the foundation of meaning as Christ assures us of our identity as beloved sons and daughters of God in Christ. This does not mean that this awareness comes automatically; we have to engage in self-examination

for good self-discovery of the Christ who dwells among us. Even in moments of solitude, Christ is with us. We cannot be beyond His reach.

Assured of His compassionate care and solicitude we can be able to serve God while we are still here on earth through showing godliness in our dealing with others. The one who has encountered the Christ thus becomes a better person, a person truly endowed with ubuntu and its values.

The coronavirus pandemic has made us search for meaning in life. Our relationship with Christ is not merely personal; we have rediscovered that our faith in Christ connects us with others. Our connectivity to others obliges us to exercise care and support for each other. The Gospel, challenges to us to see Christ in the needy. He identifies Himself with them: “I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink…” (Matt 25:36). Some people have transcended the self-minding mentality passing through selfemptying arriving at self-giving to others. In actual fact, this was the pattern of the life of Christ Jesus.

We have to seek meaning from our existence through reflecting on the presence of Christ in those who have been attacked by the pandemic.

Pope Francis has also said, “The virus reminds us that the best way to take care of ourselves is by learning to care for and protect those who are close to us.” We have seen that Covid-19 has made many classes of people in the world - political and religious leaders, scientist, medical personnel, etc - to put their heads together in order to try and come up with a cure for this virus. Those who could not see each other eye to eye have buried their hatchets in order to join hands together and fight the pandemic. This crisis has shown us that we are all connected. Thus Pope Francis has said in Fratelli Tutti that we are either all saved together or no one is saved (Fratelli Tutti, #137). We need each other in coming up with Mukai -Vukani No.79 | December 2020 |

the means to protect ourselves from spreading the virus and of coming up with some remedies which can manage pain as we hope for vaccines.

In the face of God each person has the same dignity. Christ wants to save all people; for this He came into the world, exercised His mission and died.

His resurrection is also a testament to His enduring love for all peoples. The commandment which He underlined according to the evangelist John is this: “This is my command, that you love one another as I have loved you” (Jn 15:12). This is certainly a firm basis for meaning in life. It is through caring for one another during this trying moment that we find the real meaning of our lives through Christ who breathes and dwells in each one of us.

Pope Francis has said, “Please, let us not allow ourselves to be robbed of hope” (7 May 2019). Our hope lies in the nativity of Jesus Christ in our lives. The nativity of Jesus Christ is the greatest gift of hope which God has given us. We see that whenever a new baby is born in our families communities welcome the baby with wholehearted joyful celebration.

People will not only be celebrating the baby but look ahead to the baby’s future contribution to society. People celebrate the presence. Similarly, at Christmas we celebrate the Incarnation of Jesus Christ, His dwelling in us and among us. Our understanding of His significance has implications for how we see ourselves and others.

We are the beloved children of God whose worth is not derived from any earthly power. Our worth rests in God who gives life and who receives it at the end of our earthly journey. As we celebrate that dwelling of Jesus Christ in us and among us let us find hope, healing and life in Him. Jesus is the source of life and each one of us can redefine and rediscover oneself through Him. May the energy of Christmas heal our sick world and transform our hearts so that we know that in Jesus Christ we live and move and have our being.

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Christ Our Meaning of Life Fr César Jo Augusto SJ Georgetown University, USA

Existential experience has shown

us the extent to which Covid-19 can be dangerous. Our lives and our socio-politico-economic arrangements are under attack. We helplessly witness high rates of deaths, the overwhelmed hospitals, people isolating from each other, high levels of stress and bitterness, companies closing, high rate of unemployment, homelessness, countries closing borders against each other, etc. The world as we had structured it is different and distressed. A strange world is emerging, branded by helplessness, disillusionment, uncertainty, sorrow and uncertainties. In such a world, the temptation of feeling that God is not listening to our supplications is very high. Moreover, the sentiment of feeling estranged from God is high too. Similarly, the propensity to feel both the absence of God and God’s non-existence in our lives, actions, thought, and projects is highly expected. In short, one can easily go through a spiritual and existential crisis. The question is, in a world of this nature, how can one cope by building both existential and spiritual resiliencies? Tatjana Schnell and Henning Krampe advise that “especially in a time of crisis, meaning in life has been shown to be a crucial factor for resilience and coping” (Tatjana Schnell and Henning Krampe. “Meaning in Life and Self Control Buffer Stress

in Times of Covid 19” Vol. 11, September 2020). Understood from a Christian point of view, one might assert that meaning in life is what gives savor to both existential and spiritual lives. According to Viktor E. Frankl, this meaning “exists in every moment of life; but our ability to find it is solely up to us” (“Finding Meaning and Purpose during COVID-19”, UT Medical Network, 2020, accessed Dec 23 2020). But what does this concept entail?

