Juanita Lamar or Nanang Juaning is an umbrella woman. She has been fixing umbrellas since her
husband died 14 years ago. A pair of
long-nosed pliers, an old knife that also serves as a screw-driver, and pieces
of small wires have made it possible for Nanang Juaning of Davao City to raise
her 10 children.
At 65 years of age, she does the rounds of urban poor communities,
markets, and parks, and earns 25 pesos per umbrella fixed. She makes an average of 75 pesos a day,
which is enough, she says, to bring home some rice and fish to sustain her each day.
The day-to-day life of Nanang Juaning is a struggle, a constant
struggle for her daily food. This widow
works hard, as she seeks out people with broken umbrellas who do not
want to buy, or cannot afford to buy, brand-new ones. She earns her livelihood through a practical
ability that many of us do not have.
Nanang Juaning is just one of the many who work outside the domain of
regular employment. She belongs to what
is called the informal economy, which comprises the varied activities of
neighborhood artisans, handymen, street vendors (selling peanuts, fruits,
bottled water, cigarettes), and scavengers at garbage dumps.
For the very poor in the informal economy, their few possessions can be
collected in a wicker basket or a kariton
(push-cart), their day-to-day lives are almost pure struggles for survival,
and their dreams are as small as mustard seeds.
They are the little people whose daily fatigue tells them that to dream
great dreams for themselves is vain or wrong, and to dream of an egalitarian
society is foolish or useless. Wala nang
hangarin sa buhay kundi ang makaraos na lamang sa araw-araw sa anumang paraan.
For Nanang Juaning and many others like her, how should Christians
witness to the love of God in Christ Jesus?
For those who live in the midst of trash, who play with trash, who earn
their living from trash, how do we tell them they are not trash themselves? How do we tell the sons of the soil and the
daughters of the dumpsite that they are sons and daughters of God? We need to become the Church of the Poor,
according to the Second Plenary Council of the Philippines (PCP II) in 1991.
But how can our current church become the Church of the Poor? The Conciliar Document of PCP II declares:
“Pastors and members of the Church will courageously defend and vindicate the
rights of the poor and the oppressed, even
when doing so will mean alienation or persecution from the rich and powerful”
(131). Have we truly lived up to this
bold statement? Or do we find such a
teaching too hard to practice?
In all honesty, we have to admit that we are still far from being a Church
of the Poor, yet we believe that such a radical transformation is possible,
first of all, through divine grace, through the action of the Holy Spirit, who
animates and renews the community of Christ’s disciples.
The Church of the Poor, a pro-poor Church, is born of the Holy Spirit,
who can rightly be called the Mother of the Church (of the Poor). The Holy Spirit is the origin and the
nurturer of the “spirituality of social transformation” which PCP II considers
vital for a renewed integral evangelization (262).
If we are attentive to the movement of the Holy Spirit in the events and
situations of our age, the church will be able to foster the necessary social
transformation and to assist the little people in bringing about justice and
harmony in their lives.
To become the Church of the Poor, we have to be attentive to the
movement of the Spirit, which is active within and beyond the ecclesiastical
domain. PCP II has acknowledged that,
“in many ways, the Spirit shows its presence, power and activity, not only in
the Church but in the signs of the times that mark the contemporary world”
(212).
In our country today, among the signs of the times are the growth of
the informal economy, the emergence of new forms of solidarity among the poor,
and the formation of base communities, co-operatives, social enterprises, and self-help groups. Self-help groups among the poor are born out
of some common difficulty such as domestic violence, single motherhood, and
physical disability.
The formation of self-help groups, co-operatives, and base communities
show that the Holy Spirit is active among the poor themselves. In the words of Juan Ramon Moreno, who was
one of the six Jesuits murdered by military forces at the Central American
University at San Salvador in November 1989: “It is in the poor before all else
that the Spirit becomes present, and from them the Spirit speaks today to the
Church.”
In faith, we may say that, in our society, the poor person is the most
visible sign of the mysterious presence of the Spirit of Christ, for according
to the parable of the sheep and the goats in the gospel of Matthew ch 25, our
Lord, the Son of Man or the Truly Human One, has identified himself with the
hungry, the thirsty, the homeless, the ragged, the sick, and the
imprisoned. The Crucified and Risen
Christ is firmly in solidarity with the poor.
“Baya’y isang Kristong gapos ang katawan, labi’y nakasusi/ martir na sa
kurus pinarurusahan at inaaglahi/ at ang nasusunod/ bagong eskribas bagong
pariseos” (Amado Hernandez, “Pakikipagtipan sa Diyos”).
