Today, we celebrated the Feast of All Souls and launch the remembrance of the faithfully departed for the whole month. Traditionally, we Catholics pray for the souls in the Purgatory. They can no longer help themselves because they have shed their physical bodies. However, we on earth can perform many different types of Works of Mercy to help them. In fact, when the Church encourages us to perform these works, we are actually helping ourselves as well.
The idea of Corporal Works of Mercy comes from the gospel reading today, Matthew 25:31-46. This is the famous scene of the Last Judgment if you care to believe in it. As I use to saying, Jesus told us beforehand the syllabus of the Final examination: feed the hungry, quench the thirsty, shelter the homeless, clad the naked, nurse the sick and visit the imprisoned (vv 35-36). During the Last Judgment, Jesus will not ask whether you were baptized, you have skipped masses or saying graces. But of course, this does not give you a licence to oversleep and miss a Sunday mass. This syllabus is designed for all humanity, peoples of all faiths or no faith. This is the minimum requirement to enter eternal life. We Catholics count ourselves privileged to be baptized and to enjoy the foretaste of heaven on earth before it ends.
Does the story give me any inspiration in seeing the present OC stalemate?
It all started with the fact that the Occupiers have been fed up with the injustice a government that favours the tycoons with the approval from the Central government. Many SME shops have been folded up because of high rents. Many young people cannot buy a flat to start their own families. All the citizens have to foot the bill of overspent MTR projects to join the Mainland and many scandals are played out among government officials etc. They are hungered and thirsted of democracy. They want a government that is also accountable to them and not just to the rich and the Central government. Who can feed them and quench their thirst?
The students are like helpless souls in the Purgatory. They find themselves entered a cul-de-sac but are unable to find a way out. The adults outside insist that the decisions have been final. It is out of the question for NPC to amend their August 31 Announcement. Our students remain "imprisoned" as long as they uphold their ideals and demands which the adults dismiss as unrealistic and impracticable. They are free to go whenever they give up. But do we want to see them give up?
Quite a number of people do. For example, many anti-Occupation groups which have emerged from nowhere to take advantage of the situation to demonstrate their loyalty to the Central Government as can be heard from their mouthpieces in Hong Kong; those who claim that their livelihood have been hurt (e.g. taxi drivers, truck drivers, shop-owners, hotel managers and tour agencies etc.) and of course the HKSAR Government whose image has been more tarnished the longer she takes to resolve the impasse. However, many anti-Occupation tactics, such as tear gas, smear campaigns such as unsubstantiated allegations of foreign interventions, provisional court injunctions, withdrawal of sponsorship to universities, provocations and scuffles with Occupiers etc. seem to have backfired and fanned the momentum of the Occupation more. Do both governments want to end the Movement by dissipating the energies of our students? Do both governments see that by extending a helping hand to these helpless students, they are helping themselves in the long run instead? I always feel sorry for the Central government for her failure to attract competent people to do their jobs. Judge for yourselves the characters and qualities of those anti-Occupiers.
On the other hand, the students are practising some of the Beatitudes taught in the gospel. The generation gap in mentality is truly nowhere more obvious than in this Umbrella Movement. Unfortunately, so far nobody is able to offer a satisfactory compromise to bridge the gap. We don't know how long the students are going to hold out and I worry whether this course of political education would produce a huge group of disillusioned radical activists in Hong Kong in the future.
Dear Heavenly Father, what is your plan? Not our will, but Your will be done. Grant Your unworthy servant the joy to see a righteous ending. Amen.
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