THE BEAUTY OF COLLABORATIVE MINISTRY

By Fr. Casmir Odundo

Yesterday we celebrated the Memoria of St. Barnabas, as apostle and one of the greatest collaborators in the Pauline Ministry. A lot has been said and written about this great man. However, today I would like to reflect on an aspect about him that is often overlooked. The fact that he was a collaborator of St. Paul.

Though he calls himself the least of the apostles (1 Cor 15: 9) we know that in certain terms, St. Paul was one of the greatest. His greatness is of course first and foremost the work of the grace of God. For we all know that apart from Him we can do nothing. (John 15: 5). Secondly we can account for the greatness of St. Paul from his apostolic zeal for souls. However, his success was also mainly influenced by the fact that he had many collaborators and the Pauline Ministry was largely a collaborative ministry. Pope Benedict XVI summarized it beautifully, “St. Paul is an eloquent example of a man open to collaboration: he did not want to do everything in the Church on his own but availed himself of many and very different colleagues.”

St. Paul had three Principal Collaborators: Barnabas (Whose memorial we celebrated yesterday) Silas (also called Silvanus), and Apollos. Among the many others include: Epaphras (cf. Col 1: 7; 4: 12; Phlm 23); Epaphroditus (cf. Phil 2: 25; 4: 18), Tychicus (cf. Acts 20: 4; Eph 6: 21; Col 4: 7; II Tm 4: 12; Ti 3: 12), Urbanus (cf. Rm 16: 9), Gaius and Aristarchus (cf. Acts 19: 29; 20: 4; 27: 2; Col 4: 10). And women such as Phoebe, (Rom 16: 1), Tryphaena and Tryphosa (cf. Rom 16: 12), Persis, the mother of Rufus, whom Paul called "his mother and mine" (cf. Rom 16: 12-13),  and married couples such as Prisca and Aquila (cf. Rom 16: 3; I Cor 16: 19; II Tm 4: 19). (Cf. Catechesis of Benedict XVI, 31st January 2007)

Collaborative ministry, was among the many gifts that the Church Re-discovered especially after the Vatican II Council. Generous and open collaboration is the very essence of the Christian Gospel. In fact, Jesus showed a much wider pastoral ecumenism than his disciples wished to accept. “He marveled at the faith of the centurion, approved at the good done by any in his name, turned the Samaritan woman into an evangelizer of her home town, empowered the most unlikely people as disciples, promised paradise to the thief dying beside him and forgave all who crucified him.” (Cf. Jim Sherin, “The Priests for the People, Abuja: Gaudium et Spes Institute, 2008.”)

Fr. Jim Sheerin, SPS, gives a very precise definition of collaborative ministry: “It implies joining in an appropriate, non-competitive, non-controlling way, so that all who have dedicated themselves to the gospel may do the truth together in love, without blocking or frustrating one another, without suppressing diverse talents and skills, without being bound by false notions of tradition or status.” 

Pope John Paul II also called for collaborative ministry in his Apostolic Exhortation, Novo Millennio Ineunte when he explained the concept of Koinonia.

The bible has many examples of collaborative ministry: Genesis 18:13-27, Jethro, the father in Law of Moses advises him to get some helpers or work himself to death. In the Gospels, Jesus commissioned the twelve and the seventy-two disciples. He did not commission them as small boys. “Anyone who listens to you listens to me; anyone who rejects you rejects me, and those who reject me, reject the one who sent me.”(Lk 10:16).

In the Book of Acts, the Apostles select seven men for the distribution of food so that they can continue to devote themselves to, “prayer and the service of the word.” (Acts 6: 1-6). Later, two of these men: Stephen and Philip do far more than giving out food.

St. Paul’s teaching of the Body of Christ as analogous to the human body with each one important and carrying out specific function is a classic as far as collaborative ministry is involved. (1 Cor 12: 12-30).

The Holy Trinity, the mystery which we celebrated last Sunday, is a perfect exemplar of collaborative ministry.

The greatest enemy of collaborative ministry in the Church today is Clericalism. This is when the role of the priest is emphasized in terms of the status than the privileged service to which we are called. Fr. Jim Sheerin observes, “Unless I make continual reference to others, I can unconsciously and quite piously! develop my own agenda and become a kind of empire-builder, the very thought of which would have frightened me as a seminarian.” He continues: “Distemper, a disagreeable nature or hidden or subtle conceit, can make it hard for me to form unity in the apostolate with other priests, religious brothers and sisters and other pastoral agents.”

One of the characteristics of a parish on the move is one in which there is greater collaboration at all levels. In a parish set up, one can say that the greatest virtue of a parish priest is collaboration. This collaboration is at two levels, collaboration with other priests. Especially with those whom have been charged with Cura animarium together with the Parish Priest. You can read another article I wrote on the subject here. Secondly, collaboration with the laity, especially those involved in different ministries in the parish. The Congregation for the Clergy issued an Instruction titled, The Priest: Pastor and Leader of the Parish Community. In this Instruction, they observed that, “A good laity is scarcely possible without truly holy priests. Without them everything is dead. It is therefore erroneous to emphasize the laity if this entails overlooking the ordained ministry. Such error ends by penalizing the laity and frustrating the entire mission of the Church.” The key words for collaboration are Subsidiarity (Which is one of the Principles of the Catholic Social thought) and Delegation.

In a typical African parish, where there are so many people who still need primary evangelization, many others who need pastoral care, some superficially catechized and in need of deepening of faith and some completely lapsed, where the parish is expected to carry out ministries of enlightenment, compassion and dialogue, there is an essential need for collaborative ministry. And there is no room whatsoever for working in isolation, or worse still, bickering about respective roles in the Church.

 (The author is Parochial Vicar: Mary Mother of God Parish, Kabarnet. Diocese of Nakuru.)

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