Life after Holy Week

I short weighted you last blog. Sorry about that. It was, what’s called, Holy Week for us Catholics.

There were loads of ritual things to participate in. The local Galilee school kids re-enacted the events of Jesus of Nazareth’s famous Last Supper, execution on the day after and resurrection two days later. The Age newspaper dropped in, took a beaut photo and published it on Good Friday morning. It had a grade 6 boy shouldering a (light weight) cross and heading for the church door. Colour photo, too.

You couldn’t see the kid’s face, because that would breach privacy.

It’s the same out there on the streets where, by the seasonal way, Jesus is condemned to death, etc. every hour of every day. Where and when? – go look and listen!

Our street reporters can’t provide graphic evidence of street poverty, because their photos would breach privacy. I’m not saying we should provide you with graphic evidence, even “snack” sized movie reports, but it would be one way of letting you in on what’s going down in a street near you.

Not to grab your money, mind you, but your attention. Then, just maybe, your registration of interest in learning the art of social activism.

There’s many forms of social activism. One, not to be discouraged or sneered at, is social voyeurism. That’s when you catch yourself witnessing something around you which is disturbing to you as a human being with conscience, a crew member on spaceship Earth starting to wake up to the need for mutual responsibility.

Over the next few months, some of us will evolve to the next stage of social activism, not just noticing but assessing the degree of rightness and wrongness.

I say the next few months, because the Olympic Games in Beijing will trigger, has already triggered, indignation over China’s human rights record.

Some say the Games are sacrosanct, not to be used for political advantage. Others say the advantage sought isn’t political but moral. Yet others remind us morals and politics are inexorably interwoven.

Were global critics of the US invasion of Iraq being selectively indignant by observing silence over China’s law and order campaign in Tibet?

Closer to home, in July, the Aussie Catholics will play host to the world’s youth during a week of celebrations, religious and secular, in Sydney.

I’ve been asked by a national broadcaster to write a blog, couple a week, about WYD, as it’s known in Catholic circles and will become known, closer to the event, in the wider community.

I guess a moral assessment of WYD, Pope Benedict present and all, may attempt to weigh up the costs and the outcomes.

I’ll leave that exercise to others more versed in megabucks.

If the exercise raises the morale of local and global youth, then, it’s a good thing. There’s so many “big days out” already pitching at the “youth” demographic that one more, heavily weighted in favour of justice and peace, seasoned with religious devotion, won’t do any harm and may do some good.

A lot of ordinary people, not all churchgoers, are involved in providing accommodation for thousands of overseas visitors. A lot of good just must come out of so many random acts of kindness.

Another lot of ordinary people will be organising massive religious exercised associated with the WYD. Melbourne is already bombarded with requests from local WYD headquarters for local parishes to join in the spirit of the occasion.

These “big events”, sacred or secular do put a big strain on the local host neighbourhoods.

We know, here in South Melbourne / Albert Park, the burdensome privilege of hosting the Grand Prix. Randwick, and other venues around Sydney, should expect not just a financial profit but, also, a social spiritual outcome, a blessing, for the neighbourhood.

RJM