Rev. Fr. Oscar Abayaratne, one of the most anointed priests of modern times and founder of the Kithu dana pubuduva, passed away around noon yesterday after a long illness. Sometime after a bitter experience over a Holy Mass I concelebrated in Negombo Fr. Oscar started visiting me at Tulana periodically for a friendly exchange of ideas accompanied by a scripture based prayer service or even the Eucharist Celebration. This was also the time when I was working on an Asian theology and found the Christian Workers Fellowship (CWF) an ally and a space to share my thoughts at their seminars. Many Sinhala terms I coined there entered the vocabulary of the KDP, a lay-movement mushrooming in various parts of the island across provincial and diocesan boundaries.

Five Things the Spirit Says to the KDP Today:

(i) The Pentecost was, among other things, the Lord’s loud and visible protest against linguistic domination. Instead of one human language becoming the dominant means of communication eclipsing the others, the first Pentecost was an experience of each one speaking one’s own language and being understood by others in their own mother tongues thanks to the Universal Language of LOVE which was revealed that day as a Divine Person. The temptation for one language to side-line the other has to be overcome in a movement which claims the Holy Spirit to be the driving force. The two languages of this country must enjoy equal status in prayer and work.

(ii) Splintering is another tendency which the Spirit helps us to overcome with her precious gift of diversity without division. KDP is summoned by the Spirit to witness to a variety of charisms within one united body which is the Church. Unity in diversity is a sign of the Spirit’s presence and activity. Here the members of the KDP would do well to confess their failure to maintain greater unity than is observed now. It is what the Spirit requests at this moment and what the Spirit is ready to grant; and which is already dawning on them in response to their collective effort to resist every form of clericalization of their Charism.

(iii) The lay character of the KDP, therefore, demands that any form of “clerical domination” be shunned as an allurement coming from the Evil Spirit. In prayer sessions of this Spirit-led lay movement many presbyters and even bishops (Bishop Frank Marcus Fernando deserves to be specially mentioned) took part but never interfered with the sacerdotal character of the laity;

for these holy Pastors respected the KDP as a trans-diocesan community of priests. The clerical class, as Pope Francis has lamented, has lost the pristine art of discerning the spirits. The clerical class too must engage in self-criticism and in a profound examination of conscience about any plans to appropriate movable and immovable property commonly owned by the KDP under a Trust Deed. The dialectics between the Institution and the Charisma must be maintained at any cost.

(iv) Furthermore, the restoration of the Church as the Body of Christ unpolluted by any form of class division must remain one of the services which the KDP must render to the wider church by word and example. It must treat the Poor as the sacred residence of the Son breathing out the Spirit of the Father. Fr Oscar Abayaratne, the founder of the KDP, has gone on record in the annals of ecclesiastical history as the first to start a Charismatic Movement that was equally sensitive to the Church’s teachings on social justice. May his charism be maintained as a precious inheritance in the KDP.

(v) Finally the Spirit is asking the members of KDP to humble themselves by acknowledging their sinfulness. The Sprit descended upon Jesus as he humbled himself among sinners. The Dove never alights on the proud. If there has been any form of “abuse” among even a few members of the KDP, all members are summoned to confess these lapses and be re-anointed. One is glad to hear that this process has already begun.
Good bye Fr.Oscar. God has taken you from the Prasansaramaya mud hut to the Kingdom of Heaven.