Conceptually, the term “meaning” has been conceptualized and operationalized in different manner across different areas of studies. In their review, Martela and Steger distinguish between three main types of meaning in life: coherence, purpose, and significance. According to them, coherence refers to “a sense of comprehensibility and one’s life making sense.” Purpose means having “a sense of core goals, aims, and direction in life,” and significance refers to “a sense of life’s inherent value and having a life worth living” (Martela, F., and Steger, M.F. 2016: 531-545).

Among these, finding meaning, Martela and Steger assert, often refers to the first type of meaning, coherence, conceptualized as making sense of what has happened (ibid).

Operationally, is there a pragmatic approach that could help us find meaning?

Schippers and Ziegler have proposed a more structured approach to finding meaning and purpose life, called “life crafting”. They define the term “life crafting” as a process in which people actively reflect on their present and future life, set goals for important areas of life— social, career, and leisure time—and if required make concrete plans, and undertake action to change these areas in a way that it is more congruent with their values and wishes (Schippers, M.C., and Ziegler, N., 2019). A central part of this concept is based on the Japanese word of “Ikigai” which can be defined as a sense of “a life worth living” (Sone, et al 2008:709-715).

The term is believed to be directly related to the significance of one’s life. They also describe significance as “about evaluating one’s life as a whole, including past, present and the future.

As we enter into the the celebration of the Mystery of the Incarnation, a comprehensive reflection of this nature is truly vital. As we evaluate our past, present and the future, core questions might come to our minds. Despite the disastrous effects of Covid-19, have we been able to read these events from the Christic perspective? Is our comprehension of these events and lives making sense?

Is the sense of core goals, aims, and direction in our lives still holding?”

Do we feel our lives as worthy

Vision Statement Mukai- Vukani (“Arise”) magazine for the Jesuit Province of Zimbabwe-Mozambique serves as a magazine for theological reflection for Jesuits in the said Province and their friends. It seeks to help in finding the direction of life in the light of the Word of God at any given time. In this way the magazine facilitates dialogue among Jesuits and their friends based on study, prayer and discernment.

Mukai -Vukani No.79 | December 2020 |

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living? Do we have a sensation of being estranged from God? Do we feel as if God has abandoned us?

Given the caliber of the Covid-19 effect, our answers to the first three questions might probably be No; and our answer to the last two questions might perhaps be Yes. It is fine to feel that way as Jesus also at some point felt abandoned by his Father (Mk 15:33–34). However, just as Jesus did not lose faith in his Father, we should equally endevour not lose our faith in Jesus Christ. If pain and the ugliness of the events at that time made Jesus (in his human nature) feel abandoned by God, events of our own time can also make us feel abandoned by God. However, the pain and the ugliness of the events are not and should not be the decisive factors about the absence of God or God’s non-existence in our lives. God is always suffering with us for he is not disconnected from humanity.

Certainly, God is not disconnected from Humanity. He assumed our human nature through the Mystery of Incarnation that we celebrate at Christmas. He is part of us and we are part of him. Through this

profound connection, his Life and Love continue to flow through us, as the deepest sap of our humanity, unimpeded. We should, therefore, try to let the divine sap run in us despite the pain and the ugliness associated with Covid-19. Unless the divine sap runs throughout our entire being, our search for meaning in Christ is likely Mukai -Vukani No.79 | December 2020 |

to remain unattainable. Consequently, as Christians, we will hardly help others to find a comprehensive meaning in Jesus Christ. As an apostolic body which is baptized and sent, our mission involves helping others to search for meaning in Jesus Christ despite the storms of the moment.

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A Christmas Like No Other!

Fr Anesu Manyere SJ Silveira House, Harare, Zimbabwe

Christmas 2020 is here or is it?

