A Journey Of Forty Years
by Paul Zilonka, C.P.
The Passionist Heritage Newsletter is grateful to Fr. Paul Zilonka for this brief history of our mission in Jamaica, W.I. Since so many of our men (and Passionist Sisters) have labored there, it seems a fitting moment to salute their contributions to building the Kingdom of God on that island.
Morgan P. Hanlon, C.P. Co-Editor
At 8 a.m. on Friday, April 1, 1955, the Feast of the Sorrows of Our Lady, the first group of Passionists from our Province docked in Kingston, Jamaica, then part of the British West Indies. They had traveled from Miami on a ship called the Evangeline, familiar to New Englanders who knew it when it covered the route from Boston to Yarmouth, Nova Scotia.
Forty years have passed. Though the 40th year is not one of the traditional anniversary occasions, given the present moment in the history of our Province and the future planning of the Passionist Community of Jamaica, this 40th anniversary invites a reflective pause.
Since all of us inevitably see the world from our own perspective which has been conditioned by family background, education, and personal preference, I suppose my professional engagement in seminary education and pastoral-biblical ministry through preaching and writing leads me to see April 1, 1995, as a significant moment worthy of some reflection from a biblical point of view. Forty years has a recognized biblical ring to it in most people's vocabulary.
Apart from the book of Genesis which claims to summarize the centuries leading up to the Exodus of Hebrew slaves from Egyptian bondage, practically every other book of the Old Testament specifically mentions that people-shaping time, that novitiate-initiation into the responsibilities of being God's people, ultimately, for the sake of the whole world.
Critical biblical scholarship no longer reads the Exodus accounts in the books of Exodus, Numbers and Deuteronomy with the simple acceptance of earlier times. The biblical authors have stylized whatever historical information they had into inspiring narratives, heavily influenced by liturgical traditions. Indeed, it is not difficult for the ordinary reader to discover a certain tri-partite progression which includes: going out from the land of slavery; passing through the testing period of the desert of Sinai; and finally entering into the land promised earlier to Abraham and his progeny.
I do believe the biblical model of forty years may offer us a convenient way to look at the past forty years of Passionist ministry in Jamaica. We have become accustomed to associate liberation theology with the strident cries of the eighth-century prophets like Amos and Hosea, prophets so prevalent in the writings of South American theologians. However, Caribbean theologians have found a more apt biblical model of liberation for themselves in the Exodus story. A significant common denominator between the biblical story of our Jewish ancestors and the last 500 years on the islands of the Caribbean is the experience of physical slavery at the hands of a dominant foreign power (Egypt enslaving the Hebrews; European powers enslaving Africans).
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