I am having this ‘reflexion’ following the notes I took during my visit to Tikal, cultural centre of the Mayan empire and city which reached its height towards the 9^th century only to decline into decadence subsequently.  Deforestation due to the quest for material to build the hundreds of temples, pyramids and altars, and in search of room for maize cultivation, in turn caused prolonged drought resulting in people abandoning the city and the region today known as Petén.  When, 30 years ago, the government launched a campaign to encourage people to return, the first to do so were the Q’eqchi Maya.

The young Mayan guide came out with a surprising thought: “The Q’eqchi’ were the former serfs, the poorest in those times:  they departed as slaves, following their masters and, in a kind of allegorical revenge, they returned as masters, in whole family groups, to occupy the lands that were their masters’, the priest’s and the Mayan nobilities’.  Nature and mother earth, divided over and destroyed, took its revenge too:  she got rid of a suicide culture and re-established herself as queen of the area.”

In fact the ‘parables’ aren’t only those of Jesus. The whole of His life as well as that of  biblical characters can be thought of as a parable.  Events from history also, and why not?, for these are too:  Ebola, the Bishops’ Synod, the economic crisis, the failure of politics.  All is like a parable, such as the rise and fall of Babylon, Rome, the Greeks, Assyrians, the imperial capitals like Paris and London.  Parables perhaps difficult to “read into” but full of meaning.  The repetitive cycle of the year is a parable as well, and recounts that of peoples and civilisations:  the parable of the rich man having to leave his inheritance to the poor. Life revolts against those who destroy, so that they understand to live with nature and practise justice: that too is a parable.   

Philosophers and wise men talk of cycles of the flux of history.  Ancient cultures and religions fix their sights on this cyclical repetition: a linear vision of history leading to its accomplishment, has contrarily taken pride of place within the main religions and Western culture.  The feast of Christ the King, for example,  speaks of this other language.  Adopted by Pius XI to commemorate the supremacy of the Lord over human institutions and celebrated on the last Sunday of October -when it was bringing light to the festival of the Saints and the dead-, it has now been moved to the last Sunday of the liturgical year in order to underline the main reason for any celebration:  namely that Christ is the beginning and the end of liturgy and of Christian life;  He is at the heart of the church, of life with all its deepest aspirations; He is the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the One who rules and the end of history which flows to Him because in Him everything will be fulfilled, those of heaven and of earth. 

Two different visions?  How can they be reconciled? 

In Guatemala I accompanied the fathers when they visited communities.  The Eucharist was quite an event: the parish has about 180 communities and to reach them you need to cover a lot of kilometres over very difficult terrain which means that the priest can only get there every few months.  After the mass, the whole community meets for a communal meal.

The priest confided in me once:  “Whilst I am returning, feeling tired with these visits, sometimes I stop at a bend in the road: I love to look at these mountains and contemplate,  breathe in the energy that comes from the emerald vegetation, allow my imagination to wander along the quiet valleys, and follow the course of the rivers and get lost in the water of the ocean.  It is then that I feel revived”.

On the last Saturday I was asked to celebrate a mass for the end of the academic year. I thought that it would take place within the college. I found myself instead in a chapel of a neighbourhood area perched on a hill in Guatemala City, with alleyways that one could only pass through on foot:  the whole community was there to thank the Good Lord, because one of its girls had successfully passed her secondary studies.  Then the meal in question:  I accepted in order to please them, took what I was given, namely a paper plate, two spoonfuls of rice, one of beans and the tiniest portion of meat.  For champagne, a drink made form boiled pineapple skins.

More parables which beg questions:  why not get rid of a certain passiveness and spiritual laziness?  Our human liberty is implicitly involved, with all its faults certainly, and the faults are often more harmful to life than the sin itself, for God is good and indulgent, unlike life;  as an eminent theologian once said, Daniélou I believe,  “man can live and manage society very well without God, but will only do so by causing many catastrophes”. 

While I "read" the parables of life and of the people I meet at work, in the newspapers, on the TV, that Parable that "keeps returning" with its poor grotto and without frills is a call, it seems to me -an invitation to a sober life, lived sharing what is essential, poverty and spirituality, welcoming all that is of "nature" and a life in justice: the realisation of our life, of who we are and aspire to be, isn't hidden amongst the "return" to a true Christmas celebration?