Unlike the previous other Christmases, this year is different. Long lived and tried traditions and many holiday rituals will not be possible, and so decking the halls and bringing the much-needed joy to the season is a very remote reality. The reason, Corona Virus! And what is more, there are reports of the virus mutating and causing more concern. And so across the globe further disturbances have been witnessed. But this is Christmas Season and this virus ought to have given us a break.

For all of us, the coronavirus continues to threaten livelihoods; our friends, families, our jobs and travels. Many have been missing their communities, as people met via

Zoom and e-waved to their friends and neighbors. Many have missed intimate connections and resorted to long phone calls with dear friends.

The list of misses can go on and on.

And many have found a way of going round it. The new norm. But how can we e-Christmas like email, how can we sing the Lord’s songs of bringing good tidings to others and their kin while in the grip of Corona?

In spite of all this, God eases our fears, he heals our wounds, relieves our sorrows, and gives us consolation (cf. Is.40:1). These times are not foreign to our ancient faith. In recorded human history, generations before us lived through cruel persecutions and sudden, uncontrollable plagues similar toCOVID-19. All of us believers and Mukai -Vukani No.79 | December 2020 | Mukai -Vukani No.79 | December 2020 |

unbelievers alike have been shaken by the unexpected advent of this virus. It is frightening and challenging. Many measures have been put in place to manage the spread of the pandemic.

Many more will be out in place as the numbers continue to spike and the virus mutates.

While health and government officials offer some degree of assurance through the strict implementation of some of these measures the believer has his or her assurance in the Lord.

For in the book of Proverbs we read, “The name of the Lord is a strong tower; the righteous run to it and are safe‌ (Prov.18:10). God provides to all who seek Him in pestilential times like these.

Pandemics of such a kind that wipe

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out millions have time and again struck mankind. At the same time they have challenged Christians to rise up spiritually against such evils. In our time we are also called to rise up and face this monster of a disease. We need a healing balm for our weary and drooping spirits. This faceless enemy can be conquered if we put faith in God. This is easier said than done. People are worried about their health; the closure of schools and loss of jobs.

They are also concerned about the welfare of their children as they go to school; about the elderly and how they are going to pay the bills. We have every reason to be afraid, but Jesus who comes into our lives this Christmas and is willing to save us through his death and resurrection gives us his word when he says, “Do not be afraid.” (Mark 4:35-41). In the face of a life threatening pandemic, Jesus allays all our fears. Fear robs us of our energy for the now and so we have less energy to do anything at all.

While the virus demands that we wear masks to protect ourselves and others, it also calls us to reveal our identities.

It calls us this Christmas – a time of giving and sharing – to display who we truly are – sons and daughters of God. This is the season of serving and loving. But whom do we love and care for?

We are invited within our different situations to exercise social distancing but not relational distancing. Closer checks on our neighbours and others are called for. As children of God – we are called to take care of the more vulnerable groups – children and the elderly.

The idea of caring for others is not only laced throughout scripture but it is so very central to the very fabric of Christian faith and life. Paul urges us to “[bear] one another’s burdens” (Galatians 6:2). There is no other

indication of understanding the depth of what Christ has done for us than to endure in sacrificially serving others especially the vulnerable.

The story of the good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37) serves to show us at its most basic level what it means to care for others in times of need.

These everyday challenges are a test of our faith. COVID-19 is not only a threat to our lives in general but to our trust in God. Our faith can be strengthened in such Mukai -Vukani No.79 | December 2020 | Mukai -Vukani No.79 | December 2020 |

uncertain times by choosing faith over fear. God took care of humanity in the generations that have gone before us. He has not changed. He has been the same faithful God before this outbreak and He will be so after it is over (Hebrews 13:8). He intends to bring us to himself through Christ whose birth we ought to celebrate with spiritual vibrancy and style despite the pandemic. The threat of the pandemic is not a final nail on the meaning of life. God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind (2 Timothy 2:1-7).

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Anxiety can rob us of three essential gifts from God that we desperately need at this time. These are the power of God in our lives that enables us to live a life of faith when it is not easy; Love - that enables us to share and sacrifice when it is not convenient and a sound mind that allows us to experience peace, even when everything seems to be going wrong (cf. McGee, R.S. (1985). The Search for Significance) In addition, while we can maintain our faith because of our unchanging God, it is still important to exercise wisdom instead of becoming paralyzed by anxiety. Furthermore, it is also wise to consume information from credible sources. False information can be harmful as it leads people to make

unwise decisions based on faulty information and untrue premises.

