President of the Parish Managing Committee
By E.S. John, Australia

The bridge between the seen and unseen is a microscopic thread that
launches one, however, to indescribable and unimaginable lands of
multi-stellar distant lands of differences; the one is the land of
the Living and the other the gloomy regions of silence that creates
violent cries and furies of hopelessness. That which is a blessing
eternal is unending and unconquerable by simple terrestrial means.
The present transitory plane of existence is a bonus given to us for
working our own destiny, whether to be transported to the lands of
gardens, Paradise, or the dark dungeons where democracy is an
outdated fashion that has no rights or permission to complain in the
darkest region of the unknown. Our secular Governments give us
choices, whereas the subterranean dark continents don't entertain any
memorandums; the ombudsman there is Beelzebub who is even craving to
rule the celestial land of the Creator by destroying God's
handicrafts. This is the time and place that give us the choice of
selecting who our lord should be after we exit from this plane. This
choosing place of our destiny is a blessing given by the Most Holy
One.

Understanding that there is lately a move to bifurcate between the
spiritual and temporal administrative affairs of the Parish and the
Church, I would like to shed some of my thoughts on this topic that I
am familiar with for years, at least in a microscopic form. Jesus,
our role model and His apostles have shown us a clear-cut policy of
how one has to deal with what is due to God and what is due to
Caesar. Despite the Son of Man was a pauper, not having any money,
wealth or a place to hide His head, He set apart a portion of what He
received from His faithful followers for the sake of helping the
destitute and the downtrodden ones. The omniscient Saviour knew well
in advance the way how His financial manager Judas had been
manipulating the charity fund. In spite of having crystal knowledge
of his derailed mind, Jesus, instead of changing his portfolio,
warned him that he was pursuing a policy that befits him to be
identified with the powers of darkness. "Did I not choose you, the
twelve, and one of you is a devil? Jn.6: 70; 12: 5-6; 13: 18; Mt.26:
24-25. Despite all such grievous and heart-breaking warnings, he
weaved his own destiny to receive the blood money of 30 silver coins
that pushed him to his destiny, in spite Jesus had spelled out the
true nature of his mission in His Sermon on the Mount, Mt.6: 19-24.
Few of them are explained clearly below for our perception.
Wealth
"Do not lay up yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust
consume and where thieves breaks in and steal,….For where your
treasure is, there your heart be also. The eye is the lamp of the
body…but if your eye is not sound, your whole body will be full of
darkness…If the light in you is darkness, how great is the
darkness….No one can serve two masters;…you cannot serve God and
Mammon". The dichotomy meaning of `eye' is very significant here. The
external eye that has a focus of wealth and money certainly can
darken the inner eye of the heart that emit light to every cell of
our body, the light which washes our body from darkness. This light
of the inner eye is the sparkle from the Holy Spirit who indwells in
us. When our dark inner eye that disseminates darkness all over our
body, we come to a state of not able to serve the Lord of the Light
of Life, but only the Lord of Darkness. Money and wealth that can
plunge us into the darkness weaves our share in the land of silence,
where gnashing of teeth and biting of worm is the legacy that we
benefit out of our glamorous earthly life. "Take heed, and beware of
all covetousness; for a man's life does not consist in the abundance
of his possessions, Lk.12: 15.
The Builders of the Church
Knowing such Heavenly message, the apostles also followed a similar
lifestyle of penury and frugality after quitting from their skilled
fishing work. St.Paul earned his livelihood by carpentry work, while
working hard in his Master's vineyard. "If we have food and clothing,
with these we shall be content….For the love of money is the root of
all evils; it is through these craving that some have wandered away
from the faith and pierced their hearts with many pangs", 1.Tim.6: 7-
10. St.Peter said, "I have no silver and gold, but I give you what I
have…", Acts.3: 6. They translated such code of ethics in their
actions, not only in their preaching. Not only that they forgo all
their worldly wealth, family and lifestyle, they became the fishers
of men by laying down their precious body and spirit that no living
animal would like to part away with. They crossed the boundaries of
earth for the evangelization of the gospel truth by spilling their
lifeblood as a pawn to animals and bigots. Those who celebrate their
birthdays and wedding anniversaries with pomp and decoration and
leading a high-tech deluxe life should remember that those pioneers
of faith had nothing in this world except Jesus as their Lord and
Saviour. This has been the lifestyle of hermits and ascetics who shed
their blood during the first three centuries of persecutions by the
imperial Roman rulers and other rulers of other lands where the
disciples devoted their life time for the Messiah, the root cause for
them to break down the fortress of gloom. If our clergy claims that
they are the heirs of the apostles; they also ought to have followed
a narrow track that is full of trenches, puddles and wild animals.