The mysterious presence of the Spirit of Christ among the poor enables
them to offer something vital to the church.
In the Spirit, the poor can teach the church on matters of life and
death. Thus, to become the Church of the
Poor, to be truly in solidarity with them, not only requires the duty to speak
boldly to defend their rights. It also
requires the willingness to listen to them and learn from them. The Body of Christ is not one big mouth and a
lot of little ears.
PCP II rightly states the following: “The ‘Church of the Poor’ will
also mean that the Church will not only evangelize the poor, but that the poor
in the Church will themselves become evangelizers. Pastors and leaders will learn to be with,
work with, and learn from the poor. A
‘Church of the Poor’ will not only render preferential service to the poor but
will practice preferential reliance on the poor in the work of evangelization”
(132).
What can we learn from the poor?
What is the Holy Spirit teaching us through them? Let us listen to some of their voices.
A street vendor says: “Hindi ko natatanggihan ang mga kaibigan na sa
aki’y lumalapit sa kanilang kagipitan.
Pag marunong kang tumulong, marami kang kaibigan.”
A construction worker says: “Paano aasenso ang buhay ko? Ni hindi halos ako makapag-ipon. Siyam ang kapatid ko. Ang tatay ko, magwawalis ng kalye. Isipin niyo, paano sila nabubuhay? Sagad talaga sa hirap. Gapang.
Kaya halos lahat ng kinikita ko ay binibigay ko na sa kanila. Gusto ko man mag-ipon para sa sarili ko,
hindi ko sila matiis.”
Another says: “Hindi ko sinasarili ang pera, ipinapadala at iniisip ko
ang kapatid ko na may diperensiya. Kaya
late ako nag-asawa.”
For many poor persons especially in the informal economy, their concern
for harmonious relationships with relatives and friends is considered more important
than the concern for getting rich by oneself.
Thus, when a surplus is produced or when a relatively large profit is
earned by somebody in the informal economy, the profit is not usually invested
in order to produce more and make greater profit. Instead, surpluses and profits tend to end up
being used to support family relationships and to enhance friendships.
Most of the poor are not highly educated, yet they know that the kind
of life that is worth living is the life that is lived in relationships that
are harmonious and emotionally satisfying.
What the poor treasure most are loyal friendships and solid family
ties. What they desire most is to be
rich in faithful love. Thus, for the
sake of family and friends, many poor persons can be so generous. They can still give away the little that they
have.
In the gospels, this is the kind of giving that Jesus considers most
magnanimous. If we recall the incident
in which rich people were giving large amounts to the temple treasury, while a
poor widow came and gave only less than a penny, Jesus declared: “I tell you
the truth, the poor widow has put more into the treasury than all the
others. They all gave out of their
wealth; but she, out of her poverty, put in everything--all she had to live on”
(Mark 12:43).
Out of their poverty, many poor persons can still be generous, and this
is one of the reasons why many are able to survive from one economic crisis to
another. They survive because they help
one another, and they value cooperation more than competition. The individual who wants to climb the ladder
of success in an intensely competitive society sacrifices often enough his
relations with his neighbors, friends, and family.
“Tulung-tulong sa lahat/ ng gawaing mabigat,/ at hati sa biyaya at buting
tinatanggap;/ bawa’t dampa’y may bigas/ at may tabak sa likod ng pintong
nakabukas!” (Hernandez, “Sandigan”)
Hindi pa nangingibabaw ang batas para sa mga hayop: matira ang matibay,
patay kung patay, bahala ka sa iyong sarili.
These are rays of hope in the world of the poor which is a world of
lights and shadows. The shadows are many
and frightening: they include desperate criminality, addictions, domestic
violence, and greed. Yet in the midst of
all these shadows, many of the poor are still able to appreciate life and to
hope against hope. Their hopes are kept
alive by the Holy Spirit, which is mysteriously present among them. Hindi ito isang daigdig na inulila ng
pag-asa.
The Holy Spirit sustains the poor’s capacity to share, to co-operate,
and to help one another, for the work of the Spirit is communion. And this communion necessarily involves the
sharing of goods with anybody in need.
This is the true spiritual communion, and the first Christians lived it,
as we read in the Acts of the Apostles: “All the believers were together and
had everything in common. Selling their
possessions and goods, they gave to all, as any had need” (2:44-45).
What can we learn from the poor?
What is the Holy Spirit teaching us through them? The poor are reminding us that the greatest
treasures are friendships, faithful love, and relationships that satisfy
emotionally.
