One of my favorite books of all time is the superb Roots of Christian Mysticism
Some elders came to see Abba Poemen to ask him,
“If we see some brothers dozing in the congregation,
do you want us to reprove them so that they stay awake?”
He said to them, “For my part, when I see a brother dozing,
I lay his head on my lap and let him rest.”
🙂
While I have to admit that I am not a fan of Richard Dawkins‘ rhetoric, I found myself immediately agreeing with what he meant by the title of one of his most recent articles: “You don’t need God to be good … or generous.” Leaving aside the 95% of the article where he attacks religion in his trademark ad hominem, populist manner (“as a matter of fact it probably is not the case”[emphasis mine]), it turns out that his argument simply is that non-believers too are capable of “selfless generosity.” Both this and his claim, which I would translate as “you don’t need to believe in God to be good,” are statements that I wholeheartedly agree with and which are in line with the teachings of the Catholic Church. Here the Catechism (§33) affirms that we are all
“open to truth and beauty, [have a] sense of moral goodness, [have] freedom and the voice[s] of [our] conscience[s], with [our] longings for the infinite and for happiness.”
None of this is predicated on a belief in God. What I believe though is that it does come from God, who is the source of all goodness, generosity and love. This is where Prof. Dawkins and I would disagree.
During these last weeks I have been thinking about a passage that struck me during this year’s Good Friday way of the cross that was lead by Pope Benedict XVI and for which the meditations were prepared by Danilo and Anna Maria Zanzucchi (the first married couple ever to provide the thoughts to reflect on during this key moment of the Easter triduum):
It seems we can hear you say:
“I have been condemned to death;
so many people who seemed to love and understand me
have listened to lies
and accused me.
They did not understand my words.
They handed me over to judgement and condemnation.
To death by crucifixion, the most ignominious death.”
What caught my attention here was the insight that Jesus loved Judas as much as all the other apostles and that Judas’ betrayal must have hurt him a lot. The picture of Judas in the Gospels is understandably negative and his mentions tend to be accompanied by warnings of his future betrayal. This, to me, has until last Easter obscured the fact that Jesus would not have viewed Judas in such a light. He would have been fond of him and would have looked upon him as he did upon John, Peter, James or the other apostles. His betrayal would have been a searing pain for Jesus rather than the consummation of the inevitable that I previously got from a superficial reading of Scripture. What this underlines to me is that Jesus experienced not only the abandonment by society that Golgotha presents, but a very personal, individual betrayal by a loved one too.
Trying to answer this question is hopelessly ambitious and as unlikely to be precise or comprehensive as trying to exhaustively describe someone. Nonetheless, I’d like to take a first stab at it and probably return to it as the Year of Faith kicks off and progresses. The following then would be a couple of the highlights:
Twelve being a good number to stop at, I’d say that’s it for now :).
Today is the feast of Saint Benedict – the father of western monasticism, who in the prologue of his Rule says the following:
Let us open our eyes to the light that comes from God, and our ears to the voice from heaven that every day calls out this charge: If you hear his voice today, do not harden your hearts (Ps 94 [95]:8).
Over the last months I have been reflecting on what it is that my faith consists of and I have to say that the definition put forward for the Year of Faith fits like a glove – it is all about my relationship with a person: Jesus. To leave it at that though could make it sound like a lot of very different things to different people and may well also be the basis for the typical first reactions I get whenever religion comes up in conversation with colleagues or friends and I admit to being ‘religious’ (a term so loaded with connotations alien to me, but nonetheless one I don’t want to deny):
This is typically followed by a stream of ‘So, do you believe in X?’ questions, where X includes the virgin birth, immaculate conception, papal infallibility and a list of other (often also fictitious) articles of faith. The next phase then is an (often thankfully only temporary) imposition of a sense of self-censorship on my friends (‘Sorry, did that offend you?’) as religious people do so easily take offense :). The fact that I am a scientist further complicates my admission of religiosity as the former has an image of rationality while the latter conjures up connotations of superstition. I am therefore either a schizophrenic or there is something else going on …
The Year of Faith that the Catholic Church is going to launch on 11th October this year is meant to be an “occasion to understand more profoundly that the foundation of Christian faith is [an encounter with Christ].” In this blog I will try to share how I respond to this call and try to deepen my own relationship with Jesus.
eyebeleave 