Apostles' modus- operandi
"And the 12 summoned the body of the disciples and said," It is not
right we should give up preaching the word of God to serve
tables....Pick out from among you seven men of good repute, full of
the Spirit and of wisdom, whom we may appoint to this duty. But we
will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word…",
Acts.6: 1-6. The apostles selected 7 men exclusively for their daily
distributions of food and service. There is a difference between
serving at Lord's Table, Altar, and serving at the tables; many
people have conceived a wrong notion that giving to charity work is
as equivalent to serve the Lord in parish works, despite both are
aligned to be together because there is no faith without charity
works, but there can have almsgiving without faith for an everyday
person.
Serving at the Altar is a Holy Spirit's special clerical call that
entirely requires full dedication and devotion. There is not much
room for them to get muddled up with administrative and other works
of paraphernalia that includes financial and other social dealings.
Clergy's mission is to serve food for the souls, for which they need
their full time in a sort of monastic way of life; frugality,
detachment and denunciation is the language of that life culture
because their field is an ocean that has no bounds and limits.
Religious ministry, which embraces both spiritual and physical
service, should be the only mission for the clergy that mainly
administers the food for the spiritually hungry, not administration
and financial dealings that breeds cronyism and animosity. St.Paul
even didn't baptize many into the church, so also Jesus.
Spiritual Commitment and Family Life
The family life is more important than serving the flock because an
ideal family life of clergy itself is a witness of the Lord. "If
anyone aspires to the office of bishop, he desires a noble task. Now
a bishop must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, temperate,
sensible, dignified, hospitable, an apt teacher, no drunkard, not
violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, and no lover of money. He must
manage his own household well, keeping his children submissive and
respectful in everyway, for if a man does not know how to manage his
own household, how can he care for God's church?, 1.Tim.3: 1-7. "Just
as a city set on a hill, let your light so shine before men, that
they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in
heaven", Mt.5: 16.
This is the case of a presbyter too. "If any man is blameless, the
husband of one wife, and his children are believers and not open to
the charge of being profligate or insubordinate. "For a bishop, as
God's steward, must be blameless…, Titus.1: 5-9. A priest who earns
disrepute due to his dysfunctional family life and transactions bring
shame to the Lord and the flock; hence he has to find more time to be
with his wife and children for earning good credentials and
credibility for the family that also is a part and parcel of his
divine mission. A sacramental spiritual life, together with an ideal
family and social life for a cleric, including the believers, invites
a full-time spiritual exercise that includes meditation, preparations
for preaching and counseling. He is responsible for carving out
salvation for the flock, as well as to his dependants and for himself
and also looking after the spiritual well being of his dear ones. A
true cleric is crucified with Christ.
Parish Administration
Wherever the humans congregate, it will be solitude for the dark
powers for their mission work that brings a multitude of problems,
which manufacture sins on a mass scale, particularly in the religious
venues, where the Creator is meant to be worshipped with purity of
heart, full vigour and enthusiasm. Just as what Jesus and His
apostles had done, there must be a clear-cut distinctive gulf between
theocracy and plutocracy that distinguish between the temporal and
spiritual fields. As the flesh is weak, the Vicar shouldn't be
allowed to handle the administrative and financial matters at the
same time because his divine work field is unending and unseen. Leave
the issue of financial affairs to the Parish MC that collect and
spend money, for which the full authority should rest upon the MC to
run the parish. The Vicar is there to perform and run all the
sacramental rites and duties involved in the spiritual arena. The
Parish Managing Committee, therefore, should have a laity president
to run the Parish, with a restrictive liaison involvement with the
clergy at certain point of time where there is a complaint from the
members or MC members. It simply means that the MC is the overall
overseer of the parish financial and administrative venues. A Vicar
in such a predicament will try to become a centre of attraction to
the parish and the community by his high spiritual and moral life.
Whatever way the Vicar tries to exemplify as a real shepherd, there
could be opportunities for conflicts of interests and personal
gratification to play with money and power games. If Judas could be
dragged out of the inner circle of Jesus due to money and power
gimmicks, who else will have the immunity to refrain from the worldly
magnetism of power, money and sex? How many world evangelical empires
have crumbled down to dust on accounts of their profligate dealings?
Despite there is election for the MC and organizational positions,
the despotic tendency of the Vicar at the present set-up, comes to
prominence, on accounts of personal interests and selfishness because
he will be there for only a limited period of three years. His eye
usually is mainly how to run in a cheap popular way and survive there
for that short period of time without emitting much smoke and fumes.
