Jim McManus C.Ss.R - Binding the broken heart
Proclaiming the Good News
The most exciting thing for me about being a Redemptorist is preaching the Word of God. Once I began to believe and understand that the sermon or homily that we preach is God's word, not a piece of theology, or catechism, my whole attitude to preaching changed. And I saw too that the effects of preaching changed.
I had spent many years in studying and "learning" theology. And after fifty years I am still studying some aspect of theology every day. But, while a good theological preparation is vital for a life of preaching, there is no substitute for that very specific faith that God commissions us to speak in his name. God uses our human word to convey his own word.
The preacher prepares to say what he wants to say. However, through what he says, God speaks in theheart of the hearer. Every preacher knows that from his experience. Often, people have thanked me for saying something I didn't say. Somehow, in the muddle of what i had been trying to say, they heard what God wanted them to hear. And often that changed their lives.
Jesus described his own ministry in this way: "he sent me to bind up the broken heart". The word of God that we preach is the means through which the broken heart is healed. The heart aches for the assurance of love - the love of God, the love of others. As Pope John Paul II said in his very first encyclical, "man cannot live without love".
The mission of the Redemptorist preacher is to bring to everyone, especially those who feel most forsaken, the good news that God loves him or her unconditionally. I have witnessed people who's live was aimless and pointless being transformed as the word of preaching sank into their hearts. The realisation that the preacher is not talking about someone else but is actually talking to him or her, about God loving them! That is the moment of truth and enlightenment that binds up the broken heart, transforms lives, and sets a person on the road to human fulfillment.
I have formed many close relationships with prisoners and offenders; I find the "loiterers with intent" model of ministry is quite appropriate in dealing with my friends in the Vinyard.
As a Redemptorist preacher I am sent to bring God's word to people in a great variety of situations. Hundreds come to our renewal centre in Scotland each year. In that residential setting I witness great inner healing in people's lives. But, like every other Redemptorist, I am often invited to preach in parishes or in other conference centres, both within Britian and overseas. There I witness to the truth that "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever". Christ is doing today the work that he did 2000 years ago. He invites us to be his collaborators. Our Constitutions express this truth beautifully:
Redemptorists are sent as helpers, companions and ministers of Jesus Christ in the great work of redemption to preach the word of salvation to the poor.
I love that word "companion" in our Constitutions. We are not just 'working for Jesus Christ', we are 'working with him'. We are his companions, his friends, in doing what he came to do, namely, bringing the good news of God's salvation to our world. And, looking back over fifty years as a Redemptorist, I can say that friendship with Jesus, getting to know and love him as my friend, is the grace I want to share with everyone. There be no greater sense of human fulfillment than the awareness that one is the companion of Jesus Christ - doing God's work by proclaiming that with him "there is plentiful redemption".
Jim McManus C.Ss.R. Perth, Scotland
