Benedict XVI – eyebeleave

Benedict XVI on celibacy, priesthood and much more

Benedict

2073 words, 11 min read

As the events surrounding the introduction of Cardinal Sarah’s book “From the Depths of Our Hearts” unfolded last week, I felt no desire whatsoever to write about them. Instead, seeing Pope emeritus Benedict XVI, for whom I have the highest regard and to whom I am deeply grateful, being dragged into that mess was a real source of suffering for me, also on the back of having watched a recent documentary about him done by Bavarian television from which it was clear that his health is much deteriorated and that he is coming to the end of his life. The events surrounding this book, of which he at first was alleged to have been a co-author, simply did not make sense and were not consistent with the great theologian whose wisdom has been and remains a source of light for me. As events unfolded, it emerged that Benedict had only written one of that book’s chapters and I was keen to get hold of it to see what he had actually said about the topics of the priesthood and of celibacy.

A few days ago, the German edition of CNA then published Benedict’s chapter in full (in German) and I would here like to share a rough translation of some of its passages.¹ The chapter is 5903 words long (including 3 footnotes), is entitled “Die Gestaltwerdung des neutestamentlichen Priestertums in der christologisch-pneumatischen Exegese” (i.e., “The taking shape of New Testament Priesthood in Christological-Pneumatic Exegesis”) and is dated 17th September 2019. What follows will be well short of a full reflection on the text and will focus on the parts that either most spoke to me or that most puzzled me. The chapter overall focuses on the question of how the priesthood brought about by Jesus is in continuity with the priesthood of the people of Israel that precedes it and that, Benedict argues, it brings to its fulfilment. Far from being the central question of this chapter, celibacy is only one of a variety of aspects of the priesthood that Benedict speaks about here. The central focus here, as in all of Benedict’s thought, is Jesus and his invitation to us, as humanity, to become one with him.

Early on in the chapter, Benedict speaks about how the Jewish priesthood was viewed differently in Jesus’ time, with the Pharisees being its proponents, while the Essenes opposing its then-current form that they wanted to see purified. In that context, Benedict writes:

“This means that Jesus sees the destruction of the temple as a result of the misguided attitude of the ruling priest hierarchy. God, however, uses the misguided attitude of people, as at all corner points of salvation history, as a means for his greater love. In this respect, Jesus obviously sees the destruction of the current temple ultimately as a step of divine healing and interprets it as a final redesign of ritual worship. In this sense, the cleansing of the temple is the announcement of a new form of worshiping God and thereby affects the nature of ritual worship and priesthood as such.”

What radiates from Benedict’s words here is God’s love and and a thinking whose stage is that of eternity and universality. This is also apparent from my favorite passage, where he offers an astonishingly beautiful exegesis of the last supper, the crucifixion and resurrection:

“It is important to consider that the same Jesus who stands among the disciples surrenders himself to them in his flesh and blood and thus anticipates the cross and resurrection. It would all be pointless without the resurrection. The crucifixion of Jesus is not in itself an act of ritual worship, and the Roman soldiers who carry it out are not priests. They carry out an execution, but do not even remotely think of preforming an act of ritual worship. That Jesu, in the Upper Room [and] for all time, gives Himself as food, means an anticipation of his death and resurrection and the transformation of an act of human atrocity into an act of devotion and love. Thus Jesus himself performs the fundamental renewal of ritual worship, which remains decisive for all time: He transforms people’s sin into an act of forgiveness and love, into which future disciples can enter by participating in the foundation of Jesus. This explains what Augustine called the transition from the Last Supper to morning offering in the church. The Last Supper is God’s surrender to us in the forgiving love of Jesus Christ and enables humanity in turn to take up God’s gesture of love and to return it to God.”

Benedict then continues with setting out the significance of the cross and its relationship to the Eucharist, which he presents with reference to not only the Church but to all of humanity and he concludes with reflecting on the relationship between New Testament priesthood and the priestly office of Israel.