Lastly, while others are giving in to cynicism and negativity prayer is vitally important as it is the prescription that cures anxiety. If allowed to grow anxiety robs people of the peace God promises his people for today; “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.” (Philippians 4:6 ) Panicking is permissible but prayer gives stability and the trust that beyond all telling there is a power that assists us in our lives. Henri Nouwen (1982) in his little book Making All things New says prayer is powerful and effective, and if we Mukai -Vukani No.79 | December 2020 |

are too busy panicking instead of praying, we forfeit our greatest chance to depend on the strength that comes from God. In the face of the coronavirus pandemic, we have the power to choose our responses, (cf. Frankl, Viktor (1946). Man’s Search for Meaning). We have the power to celebrate the birth of our savior for when we choose faith over fear, wisdom over worry, and prayer over panic, we can experience the “peace of God, which surpasses all understanding” (Psalm 46:10). That is the peace the angels are inviting us to join them and sing, “Gloria in Excelsis Deo”. In doing so, we become the light of Christ shining over a very dark and precarious situation. Merry Christmas to You!

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Covid-19, A Call to Depth in God who is Christ

Fr Gilbert Banda SJ

Garnet House, Harare, Zimbabwe

How has Covid-19 affected our

relationship with God? Has the coronavirus pandemic brought us closer to Christ or we feel Christ has distanced himself from us and abandoned us? Many people talk of the “new normal” that Covid-19 has brought. This “new normal” can be viewed from two perspectives: (1) that we no longer take life for granted and (2) that we have become pessimistic in the way we look at life and the world.

In this brief reflection, my goal is to explore how Covid-19 has opened us up to ways of relating with God more authentically. In addition, I hope to stimulate in the reader a desire to find God in the midst of our crisis.

Indeed, crises do not always shatter our hopes, but they can also shatter what is false in us and unveil what is

more real and enduring (Gerard W Hughes, 2014:3). They shatter our false images of God and unveil for us a deeper encounter with God. How can a crisis bring out the best in us? Of course, we are biologically wired to resent suffering. In fact, suffering by itself is pointless and evil. When we just live a life of pain and suffering without purpose, life becomes meaningless and hopeless.

As Fyodor Dostoevsky, the famous Russian Author puts it, “The mystery of human existence lies not in just staying alive, but in finding something to live for” (Fyodor Dostoyevsky, 1997) Without purpose and without hope, what is the point of being alive?

What has the Covid-19 pandemic revealed to us? It has revealed to us that we are powerless and in need Mukai -Vukani No.79 | December 2020 |

of a power greater than ourselves to pull us out of our current situation.

It has also revealed that we are vulnerable and can die. In addition, it has heightened our gratitude for being alive and healthy. Furthermore, the Covid-19 situation has shown us that we need each other in order to stay alive. For example, when we wear masks, we do it not just to protect ourselves, but others as well. With the lockdowns, and various unified efforts, the Covid-19 situation has proven that great things are achieved through a union of minds and hearts.

We need each other and no person is an island. Indeed, united we stand, and divided we fall!

In the midst of so much uncertainty, we naturally look for something firm to hold onto. Cataclysmic disruptors – whether an outbreak of war, widespread riots and looting, or

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the Covid-19 – humble us and remind us how we cannot guarantee our own future. The uncertainties about what will happen to our businesses, our families and our friends has increased our dependence on God more than ever.

Not knowing when this virus will end or whether it will stay permanently as a constant disruptor of our lives is testimony that our technological advancement does not bear all the answers and solutions.

God so often tells us not to fear because, in life, there is so much to be afraid of. Every day we live in the midst of conflict and violence, hunger and disease, injustice and oppression.

Yet in the midst of this God tells us, “Do not be afraid!” How can this be?

Probably it is because we know that our ultimate safety is with God, who loves us and values us so much that each one’s name is written on the palm of God’s hand (Isaiah 49:16). God tells us not to be afraid because nothing can ever separate us from God and God’s love.

Fear is created by many factors. Some of the most potent factors are the things we don’t understand, cannot control and that offer us the greatest threat.

Often, we just can’t cope with our fears, and this can lead us either to deny what’s happening or to blame those we think are responsible for the threats that we face. When we reflect on all this, it’s not hard to understand why so much fear surrounds epidemics such as the coronavirus. Coupled with prayer, our task is to learn the facts, challenge misinformation and encourage each other, as God tells us, not to be afraid.