In every true friendship, we can experience the Spirit of God who is
love. The desire for faithful love and
true friendship is a holy desire. “No
friends are true friends unless you, my God, bind them fast to one another
through that love which is sown in our hearts by the Holy Spirit, who is given
to us” (St Augustine, Confessions).
“Ang tao kapag mayaman, marami ang kaibigan, kung mahirap na ang buhay,
kahit matagpuan sa daan, di man batii’t ngitian.” Kaya’t “ang tunay mong kaibigan ay nasusubok
sa kagipitan.”
The struggles and aspirations of the poor show that the Holy Spirit is
present in their daily life of feelings and desires, for the Spirit is present
in our bodies. As Paul puts it,
"Your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you" (1 Corinthians
6:16). The Spirit is God's indwelling
nearness or is God-within-us, God who is nearer to us than we are to
ourselves.
The Holy Spirit is God-within-us, within our bodies, and within the
universe of animate and inanimate bodies.
“We know so little about the Holy Spirit because he is too close, not
because he is too far away from us” (Jurgen Moltmann).
These days, we notice that more and more poor people are attracted to
charismatic or Pentecostal gatherings with their styles of worship that are
bodily expressive. Participants dance,
clap their hands, raise their arms, sing out loud. It seems that many poor persons want to
glorify God in their bodies, in their sensuousness, and in their emotive
expressions in worship and festivity.
Perhaps during such moments, the Spirit freely moves and partially
heals bodies that have been marred by the market, haggard bodies that have been
commodified, spiritual temples that have been desecrated. The festivals of the poor and their preferred
styles of worship are occasions for the Spirit to enter blemished bodies to
stimulate them in faith, hope, and love.
The Holy Spirit liberates the poor from self-hate or hatred
of their bodies. “To say ‘yes’ to life
means saying ‘no’ to poverty and its humiliations” (Moltmann). The ordinary and lower-class people who flock
to charismatic and Pentecostal gatherings are unintentionally teaching pastors and theologians that there is a vital link between faith and feelings,
or between faith and the body with its physical and emotional needs.
Let us discover and preach the presence and activity of the Holy Spirit
in the daily life of feelings and desires.
This can help not only in renewing our church but also in forming a
structurally healthy society.
For example, in pointing out to the upper and the middle classes that
the Spirit is present in the daily life of feelings, we should challenge them
to practise life-styles that primarily satisfy emotionally. In other words, they should be challenged to
seek and sustain expressive relationships rather than to prioritize the
accumulation of money or the workaholism in order to accumulate more, to
consume more, and to waste more.
Unfortunately, the prevailing global economic system promotes the profit-making
mentality that trivializes emotive and ethical matters such as intimate
friendship, sexual relations, and the respect for wildlife. The body, friendship, sex, and wildlife are
being commodified, trivialized, and desecrated.
If the upper and middle classes were to open themselves to the
spiritual impulse to primarily seek and sustain expressive relationships, it
also becomes easier to persuade them to settle for moderate or even less
consumption and to live content in frugal circumstances. Such an outcome is desirable especially in
the light of today's ecological problems especially Climate Change which to a
great extent are caused by the consumerism and wastefulness of the upper and
middle classes.
To recognize the presence of the Holy Spirit in the body with its
physical and emotional needs, to emphasize this matter in pastoral and
theological work, and to point out its implications not only can intensify
church renewal but also can contribute to the formation of a structurally
healthy society, where both empty stomachs and empty hearts are filled.
To help bring about a healthy and humane society, resistance to the
commodification of the body has to be promoted.
This is a matter where the belief in the presence of the Holy Spirit
within the body can be meaningful.
We have to often raise the question: why is it that many of our poor
people have to break their bodies just to survive or to provide their loved ones
the bare necessities in life? Why are
there so many bodies of needy women and children in the sex trade? Why do many of the rich and the middle class
have to subject their bodies and their relationships to unhealthy stress just
to accumulate more money and consume more things?
Since the poor aspire also after emotionally satisfying relationships,
the struggle especially of poor women against gender oppression, patriarchy,
and child abuse in their homes and neighborhoods is no less important than
their struggle to uplift their economic condition.
It is a common plight of working women among the urban poor that, even
when their husbands are unemployed, these men still do not help much at
home. The woman comes home from work,
and she is still expected to cook, clean, wash, and take primary responsibility
for the care of the children.
Come Holy Spirit, give birth, and help us nurture a pro-poor Church for the integral liberation of everybody!