“The cross of Jesus Christ is the act of radical love, in which the reconciliation between God and the sinful world takes place in reality. Therefore this, which is in no way an event of ritual worship, is nevertheless the highest worship of God. In the cross, the katabatic line of the descent of God and the anabatic line of the devotion of mankind to God became one single act that made the new temple of his body in the resurrection possible. In the celebration of the Eucharist, the Church, indeed humanity, is repeatedly drawn into this process. In the cross of Christ, the prophetic criticism of ritual worship has reached its goal once and for all. However, at the same time, new ritual worship is established. Christ’s love, which is ever present in the Eucharist, is the new act of worship. Accordingly, the priestly offices of Israel are “raised up” into the service of love, which at the same time means worship of God. This new unity of love and ritual worship, of a criticism of ritual worship and the glorification of God in the service of love is, of course, an unheard-of assignment for the Church, which has to be renewed in every generation.”

After setting out the role of New Testament priesthood as existing in a tension between the cross and worship, and as being preceded by and bringing to fulfilment the priesthood of Israel, Benedict turns to the question of celibacy by first reflecting on its Old Testament nature:

“In the general awareness of Israel, it was apparently clear that priests were obliged to practice sexual abstinence during the times when they were involved in ritual worship, that is, in contact with the divine mystery. The connection between sexual abstention and worshiping God was entirely clear in the general awareness of Israel. As an example, I would only like to bring to mind the episode in which David asks Ahimelech for bread while fleeing from Saul. “The priest replied to David, “I have no ordinary bread on hand, only holy bread; if the men have abstained from women, you may eat some of that.” David answered the priest: “We have indeed stayed away from women.”” (1 Sam 21, 5f). Since Old Testament priests only had to devote themselves to ritual worship at certain times, marriage and priesthood were perfectly compatible.”

It seems to me that this is a curious argument and one that lacks the sharpness and deep insight of the earlier part of the text. Instead of going to the heart of the matter, like in the case of his profound reflections on the relationship between Jesus’ crucifixion and ritual worship, this passage effectively says: during Old Testament times it was obvious to everyone that priests had to abstain from sex during times when they were involved in ritual worship, and it offers as Scriptural foundation a passage where a priest (Ahimelech) tells King David that his soldiers may only consume bread used in ritual worship if they (the solders) have abstained from sex during some preceding period of time².

What follows immediately after the above is a paragraph on how New Testament priesthood differs from the Old Testament one:

“For the priests of the Church of Jesus Christ, the situation was fundamentally changed due to the regular or in many cases daily celebration of the Eucharist. Their whole life stands in contact with the divine mystery and thus demands an exclusivity for God, which excludes another, life-encompassing bond like marriage alongside itself. From the daily celebration of the Eucharist and from the comprehensive service for God that comes with it, the impossibility of a conjugal bond arose by itself. One could say that functional abstinence had by itself become ontological. This changed the reasons for it and its meaning from the inside. Today, however, the objection immediately arises that this is a negative valuation of the body and of sexuality. The accusation that priestly celibacy was based on a Manichaean worldview was raised as early as the 4th century, but was immediately rejected by the fathers with determination and then fell silent for some time. Such a diagnosis is wrong already because in the Church marriage was considered from the beginning to be a gift given by God in Paradise. But it required the human person as a whole and the service for the Lord also requires the human person completely, so that both vocations appear as not realizable at the same time. In this way the ability to forgo marriage to be fully present for the Lord had become a criterion for priestly service.”

This also strikes me as a peculiar argument since it suggests that married people could not wholly devote themselves to serving God or that married priests would in some way also be incomplete in their service (a long list of counter examples here includes St. Hilary, 4th century bishop of Poitiers and Doctor of the Church, who was married and had a daughter – St. Abra). It is also at odds with a 4th century magisterial text of the Catholic Church – the Apostolic Canons, where canon #6 declares “Let not a bishop, a priest, or a deacon cast off his own wife under pretence of piety; but if he does cast her off, let him be suspended. If he go on in it, let him be deprived.” In no way do I mean to argue against the value of celibacy here – its choice is certainly a gift that one can be called to make and a gift that also flourishes and becomes an ontological part of priesthood for celibate priests. But, post hoc does not imply propter hoc, and an argument for ontological unity between celibacy and the priesthood for a person who made the beautiful choice of giving themselves wholly to God in celibacy does not imply that it is a necessary prerequisite.