The opposite of fear is hope. As Christians, when we speak of hope, we don’t just mean wishful thinking.

Christian hope is something much broader, deeper and stronger. According The Catechism of the Catholic Church, hope is the theological virtue by which we desire the kingdom of heaven and eternal life as our happiness, placing

our trust in Christ’s promises and relying not on our own strength, but on the help of the grace of the Holy Spirit (Catechism of the Catholic Church, # 1817). In Scripture, hope is not just a vague desire that something good in the future will turn up somewhere. Rather, the biblical understanding of hope is a confident expectation that good in the future will come. It is an assurance based on our existing experience of God’s goodness, love and the faithfulness that God already has shown towards us.

Jesus wants his disciples to know that God, who created the heavens and the earth, is the Father, who loves and cares. Therefore, it is important as his children to first seek what matters most to the Father: his Name, his kingdom and his will.

As God’s children, the disciples’ passion is to seek his kingdom and will to suffuse all life “on earth as it is in heaven”. The fact that we are currently in a crisis means that we should actually double-up our prayer and commitment to God, because it is characteristic of the evil spirit to use this opportunity to plunge us deep into despair (Michael Ivens, 1998).

For many people earning ‘daily bread’ and praying without ceasing have been difficult, if not impossible.

The reality of hunger, loss of income and debt has become more critical with the impact of the Covid-19 crisis. People are getting unemployed and going into debt. Trading is disrupted. The most vulnerable, including the homeless, migrants and refugees, struggle as support services are scarce. Parents worry how they will feed their children.

This pandemic is an invitation for all of us to pose questions about our world. What does it mean for God’s kingdom to come and God’s will be done in the situation of Covid-19?

In essence, Covid-19 is a call to depth in Christ. We can forge a deep Mukai -Vukani No.79 | December 2020 |

relationship with Christ by daily prayer.

However, prayer without works will be dead. We deepen our prayer life, however, by practically reaching out to others, protecting each other from the ravages of the virus and giving hope to those that have given up. Prior to Covid-19, our society had become self-centered. This crisis is, however, a kairos (Greek for the right, critical or opportune) moment to shatter the barriers of selfishness and pull down the walls of greed. It is a time to find God in all people, all things and all situations, including Covid-19. In the words of St Augustine of Hippo,” see where love begins. If you’re not yet capable of dying for your sister or brother, be capable even now of giving him [or her] some of your goods. Let love stir your heart to action now” (Kathleen Bonnette, 2020).

If our life has been hidden with Christ in God (Colossians. 3:3), what can Covid-19 do to us in an ultimate sense? Some may say: Oh, Covid-19 can disrupt life; it can bring misery, suffering, and death to bodies.

Indeed, it has and will bring misery to particular people in a way that my emotions cannot bear. And it will probably bring suffering and death around the world in a way that nearly overwhelms us.

In the midst of all this misery and pain, we are hidden with Christ in God. We are weak; Christ is strong.

In our weakness, Christ’s power is on display. We are vulnerable; Christ is our robust protector. In our smallness, his greatness is on display. Covid-19 cannot separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus. Covid-19 does not have the power to block the Spirit from continually pouring the love of God into our hearts. Because we are hidden with Christ in God, we can continue to do the small, weak, and limited acts of loving service during this season of the Covid-19 pandemic. Jesus, Emmanuel, who is born into our world is great, strong and powerful.

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Life Is Meaningless?

Genotry Nathan Kapoti Archdiocese of Harare

“Life is a tale told by an idiot,

full of sound and fury, signifying nothing” (Macbeth, Act 5, Scene 5). Alas, is that how much of a void life is? We are not an empty bubble floating in nothingness.

We exist according to the design of a Creator who comes to meet his creatures. We need to keep reminding ourselves of this lest we risk seeing Jesus Christ simply as a fine model from the distant past.

“Alive; Jesus can be present in your life at every moment, to fill it with light and to take away all sorrow and solitude” (Francis, Christus Vivit).

