Easter in Malawi: a religion of sacrifice and celebration

On Easter Sunday, I woke up early to attend the English mass at the local Catholic church here in Zomba, Malawi. The mass was beautiful - a true celebration of the resurrection of Christ.

Although I missed being with my family at Easter, I was thankful that I was able to spend Easter in a Catholic church that knew how to celebrate. At home, I would have had to sit through the drone of organ music and a congregation that barely participates, and I would have left the service feeling as though I had just attended a funeral rather than commemorated the resurrection of the Lord.

But here in Africa, I was surrounded by joy. The worshippers sang the same songs that would have been sung at home, but they sang them and meant them. Smiles radiated from everyone's face as energetic alleluias resounded throughout the simple church, bouncing off the tin roof and echoing back into the roomful of rich African voices. The popular hymn How Great Thou Art generated so much enthusiasm and dancing that I hoped it would continue forever.

Halfway through the service, I noticed a familiar-looking face a few aisles ahead of me. It was Evelyn, a woman we had recently hired to work in our house two mornings a week.

Like most Malawians, Evelyn has a rough life. Her husband, a police officer, was arrested right before Christmas for stealing and reselling gasoline. He is now serving a five-year prison sentence, which means he can no longer support his wife and five children. They are currently living in subsidized police living quarters, but because Evelyn's husband is no longer an active member of the force, they are being evicted at the end of this month.

Evelyn has no idea where she will take her children or how she will pay the rent. To make matters worse, her house was robbed recently. Three men entered her home and took everything: her cooking pot and large spoon, her seven plates and seven cups, a rusty knife, her grass mat that she and her children sleep on at night, and their two blankets. The thieves also took all of her savings - the equivalent of $13.

During the mass, my eyes were on Evelyn, who was sharing in the celebrations just as much as everyone else: Evelyn, who, to an outsider, seems to have so little to celebrate in her life marked with suffering, poverty and setbacks.

And I realized that her story was probably common to most of the people in that church that morning. We were a church of suffering, of poverty, of hunger, of AIDS, of unemployment and of abandonment. But, more importantly, we were a church of hope.

Often have I heard that religion is the opiate of the masses, a meaningless concept that people grasp at in their moments of weakness. In some cases I am tempted to agree. But all I could think of that morning was the incredible strength and courage it must take Evelyn to dare to hope and believe in a God whom many would say has forsaken her.

I wonder if it is precisely because of her suffering that she is able to celebrate. If Jesus hadn't been crucified, he couldn't have risen. Perhaps it takes the experience of suffering to fully appreciate the joy of the resurrection.

In no way am I trying to romanticize poverty. It is a form of violence inflicted by one group of people on another, sometimes knowingly but often not. But I can't help but notice that the church of the poor seems to grasp the Christian values of service, solidarity, sacrifice and celebration much better than the church of the rich.

For instance, I am reminded of my part-time job in high school as a receptionist at a Kingston church. During my time there, it became common for people to sit on the steps and beg for money as worshippers entered on Sunday mornings. Shortly after this began, I got many phone calls from irate parishioners who felt the church steps were no place for these "undesirables." I found it ironic, because those were certainly the people Jesus would have associated with had he been there at that moment. And it made the job of "feeding the hungry" and "giving drink to the thirsty" so much easier, since the hungry were right on the doorstep. I recall thinking that if what those complainers represented was Catholicism, I wanted no part of it.

In contrast, the faith of the church in Malawi is contagious. It is real and it is alive. Not once during my seven months in Malawi have I seen a Malawian turn his back on the uncomfortable sight of a brother or sister in need. Malawians seem to give cheerfully, even when what they have is not enough to meet their own needs.

It is this ability to sacrifice even when it hurts, to rise up despite the odds, to celebrate amidst pain, and to find hope in the ashes of despair that seems to characterize the Malawian people. It also, to me, seems to be the essence of the Easter message.

- Kingston native Melanie Murphy is working for a non-governmental organization in the African nation of Malawi.