I really have mixed feelings about this text, where some of its parts brightly radiate with Benedict’s genius and are on par with the masterful magisterial writings from his time as Pope Benedict XVI, while other passages seem intellectually sluggish and superficial – adjectives I could not apply to any of his other writings …

Let me conclude with a translation of a brief passage from later on in the chapter, which made my heart burn within me, like the hearts of the disciples on the road to Emmaus:

“It is the temptation of mankind time and again to want to be completely autonomous, to follow only one’s own own will and to think that only then will we be free; that only in such freedom without barriers is a person wholly human. But that’s precisely how we position ourselves against the truth.

Because the truth is that we have to share our freedom with others and that we can only be free together. This shared freedom can be true freedom only if we place ourselves into the measure of freedom itself, into the will of God.”

¹ I will again favor as literal a translation of the text as I can manage, over polish or readability. All mistakes in the translated text here are exclusively mine.
² In the Hebrew original it says “about three days”, which is rendered as “yesterday and the day before yesterday” in the German translation used in this passage’s original, while a variety of English translations, like the New American Bible (Revised Edition) I used in my translation here, make no specific reference to duration.

Enfleshment

Michelangelo drawing

1221 words, 6 min read

Are there some places or objects that are more sacred than others? Is there anything special about the spot where Jesus was entombed after Joseph of Arimathea obtained his dead body from Pontius Pilate? How about the relics of saints, do they deserve special reverence? Or the cell where St. Theresa of Ávila spent her life, the patch of soil where St. Francis is buried or the spots where Dietrich Bonhoeffer was hanged or St. Thomas More beheaded? Are they any different from your local supermarket?

Before a hasty “yes” to the above, let’s approach the question from the other end too. Isn’t all of creation, the entire Universe made holy because it has been created and is being sustained by God, because it has being only insofar as God makes it participate in His own? Isn’t God present everywhere and always? Isn’t it the case that wherever I may go, God is already there, awaiting me and waiting for me to discover him and relate to him there? Isn’t each person equally loved by God and therefore given equal dignity and worth? Shouldn’t we see His presence everywhere, always, in everything and everyone? Doesn’t that result in universal equality and equivalence?

As with very many questions of this kind, I believe the answer is a resounding “both” and the template in this case could be Patriarch Athenagoras’ saying: “God loves everyone equally, but secretly each one of us is his favorite.” It is both a confirmation of universal equality and of individual exceptionality and I believe that both are needed in equal measure. Focusing only on the former, universal aspect brings with it a danger of declaring a love of humanity while not particularly liking any one person, a danger of emphasizing the general principle while loosing sight of the instances in ought to be applied to. The risk here is an idealism that lacks flesh. A focus on the latter, instead risks an idolization of some while looking down upon others, a schizophrenia of reverence for people and objects that ostensibly possess special qualities while walking past the poor, the “ordinary”, the “everyday” whose dignity is equipollent. The risk here is a materialism – even when it may appear as sacred – that lacks soul.

What does a “both” attitude look like though, in the face of these seemingly polar opposites. Here, I believe the answer is the incarnation – and if you are not a Christian, please, bear with me, because I believe that the pattern of thought that it represents (and embodies!) is more broadly relevant.