“In Christmas we find the tenderness and love of God who stoops to our limitations, to our weaknesses, to our sins, and who bends down even to us” (Benedict XVI, General Audience, 21 Dec 2011) Mukai -Vukani No.79 | December 2020 |

Bruno Bettelheim admits that “our greatest need and most difficult achievement is to find meaning in our lives” (1978:3). Admittedly, the probing into the meaning of life precedes even the Ancient Greeks among whom Socrates said “an unreflected life is not worth living”. Searching for the meaning of life is as old as man’s creation. The second creation narrative offers us a telling when we learn that no helpmate was found suitable for Adam (cf. Gen 2:20).

It seems, at least to me, that Adam was questioning his existence in relation to his surroundings. This 27

horizontal search is one dimension of the meaning of life which is unfulfilling if not pegged to the vertical.

but for many” (2011:214). God meaning. Without this Mystery of is not alien to humanity’s sufferour Redemption eternally willed ing. In fact, Christ suffered with

by God, “life’s but a walking shadand for all. Augustine tells us that ow, a poor player that struts and Christ unites us all into a single frets his hour upon the stage and Apart from the aforementioned common subject. He incorporates then is heard no more”. Shakehorizontal search for meaning is us all into himself. Therefore, all speare continues, “It is a tale told the vertical dimension. The essen- of us are praying with him the by an idiot, full of sound and fury, tial point is that the human person Psalm of lament. “We ourselves signifying nothing.” Christmas rerealizes the meaning of existence are the ones praying this psalm, minds us that God is always close in relation to God the Creator, Re- but now in a new way, in fellowand dwells among his people in a deemer and Sanctifier. Thus man ship with Christ. And in him, way that makes life meaningful. steps outside of his own self and past, present, future, are always In the Holy Eucharist, the heart of tries to understand his significance united” (Benedict XVI, 2011:215). Holy Christmas, Jesus is present as a minute part of an Infinite After all, if Christ suffered for us in a real way. He is the true Bread Whole. Peter Berger asserts that and we claim to be his followers, that through the prayer of epiclesearching for life’s meaning is an should we not suffer with and for sis comes down from heaven to attempt to locate “within a sacred him here and there? And why talk nourish his people and they brim and cosmic frame of reference the about suffering at Christmas? It with life. relationship between microcosm is for the reason that the Incarnaand Macrocosm” (1967:27). Is it tion, Passion, Death and Resurrec- Let us return to the point that not a mammoth task? Macquarie the horizontal search for life’s puts this question to rest when he meaning is unfulfilling if not establishes that “‘God communipegged to the vertical search as cates himself ’ for the fundamenin a case with St Augustine of “Through the man Jesus, tal form which he utters is Jesus Hippo, born Aurelius AugustiChrist, the Word or the Logos” then, God was made visible, nus in 354, Tagaste (now Souk, (2003:281). God comes to meet Ahras, Tunis). Augustine from man. From the earliest times, He and hence our eyes were his adolescence to the age of 32 gives meaning to life and searches constantly lost to stealing, lying able to behold the perfect for all humanity in the words “Let and to lustful passions. He wrote us make man” (Gen 1:26) and that “the frenzy gripped me and man” “Adam where are you?” (Gen3:9).

I surrendered entirely to lust” God wills to stay in a relationship (Confessions Book II). Apart of love with humanity. As such from that, Augustine an expert (Ratzinger, 2006). “the Word became flesh and dwelt in rhetoric had been a memamong men” (Jn 1:14). In himself ber of Manichaeism. He also God is relational and man finds tion are part of Christ’s singular attacked Christianity in defense meaning only in relation to God. work of redemption. of paganism, Arianism and emNonetheless, the reality of sufferperor worship. Thus intellectually, ing at times makes it seem as if the “In Christmas we find the tender- morally and spiritually Augustine microcosm is disjointed from the ness and love of God who stoops though lost, thought he was in the Macrocosm or the human from to our limitations, to our weakright. He imagined that his life the Divine. One then laments, nesses, to our sins, and who bends had meaning. After his conversion “my God why have you forsaken down even to us” (Benedict XVI, to finding the true face of God-Inme?” (Ps 22:1). Yet all is not lost.

General Audience, 21 Dec 2011). carnate, Augustine is the man Benedict XVI in Jesus of Nazareth Jesus’ humility (cf. Phil 2:6-7) at who tells us what life’s meaning offers the assurance that “the cry his birth anticipates his self-empis all about. At the beginning of of extreme anguish is at the same tying at the hour of his death. his Confessions in Book I Augustime the certainty of an answer In the story from the manger to tine admits that “You made us for from God, the certainty of salvathe tomb, God gives each person yourself O God and our hearts tion – not only for Jesus himself, intrinsic worth and sets out life’s are restless until they rest in you”.