Only few members of the MC will have certain goals and vision of the
future of the parish that can cater spiritually and beneficially to
the members on a long time basis.

What usually happens is that the Vicar tries to get the support of a
group, usually the youth and women, that doesn't have much experience
and prognosis of spiritual maturity, so that he gains victory over
the dissident members to the periphery and make a good harvest of
implanting himself safely and solidly. Few senior laity members who
are vying for power also get hold of coming to the front by shedding
crocodile tears for the youth and women, a copycat culture of the
secular typhoon, that is insinuated for charity work and bringing the
parish modus-operandi into a pattern of club and cultural life. Money
has converted today's human beings as a mad and paranoid species due
to the club life that instills the passions of the flesh to be
dominated over the inner instincts; otherwise what is the reason for
the misuse of alcohol, hard drugs and ecstasy tablets. Today's
churches and religions tend to serve for mainly the body of man, not
for souls. Fanaticism and religious extremisms are the escape routes
of inner profligacy that whet the body for any animal masquerades. No
hesitation of bringing the parish as a nerve centre of a pagan and
street culture because of the lust for power that rules the day. In
this deluxe high-tech life, the exoteric that suffocates the esoteric
takes prominence in every walk of life.
Deficiencies of today's religious ministers
Right carpenters for seasoned woodworks. Before the dawn of modern
academic theology, the devotees used to sit at the feet of Malpans or
Gurus for acquiring knowledge and wisdom that equip them for a higher
spiritual attainment. Such monastic discipline that caters a frugal
and denunciation life used to regulate their whole life with high
potency of spiritual enlightenment. Materialism and modern education
swallowed everything that was there once conducive for our spiritual
nourishment. One who is only lisping into the young adulthood and
inducted into a theological course has not enough insight in sifting
between the ideal and pedestrian; implanting the seeds of a hybrid
theology that germinate and bloom into his heart flower tend to make
him an ordinary religious stereotype.
As a young minister has no knowledge and experience of today's
financial and market economy, high-tech miracles and its fall outs
and backlashes and secular apathy for religiosity, his style of
running the parish can fragment it into different layers of activists
and propagandists. Once when his survival is threatened, he is likely
to adopt a policy that appeases the inexperienced and misguided
because his deficient spiritual literacy and numeracy and its
applications in all fields of life leave him as a rudderless minister
who fails miserably as a caterer of inner food. The real threat that
befalls on apostolic faith in such occasion is apathy and aversion,
bringing in all materialistic, pagan and street culture into the body
of Christ. High pompous celebrations and decorations are the outward
sign of inward moral and religious turpitude. Autocracy and cronyism,
the artificial yardsticks, only can be the saver of such a regime.
Even God finds it difficult to control a sophisticated and
stereotyped laity that is in sixes and sevens due to materialistic
acrobatics. Serving food on all celebrations as `nercha', oblation,
is the symptom for attaining salvation. Emotional spirituality that
substitutes the devotional one is the only menu that the modern
clergy can offer to the chronic spiritual deficiencies of the flock.
Reading and writing
The higher inner ability that comes by the synchronization of body
and spirit of man by rigorous training within the age of forty years,
according to the theory of Plato's philosopher king, is a rare
commodity of today because artificial ripening before the fruit is
allowed to maturity will be a thing that is not useful to society.
Wisdom is a product of maturity and age. Practical wisdom comes by
being with natural laws and keen observation, whereas piety and
religious thirst is an outcome of meditation, denunciation and
reading and writing, despite it is usually an inborn impulse.
Parumala kochu thirumeni, Puthenkavil kochu Thirumeni, Kuriakose
Sahada and many others belong to this species because every universal
rule has exception too. Reading is a communication with other souls
who are alive and beyond the veil of the grave. To be conversant with
the autobiography and biography of Church Fathers and their writings,
not the animated mass media inculcation and cheap magazines that
thrill the senses, will have an impact upon the life in the early
chapters of one's life.
The present theological students are the products of either religious
extremisms and banal writings of crossbreed theological hyperboles of
pagan nature. Theology has become a science now, not a medium of
spiritual high rises any more. As our modern clerics don't get a
chance to be in communion with any of these qualitative mental and
social or secular qualifications of higher values, due to their
induction into the control of the flock at an early stage in life,
they are likely to be drifted away to any direction to any wind that
anchor their small canoe to any bank, adding more head weight which
harness the community that they are leading. This is only an
observation that should help the hierarchy for taking a U turn and
examine our strengths and weaknesses, not for shooting at the
messenger who is only a fragile mechanism of flesh and blood.
