Thursday, December 04, 2008 Vugt: Elijah's Journey for Peace By Arnold van Vugt
(First of three parts)
MY NAME is Arnold van Vugt, my nationality is Dutch.
I came to the Philippines in 1961 as a Carmelite priest. In 1988, I married a Filipina, Lorna Ocaya Malicay, a widow who had six children. I adopted the children and we were blessed also with a child of our own, Liesbeth, who is now a college student in Xavier University. Lorna and myself are both lay-associate members of the Carmelites.
The editor of Sun.Star invited me to write a regular column in Sun.Star on the current issues of society today. I am happy to do so and will start with some reflections on the prophet Elijah, who is the spiritual father of the Carmelites and continues to inspire me, especially in the light of the pressing issues of society today.
There is no peace in our society today because there are no peacemakers. 'Peacemaking is hard. Almost as hard as war', says Daniel Berrigan S.J.
Elijah is such a peacemaker. Imagine you are called Elijah! Elijah means, dedicated to Yahweh, not just dedicated but also closely attached to Him. And then, after many years, you discover that all your labor has been for nothing. When Yahweh asked him 'What are you doing here Elijah? He replied: 'I am filled with jealous zeal for Yahweh Sabaoth, because the sons of Israel have deserted you, broken down your altars and put your people to the sword. I am the only one left and they want to kill me' (1Kings 19,14).
We know that the prophet Elijah is from Tishbe, in Gilead, but about his parents, his family, his profession we don't know anything. In the Scriptures, all of a sudden he is there, unannounced: 'A prophet like a fire,' says Jesus Sirach 'his words flaring like a torch.' (Sir. 48,1). For twenty years he is involved in politics but only a few stories about him from that period are known (1Kings 17,1 - 2Kings 2,18).
During the time of Elijah, the 19th century before Christ, the country was in crisis, not so much in the political and socio-economic field, because it never had been so good in Israel as in that time, but in the religious-spiritual field. The nation had totally disintegrated. It had sold its soul to Baal, that means to say, to wealth, prosperity, fertility, power and staggering progress. The urge for more and better was irrepressible.
Is the situation in our country today not similar to that in the time of Elijah? We have moved from a mono-theism to a money-theism. Money has become our God. The urge for more money has become irrepressible. It has become part of our culture, our religion, and we sacrifice everything for that.
Our government and our politicians have become obsessed with money. Corruption and deceit is the price they pay. They lie through their teeth with a straight face and under oath, in order to protect their superiors up to the president herself. Actually she herself has shown them how to lie so that the whole corrupt institution will not collapse. Our politicians are only looking to the next four years. Then they get elected, and four more years of piracy. A cabinet official calls on the Almighty to enable the president to 'serve' the nation beyond 2010, and says afterwards: 'That was a joke only. The Lord has a sense of humor.' Our Muslim brothers would be willing to commit an act of terrorism for such a blasphemy. Some bishops have insinuated that we get rid of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo now. Somebody else, in a letter to the editor, suggested that we abolish the House of
Representatives, the breeding place of every graft and corruption imaginable.
Elijah couldn't stand the religious fanaticism of the Baäl prophets on Mount Carmel. Outraged and in his zeal for Yahweh he slaughtered all the Baäl priests, 450 of them, in that massacre on Mount Carmel. Where do we find an Elijah today who can perform that massacre?
