6 November 2021 01:46 am Views - 1142
Father Oscar Abeyratne, elder brother and fellow pilgrim, you have run the race with great courage despite much opposition within your fold. Those who accused you as a Biblekaraya later adopted the hymns, the forms of prayers, and a Christian spirituality you helped discover with the thousands of lay men and women. You never faltered even when some priests, bishops, cardinals, archbishops, major superiors, minor superiors preferred to disown you, yet the people saw that the ‘spirit of God’ was blowing its way for a Sri Lankan Aggiornamento which for you had to be part of a native expression of Christianity. You showed great character through your faith in the humble man of Nazareth, Jesus whom you called Lord with full understanding. We were inspired as young clergy, were able to unlearn and renounce some doctrinal interpretations which fitted the Euro-Christianity unfamiliar to our people. Your formidable stand of what you believed was imbedded in solidly absorbed Hebrew and Christian scriptures and the practice of the teeming thousands to a new spirituality of the lay people. For this people in this country are most grateful and your profound witness is a legacy incomparable, reforms to initiated remain part of the Christian praxis of this country as we they say farewell to you as your spiritual impact has been inspirational and efficacious.
His loyalty was to the church of Christ and the Petrine ministry he respected and maintained a measured view of Vatican’s dealings with the global Church was arguably problematic to him. He campaigned for a Christian view of life and the way of life to be void of its Eurocentrism, which the theologians of the South attempted to be as ways of ‘decolonizing theology and Euro Christianity’ which is an ongoing process to transform into tradition of the soil.
Obviously, he had his critics and opposing perspectives afloat. Some left him, others abandoned him while some others betrayed him as well. For all of them he had a smile, but with a strong word of advice to return to the Gospel, and to extrapolate from within the social, political domains and to apply it to the cultural mooring of this country. He was clear about what he stood for despite many hurdles but his stand was a ‘clear and present danger’ to many who did not understand him. Risk and danger he knew always, but he interpreted them with such a passion and hope which made him a true Christu savaka (disciple of Christ).
Mahooththamavu Deviyan Wahanse (Omniscient God Almighty) was his basis, even though as a young man I had certain dispositions on his Christology among other religions, yet I was simply mesmerized with his theocentric view which for him was beautifully and profoundly Hebro-Christian. When I asked him in later years about the Islamic notion of tawḥīd (oneness of God), whether he would have the same filial sense to what Muslims describe as Allah. He had a big smile as usual, “yes Shanthi, but Christ should be part of that theological disposition”. This is when I expressed my queries and concerns on his Christology in the midst of religious plurality. Then he told me “Shanthi, I know that you might have other academic quests, views perspectives and positions of theological interests, but this is what I believe – “centrality of Christ”. We never discussed it further, remained kalyanamitta – co-pilgrims in faith and fidelity in our pilgrimages.
His genius was that he contained those disagreed with him yet the person was so important to him, and evolved Pubuduwa to be ‘a mother to home’ contain all kinds of views, perspectives, theological dispositions and ideologies – he provided a spiritual oasis where Marxists and nationalists could converse, where those divorced and separated could find a home, where young and old could share faith, where Buddhist practice and Christian values could mingle to express a uniquely Sri Lankan worship and adoration, praise and thanksgiving. Pubuduwa made all that distinctly possible, a real renewal of the Christian life and practice was in the making, did not create another church, but allowed new perspectives and what it means to be a church among the ‘many poor and many religions’, de facto he alongside with his lay teams provided ‘tactful energy’ and ‘home grown act’ to that inspired thesis of Aloy Pieris. However, Oscar Abeyratne imbibed in people a unique spiritual outlook hitherto unknown in the Christian life of Sri Lanka. He was concerned not only about the salvation of the Christians but also other fellow citizens of the country. That to him was part of the Christian calling, his mission was not necessarily to convert them to Christianity, but to witness among them the Christian values he upheld, but in an indigenising sense of direction. His effective preaching and simple teaching on Christian doctrine and practice to several generations of people during the 50 years of his active ministry de facto was a concerted effort to shift the traditional mode of the Catholic church of Sri Lanka through renewal and definitive reforms.
The movement he helped create made a large number of Catholic communities to view and change their direction of thinking, sharpened to be socially conscious and act as responsible citizens of this country. The powerful Catholic hierarchy perhaps was divided in their opinion and did not tamper neither at the archdiocesan level nor at the level of the national bishops’ conference. The inside thinking and the argument might have been that if the official church had no alternative to boost up the lethargic and the ineffective parish structure, then this movement could provide that alternative to stop the ‘evangelical inroads’ into the Catholic community.
Each group or individual who left the ‘mother group’, indeed contributed positively to whatever the group they belong to now. Pubuduwa’s mothering in the 1980’s was unprecedented in the history of the Church in Sri Lanka. Even the leftists, bhikkhus, priests, bishops, nuns, youth, women and children, teachers and catechists, politicians and social planners, simple ordinary men and women of faith all learned from the ‘Abeyratne strategy’ within an action-led-movement and reflective behaviour of a group.
He spoke to thousands of Catholics, helped them find meaning to their inherited faith hitherto afloat, least connected to their sacred text, the Bible. He gathered thousands, inspired them that Christianity is of the East, ‘de-onioned its European skin’ in order to bring it close to home. He consented to dissent and living in the periphery and for him it was much more faithful than to be at the centre where obedience was defined as obeying the superiors only. He made his ‘periphery existence’ a preferential option, and for him it was not about obedience, which in the Catholic church is based on control and authority but for him it was ‘pratipada (a spirituality) to ‘obey the will of God and the gospel of Jesus’. This ‘orthopraxis gave him a theological permission’ derived through discernment alongside people and the credibility to ‘disturb the comfortable and comfort the disturbed’. He did it with great compassion and sensitivity, some agreed with him, and others found solace and other ways of being Christian.
Sri Lanka owes much to this ‘son of the soil whom we offer back to the earth, ‘from dust you are made to dust shall you return’ – anicca dharma which he admitted profoundly, but maintained an unshakable faith in the love of the God of Jesus – whom he adored ‘as Abba mother-father’. Farewell father Oscar, your legacy will continue in many forms among us in the years to come. Go well,
God’s Speed!