Divine Word College of Calapan

SCHOOL OF LIBERAL ARTS

Prophetic Dialogue with Arnold Janssen Spirituality (Rel. Ed. 3) Q4

A-Q4. WITNESSING TO THE WORD IN THE WORLD THROUGH THE HOLY SPIRIT IN THE LIFE OF
ST. ARNOLD JANSSEN AND THE SVD FOUNDING GENERATION.

Objectives: 1. To practice and nourish the charism of the SVD missionaries in the light of the Divine
Word

2. To give emphasis on the Word of God in the milieu of family relationships inspired by
St. Arnold Janssen.

XI. SVD MISSION AS DIALOGUE

The term "dialogue" means conversation or discussion of representatives of two different groups. It also
means colloquy (speak together) as opposed to soliloquy (Hamlet speaking to himself: "To be or not to be").
Etymologically, it is a Greek word, the combination of dia (two) and logos (word). Hence, dialogue means to
speak and listen to the other.

It is interesting to go back to the origin and use of the term dialogue. The philosopher Socrates (470-399 BC)
introduced the dialogical method of teaching. For him, teaching is personal, dialogical, and conducted
according to the needs of his pupils. He intended to develop a broad and universal knowledge from the limited
information already in the mind of the pupil. It is an inductive method conducted through a series of questions.
This method was to make knowledge personal. Learning was not just blind acceptance but the pupil himself,
out of his experience, would arrive at conclusions. The dialogical method of Socrates is like the science of
midwifery. It draws out or elicits the good in the pupil. It is then called the maieutic method or "birth-giving
process." Maieutikos is the Greek word for midwife.

Socrates spent his whole life teaching about truth: "So long as I draw breath and have my faculties, I shall
never stop practicing philosophy and exhorting you and elucidating the truth for everyone I meet." (Apologia
#29) Socrates is the earliest known proponent in the West of education for all, as Confucius (551-478 BC)
was in the East.

No written work is attributed to Socrates. It was Plato (427-347 BC), his student, who adopted the dialogical
method in the written form. So we have the dialogues of Plato: Apology, Symposium, The Republic, etc. In
the Symposium, Plato discussed the hierarchy of the different kinds of love. He concluded that spiritual love
is the highest form of love: that which concerns the liberation of the soul from the body and anything material.
Thus, the meaning of "Platonic love."
With Socrates dialogue is speaking and listening to all and with Plat doing so in a loving relationship. Socrates
and Plato, along with Aristote (384-322 BC), discovered the Logos, i.e., the one principle that governed the
universe. This was something radical during their time. Greek mythology reveals that the early Greeks
maintained many gods and goddesses. Socrates was put to death because of his teaching of a new religion.
The Greek triumvirate did not identify the Logos. It was Christianity that identified it more than 300 years later
as the Verbum Incarnatum, i.e., the Divine Word Incarnate.

Plato had influenced the propagation of Christianity for many centuries through his doctrines of dualism and
the ideal world. Dualism is the doctrine that holds the primacy of spirit over matter. In human reality, this is
the distinction between soul and body. Spirit/soul is the principle of good, matter body of evil. The kind of
Christianity that was brought to the Philippines by the Spaniards is of Platonic or dualistic character: this
world is not our real home and everything of it is passing. In practice, the human body must be punished
through fasting, abstinence, and mortification so that the human soul can discover its divine nature and go
back to its true home.

The true home is the "world of ideas" somewhere beyond this material world. Christianity conveniently
adopted this as analogy of heaven or the Kingdom of God. So came the understanding of this world as sinful
and passing.

Though Christianity had identified the Logos at its and as its origin, the concept of dialogue came into the
scene only much later. It was only in Vatican II (1965) that the Church realized its significance as directly
related to mission. The main insights of the Council are:

(1) Mission is mission of the Church and the whole Church is missionary (Lumen Gentium),

(2) Ecumenism (Unitatis Redintegratio) towards restoring the unity of all Christians,

(3) Adaptation to other cultures, hence inculturation and indigenization, and

(4) The document on Missionary Activity of the Church is entitled Ad Gentes Divinitus, that is,
"Divinely sent to peoples."

The Church made a big leap in its understanding of mission when Vatican II opened its doors to dialogue.
Before the Council, the concept of mission was messianic and triumphalist. Literally responding to "Go into
the whole world" and "As the Father has sent me, so I send you." the mentality was that of "We are needed!
The pagans must be converted to the true faith." Its triumphal songs were the like of "Onward Christian
Soldiers" and "Souls, Oh Lord, we'll seek for Thee."

This was mission understood during the time of Arnold Janssen. However, our Founder was open to the
movement of the universal Church. This has been well explained in the XV General Chapter Statement and
"Arnold Janssen's Idea of Mission in the Light of J.H. Newman's Theory of Development."
The so-called "winds of change" or aggiornamento swept into Vatican II and beyond. The understanding of
mission moves on. This is triggered by the reality of an ever-changing world. Added to it is awareness of the
richness of other religious traditions, appreciation of the beauty of other cultures, and new insights into the
mission of Jesus Christ. For example, the insight into the life of Jesus as universal model of "self-giving."
Vatican II describes communication or dialogue as the "giving of self in love."

Above all, mission is understood as a dialogical relationship between Christians, peoples of no faith, of faith
seekers, of other religious traditions and cultures, and of poor and marginalized. This is in line with the SVD
mission response today. The mission of the Church has to be seen as an ever-widening dialogical process
between the Church and the rest of God's peoples and the whole of creation.