Classical studies and literatures are inevitable recipes for our
spiritual and inner development because most of what we have produced
under the glimmer of electric light and heat has proven to be is of
mundane and materialistic. We have choked our souls for over feeding
our bodies that find its anchorage in ephemeral and banal impulses.
Exoteric versus esoteric
That which is terrestrial is always against celestial. In order to
compensate the celestial, people nowadays switch to fake and fancy
spiritual dynamites. Every Perunal festivity now a days is in the
model of opening and closing ceremony of the Olympics games, the
outward show that kills the essence of spirituality. Electrical
decorations that carve out the saints' and Jesus' image upon the
church, graveyard and other buildings are the signs of a showcase
spirituality. Our religious ministers who like to harvest fame and
money blindly support the groups that make use of such simulations
for their glamour and glory. Choir group, the match-making place, is
an unwanted appendage that performs orchestra for enhancing their own
magnetic personality. Candles or censors, portraits and icons that
are only symbolic expressions have become excesses of our
paraphernalia which have been substituted for our repenting tears. We
don't have the glow of our inner eyes to realize that self-worship,
such as birthday and wedding day prayers and celebrations and
heretical fasting and festivals, is suicidal. The cosmetic
theological veterans who indoctrinate their teenage students with
fanaticism of materialistic nature take the budding generations as
their toys that dance to their tune and remote-controlling. Though
the war against the exoteric against esoteric has been there from the
very beginning, the electricity age that killed the inner eye and its
light has driven out the grieving Spirit from us, leading the way for
the infernal forces to do gymnastics of their darkness in our system
that infect all sort of maladies and lethal diseases.
Sound Systems
The serene and tranquil countryside is polluted with thunderous sound
of electrical sound system that neither allow one to sleep during
day or night nor think profusely for the cleansing of the inner sound
system that run man who is formed from cosmic and coherent sound. We
were not allowed to film or record our worship, but now it has become
an industry even for the clerics to sell the liturgy in tapes and
CDs, thereby annihilating the sanctity of our worship that once used
to soothe and wash our body systems and natural environments of rural
lifestyles. Sound pollution is a disastrous phenomenon that can
pervert and distort our whole being because the Word, sound, became
man. "Silence is the best speaker". Even if the influence of pop
culture and secular stereotypes are a threat to the main stream
churches and becoming a carbon copy of the charismatic avalanche is
not the remedy to stop the flow of believers into other pop churches
and cults. Mixing the heterogeneous with homogeneous and making an
impure amalgam is not an ideal set-up in any religious venues. The
carnivorous anarchy in the main stream churches is a sound harvest
for the charismatic denominations, the place of sound and fury
signifying nothing. The basic element of man is sound and colour;
sound and pollution is suicidal.
The clergy that don't have a clue of the esoteric knowledge
misinterpret the word of God and thrive by the net profit of it in an
irreligious way. This is how the blind lead the blind. Both inside
and outside of man is important here and hereafter. Allow the clergy
to undergo rigorous training up to the age of 40, or at least 35
under the Gurus of the first order, and then throw them into the
vineyard of clerical works. As the trend is in an adverse direction,
the late move to separate between the work of the clergy and the
laity, spiritual and temporal, in each parish and church as a whole
is a healthy change; despite there could be problems in any sphere
due to animal magnetism, particularly when the social and moral
anarchy rule in this doomsday culture.
When there are disputes in the MC presided by the laity, there must
be enough room for the Vicar to negotiate in ameliorating the
situation in an amicable manner. Such a system will only give enough
chance for the clergy to devote more time in his spiritual exercises.
Meddling with parish administration and money and political
spirituality is a volatile and firebrand cocktail that can overturn
the real life into a carnival of pandemonium. Don't think that I am
accusing the clergy or laity; as we don't have time to brood over to
the inner instincts, when the adults in the family are all working
for daily livelihood, the ultimate casualty come to our spiritual
life that affects us and everyone around us.
If the so-called role model swerves out of the way, the flock or the
followers also either accuse or pursue the supposed lodestar who
finds no time in coping with the pressures of daily life and
spiritual crises, which devalue the institution that finds difficulty
in catering the sumptuous spiritual food. Physicians, first heal
thyself. The laity that tries to influence the clergy for spiritual
holocaust also is equally responsible for the moral turpitude that
affects one and all in that parish or community. We know that time is
money in this sophisticated, organized chaos that certainly affect
our religious vigour; it is seemingly better to demarcate between the
temporal and spiritual because both serve as the head and tail of our
ephemeral earthly life. "You are not your own; you were bought with a
price. So glorify God in your body, 1.Cor.6: 19-20.