Much has been said after the late Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini inter­view. This is very positive, even though, sometimes, I fear that we risk reducing faith and religion to a talking shop.

I have been a priest for these past 22 years and, perhaps, this has provided me with a natural backdrop for this reflection, which I consider more of a journey and pilgrimage. However, having said that, I would like to make a small contribution too.

I sincerely believe silence is the stuff of sharing, yet I have to use words. There is always this unending flow, back and forth, between silence and speech. It is not an easy endeavour, especially when you to want to journey into the unquiet imagination of the heart and soul and when these words have to deal with what is naked, not yet exposed and unchecked, what is between connections and sometimes unwelcome and what might be locked in chambers with safety screens.

These are echoes of neutral voices that are free from the luxurious cells of eloquence and prudence, from the usual arranged affairs of our old logic, waiting to be unblocked.

The voices I ‘hear’ within me swim on unfamiliar tides in search of new warm shores. They hint to a future that they do not want to invade. This future speaks of a kingdom that has been already promised and, thus, one is free to fantasise. These voices are born out of a mystical silence in which the sunrise of wonder awakes the awe experience and creates an attitude of amazement.

These are the voices of ongoing conversations and encounters, of dialogue and consensus. They speak of a shared search for truth, of faithful reason, of the participatory act of listening, of the astonishing and inexplicable, of the mysterious and the prophetic.

They speak of contemplation, of what is inclusive, of what is transferable, of what is sacred. They hint at spiritual meanings hidden in the riddles, at freedom of conscience, of contradictory interpretations, of a diversity of readers.

They speak of the excessive gift of the Spirit, of what is vastly diverse, confused, fractured, conflictual, yet still beautiful. They speak on incarnational integration, of prophetic transcending perspectives. They speak of the dynamic thrust of the Word, of an inclusive truth in personal truth, of a life without fearful anxiety.

They speak of encounters between the material and the divine, on avoiding simplistic solutions and shallow assurances.

These voices speak of provisionality, of the permanent place of wonder, of humility, of the unravelled, of a mystery that questions us. They speak of an interrogation of the hearts, of suspending judgements. They speak of doubt and on the problem of religious certitude. They are resistant to manipulation and of algebraic processes and methods. They speak of renewed visions and spaces for wider transformations. They speak of the baffling plurality and diversity of God’s manifested life. They speak of springtime and maturity.

They speak of hermeneutical hegemony, of authorial diffidence, of what is pre-lingual and the silent inner conversations of the soul with itself. They speak of reference borrowing and of an infinity that opens up all finitude. They speak of ecstatic openings, of qualitative infinity, of an approach of both/and instead of either/or.

They speak of human fallibility, of ambiguity, of never-ending journeys. They speak of truthfulness and fidelity.

They speak of a never-ending vigilance, of significant silences, of the outbursts of faith. They speak of different worlds, of atheous theologies, of avoiding any attempt to picture the world as ordered or finished and, thus, is never really settled.

These voices speak on living in the question, on undecidability and unvarnished truth. They speak of the interconnection of questions and answers and that the implications of a reality, which is language-ridden, will always have to be inextricably interpreted and re-interpreted.

These voices speak on confronting the entire range of human complexity without evasion or untruthfulness, of honest discourse that permits response and continuation. They speak of new liberating and redeeming languages. They speak of a kaleidoscope of possibilities, of a ‘diffuse’ and ‘would-be’ attitude and style. They speak of interdisciplinary methods, of translations and connections.

They want to explore the impossible without bracketing and exclusions. They are open for new movements of faithfulness of a free Word and they are for a plurality of witnessing communities in different contexts. They speak of wholeness even if this will imply engaging with the painful, negative, even pathological byways of the mind.

They challenge fixed interpretation and traditional divisions. They speak of invitations to ally reasoned dialogue and proclamation and of cross-fertilisation between religious and theological traditions.

They speak of the context in the texts and, thus, for an ongoing rigorous cross-examination. They speak of the openness of texts, of the slippery nature of words, of the danger of betrayal that lies implicit in all transmission and transcription. They speak of an admission of not-knowing and of different modes of knowing. They speak of signs and symbols and the need for a genuine discernment to understand their hidden meanings. They are voices that detest bigotry, prejudice, malicious and indiscriminate hostility and empty, boastful speech.

These voices speak of self-respect, of journeys that are both participatory and critical. These are modest before the mystery. They resist any enclosure by the horizon of the world and texts. They speak of different modes of interpreting rather than to advance a single system. They speak of no historical dead ends that are final in God’s scheme of things and that identity is not a stable possession.

These are the voices that speak different languages through strange idioms, accents and structures of thought and they all finally hint at an underground explosion of the spirit, which already happened, is happening and will continue to do so. It will not be silenced or disturbed by our full stops.

As for the initial question, whether ecclesiology can live with questions or not, yes it can, it must!

World and book are a hard text to read and hopelessly plural, thus our journey will continue through the frustrations and hopes of seemingly endless change and thorny questions, through striking contrasts of what is predictable and unpredictable.

Even scriptural interpretation itself (the impenetrable, prophetic and venerable system of concealment) will always be marked by a level of debate, discussion and argument.

We need to embrace the fact that the voice of conscience – the voice of responsibility – is audible, as it were, only in the discord of uncoordinated tunes.

Our narratives must continually be retold and our theologies must be constantly rewritten and redone. We remain pilgrims, nomads and refugees and, therefore, we have to move through theology, intellectually, ethically and ecclesiastically.

There is no final theological language. We have to keep on discovering new inventive methods of making interconnections and new life-giving ways in our translations, reinterpretations and discernment.

We need to keep on dreaming and struggling to cross the threshold into the surprise that is Christian revelation because it is not reason that is against us but imagination. Many people, perhaps, have drifted away because their imagination was left untouched and their hopes not awoken by the experience of Church.

In this sense, our work can never be finished.

Fr Ray Francalanza is parish priest of St. Augustine’s parish church in Valletta.

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