However, the dialogue between the Church and the world cannot have credibility unless there is dialogue
within the Church itself. So the quality of those engaged in dialogue that is assumed for external dialogue
has to be assumed for internal dialogue as well. This is a way of saying that the hierarchical or ministerial
structure of the Church is to be seen as the servant of the community. The Church is essentially not
hierarchical but a community, a community in which each has his/her own role, which is affirmed and
respected. This must not be an opportunity for the exercise of power. Power and dialogue do not go together.
Such a dialogue needs to encompass the damaged relationships between humanity and nature, men and
women, diverse cultures, belief systems and ideologies, the sciences and humanities, and so on. Some
cultures and belief systems have coped with some questions better than others have. There is then the need
for mutual listening to and learning from other faiths.

The Church then has so much to learn and not so much to teach. The Church has assumed the teaching role
for so long and this teaching role has been allied to a misconceived power-role. On the other hand, people
are constrained to listen when they perceive us as listening. The role model of Jesus as learner might be
offered as a necessary complement to that of Jesus the teacher. Jesus himself had to learn for "he grew in
wisdom and age."

Mission is the responsibility of all Christians arising out of baptism and not from ecclesial commission. Jesus'
own understanding of his mission was neither a task imposed on him from outside nor a self-appointed task.
Rather, it was his willing acceptance of what was already implied in his incarnation, his being a member of a
particular family, his solidarity with a particular community and with the human race as a whole. From this
flows a need for us likewise to understand our mission as our own responsibility for and solidarity with one
another.

Thus, Jesus did not receive a command from his Father that he passed on as a command to his apostles
and thence to the whole Church. Seeing the mission as something we are ordered to do to others rather than
as a loving relationship we are invited to enter into with others makes us feel guilty about not entering a great
task. Further, feeling an obligation prompts us to look for scripture texts to support a mission that is
commanded. There is Mt 28:19 ("Go therefore and make disciples of all nations") to bolster our sense of
need to obey and enter into the global task of converting the world. This in turn leads us into a kind of
fundamentalism, isolating this one verse from the entire biblical tradition to support our need to be busy and
to be needed. Maintaining the response to the great commission as the only way of doing mission directs us
to have a one-way or monological view of the relationship: they need us, we must respond; they are ignorant,
we have the answers; they are poor, we have resources. We are thus back to the power- based sense of
mission, which completely overlooks our own poverty, our own ignorance, and our own need. There is ample
biblical support for an understanding of mission that is a never-ending dialogue, a reciprocal relationship
based on being, loving solidarity, freedom, and invitation rather than on doing and being needed.

Mission as geographical (ad extra) is not the main consideration for there are un-evangelized places and
peoples everywhere. Mission as dialogue means that our absolutes have been relativized by our greater
understanding of cultural differences. It means we dialogue in a constantly changing world. Above all, mission
is understood as a dialogical relationship between Christians, and peoples of no faith, other faiths and
cultures, and poor and marginalized.

Despite a steadily growing appreciation of the gospel call to a dialogical approach to mission, few seem to
appreciate what a radical notion a dialogical relationship with people represents, and what enormous
demands it will continue to make on all of us. Jesus himself provides the model, highlighted in Luke 4 where
an attempt is made on Jesus' life. On this Harvey Cox wisely writes in The Seduction of the Spirit.

Communication requires the possibility of response. Ultimately self- communication entails vulnerability. The
mode of God's self-disclosure to man in the life of a man who is abused, rejected and murdered is not
accidental to the content of that disclosure. God shows himself willing to risk the most dangerous
consequences of dialogue in order to make his message known.

One problem is basically that we will not readily embrace that vulnerability. We are hesitant to take that risk.
But the challenge to us all will always be there.

Some will always feel that they have not been missionary if they have not "proclaimed" Christ. But this way
of thinking leads to monologue. Dialogue should be a witnessing to our faith by our life and above all in our
loving reciprocal relationships with others. To witness is martyrdom, a new kind of self-imposed martyrdom,
to our own preconceptions, to our deeply felt need to be needed, to the discipline of letting go, to risk and to
be vulnerable. D. Bonhoeffer reminds us that there is no cheap grace. The cost of discipleship is the cost of
change: to better understand both Jesus sense of mission and our own.

Socrates and Plato had anticipated our understanding of mission today as dialogue. Socrates maintained
that we dialogue with everybody, and Plato said that we must dialogue in the spirit of love. As missionaries,
therefore, we speak the Word and at the same time we listen to the Word spoken by other cultures. We
dialogue with all peoples of God in a loving relationship.
Study Guides

A. Answer the following:

1. Describe the SVD Mission as "dialogue."

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2. What was the origin of the term "dialogue"?

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3. What is your personal meaning of "dialogue" in the SVD mission?

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B. What do you think is your mission?

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Course References:

• Estiko, Leonardo R., SVD. Witness to the Word (Readings on St. Arnold Janssen and the SVD
Mission), LOGOS Publications, Manila, 2005.
• Soc Abellana, Esperidion S. et al., Witness to the Word: Growing in Love, University of
San Carlos Press, 2013.
• Leonardo R. Estioko, Volume 2 Witness to the Word ( Readings on St. Arnold AND His Mission),
LOGOS Publications, Manila, 2007
• SVD Word in the World 1994/95. The Society of the Divine Word (SVD) reports on its
world-wide missionary activities. –Divine Word Missionaries: One Hundred Years in
North America 1895-1995, Steyler Verlag, Nettetal 19943, 239 pp
• Arnold Janssen 1837-1909, A pictorial Biography. Estella, Spain Editorial Verbo
Divino, 1987
• Aschem, Tom SVD, “Prophetic Dialogue from the XV to the General Chapter Advance,
• Difficulties and Challenges, which appeared in Verbum, VOL. 47 no. 1(2006) pp. 27-36
and a talk to the provincials of European zone, 2005
• Bastes, Bishop Arturo, Talk on Witness to the Word during the 3rd DWEA National
assembly, 2005, Tagay tay City