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Here is a man who learnt from experience that life’s meaning is clarified in the encounter with the Logos-Incarnate and the pursuit of eternal life.

“What else does this craving and this helplessness proclaim, but that there was once in man a true happiness, of which all that now remains is the empty print and trace? This he tries in vain to fill with everything around him, (…) though none can help, since the infinite abyss can only be filled with an infinite and immutable object; in other words by God himself ” (Pascal 1995:45). This view concerning the meaning of life is known as supernaturalism.

It generally maintains that the existence of God and relating to him appropriately is necessary and sufficient for securing a meaningful life. Conveniently, ‘Searching for Meaning in Christ’ finds a secure footing in this view. The essense of Christ’s life is his relationship with the Father. As such the substance of human life is the relationship with Christ. Life should be Christocentric if it is to be lived to the full.

about man, something spiritual, something divine. History knows of a number of theories that attempted to deny the divine nature of Jesus. Adoptionists, Arians and Ebionites denied the divinity of Jesus.

Adoptionism is the belief that Jesus was an ordinary but very virtuous human being who was adopted as ‘Son of God’ at baptism. Thus he did not possess a divine nature. Likewise, Arianism is the belief that Jesus was a created being but not eternally begotten of the Father. This according to Arius means that he had a beginning in time. The title ‘Son of God’ is attributed to him as a courtesy.

Ebionitism is the belief that Jesus was a human being but possessing special charismatic powers.

Yet Jesus born of the Virgin Mary is fully human and fully divine.

To deny Jesus’ divinity attempts at abrogating the significance of the Incarnation and the Mystery of our Redemption altogether. In other words, Christmas and Easter would be meaningless.

Returning to our point, Susan Wolf noted the incompleteness of Supernaturalism is distinguished subjectivist and objectivist views from naturalism, whether subjecin naturalism. She summarizes her tive or objective, which posits that Hybrid Naturalism perspective life’s meaning is possible without when she says, “meaning arises spiritual realities. The claim is that when subjective attraction meets even if there is no God, after-life objective attractiveness” (Wolf or any other related transcenden1997:211). We can underline in tal realm, life is still meaningful. her thought that meaning is found Naturalism places emphasis on the when individual fulfillment meets physical while denying the spiritu- objective value. Life’s meaning is al. Consequentially, stretched to its found when individual history is logical conclusion, naturalism afjoined to the person and work of firms what is physical while deny- Jesus, when flesh meets the Word. ing what is non-physical in man.

“Through the man Jesus, then, But is this not a contradiction God was made visible, and hence since man is body and soul comour eyes were able to behold the posite? That he possesses a soul perfect man” (Ratzinger, 2006). points to something non-physical Man is more of himself thus, when Mukai -Vukani No.79 | December 2020 |

he is with God. By writing that the ‘the Word became flesh’, John retells the creation account anew.

He tells it with Christ in order that we may know definitively what the Word is. Therefore in Jesus Christ, the New Adam, creation begins anew and likewise meaning is found. Apart from him, life is meaningless.

The mystery of the Incarnation (cf.

Jn 1:14) is an encounter between Word and flesh (logos and sarx) in the person of Jesus. It is an encounter between divinity and humanity. Such an encounter gives life its meaning and purpose.

In Jesus Christ our humanity is divinized and his divinity elevates our humanity, each without amputating the other. Therefore we become fully human and our life becomes more meaningful when we allow our humanity to meet and be transformed by the Word Incarnate. Benedict XVI teaches that “this encounter (with Christ) gives life a new and a decisive direction” (Deus Caritas est).

Searching for meaning is searching for purpose. McIntyre says “when someone complains that his or her life is meaningless, he or she is often and perhaps characteristically complaining that the narrative of their life has become unintelligible to them, that it lacks any point, any movement toward a climax or a telos” (2007:217).

Christ is the climax towards which life’s horizon tends. He is “the Way, the Truth and the Life” (Jn 14:6). We know that we are cared for and loved by him; all of our fears, shortcomings, failures and challenges notwithstanding. He gives life its splendor and thus we anticipate his birth with gladdened hearts saying ‘Come Lord Jesus Christ and be the meaning of our lives’.

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