t is very easy to be servants of the word without disturbing the world: a very spiritualistic word, a word without any commitment to history, a word that can sound in any part of the world because it belongs to no part of the world.  A word like that creates no problems, starts no conflicts.

What starts conflicts and persecutions, what marks the genuine church, is when the word, burning like the word of the prophets, proclaims to the people and accuses: proclaims God’s wonders to be believed and venerated, and accuses of sin those who oppose God’s reign, so that they may tear that sin out of their hearts, out of their societies, out of their laws, out of the structures that oppress, that imprison, that violate the rights of God and of humanity.  That is the hard service of the word…

A preaching that does not point out sin is not the preaching of the gospel  A preaching that makes sinners feel good, so that they are secured in their sinful state, betrays the gospel’s call.  A preaching that does not discomfit sinners but lulls them in their sin leaves Zebulun and Naphtali in the shadow of death.

A preaching that awakens, a preaching that enlightens as when a light turned on awakens and, of course, annoys, the sleeper that is the preaching of Christ, calling “Wake up…  Be converted!…” Naturally, such preaching must meet conflict, must spoil what is called prestige, must disturb, must be persecuted.  It cannot get along with the powers of darkness and sin…

The bishops of Latin America declared at Puebla in 1979 that no authentic evangelization can be carried out “unless we commit ourselves on the personal level, and in many cases on the structural level as well; to serving and promoting the most dispossessed and downtrodden human groups and social classes, with all the consequences that will entail on the plane of temporal realities.”

Therefore, the church would betray its own love for God and its fidelity to the gospel if it should cease to be “the voice of the voiceless,” advocate of the rights of the poor, counselor and promoter and humanizer of every legitimate struggle to fashion a society based on justice which prepares the road to the real realm of God in history.  This demands of the church a greater closeness to the poor, with whom it must identify itself even in their dangers and in their persecution, ready to give the greatest testimony to love, to defend and promote those whom Jesus most loves. 

(Compiled from Homilies Dec. 10, 77, Jan. 22, 78, National Council of Pastoral Message to Churches Nov. 79)

(From Xaverian Mission Newsletter)