Let’s see first how Pope Benedict XVI explains what “incarnation” means:

“Incarnation derives from the Latin incarnatio. St Ignatius of Antioch — at the end of the first century — and, especially, St Irenaeus used this term in reflecting on the Prologue to the Gospel according to St John, in particular in the sentence “the Word became flesh” (Jn 1:14). Here the word “flesh”, according to the Hebrew usage, indicates man in his whole self, the whole man, but in particular in the dimension of his transience and his temporality, his poverty and his contingency. This was in order to tell us that the salvation brought by God, who became man in Jesus of Nazareth, affects man in his material reality and in whatever situation he may be. God assumed the human condition to heal it from all that separates it from him, to enable us to call him, in his Only-Begotten Son, by the name of “Abba, Father”, and truly to be children of God. […]

The Logos, who is with God, is the Logos who is God, the Creator of the world (cf. Jn 1:1) through whom all things were created (cf. 1:3) and who has accompanied men and women through history with his light (cf. 1:4-5; 1:9), became one among many and made his dwelling among us, becoming one of us (cf. 2:14).

The Second Vatican Ecumenical Council said: “The Son of God… worked with human hands, he thought with a human mind. He acted with a human will, and with a human heart he loved. Born of the Virgin Mary, he has truly been made one of us, like to us in all things except sin” (Constitution Gaudium et Spes, n. 22). Thus it is important to recover our wonder at the mystery, to let ourselves be enveloped by the grandeur of this event: God, the true God, Creator of all, walked our roads as a man, entering human time to communicate his own life to us (cf. 1 Jn 1:1- 4). And he did not do so with the splendour of a sovereign who dominates the world with his power, but with the humility of a child.”

At the heart of Christianity there is a co-existence, a simultaneity between the eternal and the transient, the splendid and the humble, the self-sufficient and the contingent, which invests the latter with the former. It elevates material reality to a status that is inseparable from the uncreated, the eternal, since the uncreated made Himself created, while retaining His uncreatedness.

Elevating the material through the incarnation also elevates the specific to the status of the general. Material being brings with it Leibniz’s principle of identity, whereby no two entities can be the same since they will always differ at least in temporal and or spatial location. Since no two material entities can be the same, their distinction and specificity is intrinsic to material being, whose elevation through God’s incarnation also raises the specific, delimited to the level of the general and infinite.

Because God became flesh, flesh becomes not only a signifier of His presence, a token, but His actual presence. The value that materialist atheism attributes to matter is therefore in no way undermined or diminished by the Christian’s belief in its being in relationship with God, its being a manifestation of His presence. Both can, and the Christian ought, lest they deny the reality of the incarnation, value the physical, without caveats.

Pope Francis, in fact, makes Christian love conditional on being connected to Jesus’ flesh, which the flesh of the poor, the suffering and the needy makes present today, and he has harsh words for those who de-flesh the Church:

“A love which does not acknowledge that Jesus came in the flesh is not the love with which God commands us: it is a worldly love, it is a philosophical love, it is an abstract love, it is a somewhat failed love, it is soft love. No! The criterion for Christian love is the Incarnation of the Word. […]

[W]hoever wishes to love not as Christ loves his spouse, the Church, with his own flesh and giving life, loves ideologically: they do not love with the all their body and with all their soul. And this way of theorizing, of being ideological, as well as the proposals of religiosity which removes the flesh of Christ, which removes the flesh of the Church, going beyond and ruining the community, ruining the Church.”

Instead of distancing Christians from atheist materialists, the incarnation makes every Christian be as much of a materialist as their atheist brothers and sisters. It makes them be both materialists and theists, fully materialist so as to be fully theist.

Amoris Lætitia: sex sanctified

3406 words, 17 min read

An aspect of marriage that Pope Francis speaks about extensively in Amoris Lætitia is sex and he does so by presenting a very positive view. He speaks about sex in a way that recognizes both its beauty and its importance in the context of a couple’s relationship, also beyond its procreative function. This is a topic that was very prominent during the two Synods that preceded the exhortation, where the Synod Fathers have called for a new way of speaking about sex and of making it clear that it is valued broadly and positively by the Church. Since Pope Francis has, I believe, taken up that challenge masterfully and has written with great clarity and freshness about the subject, I would next like to share with you my favorite passages from Amoris Lætitia in which he speaks about this topic.

Sex comes up very early on in the text, in §9, which is effectively the second paragraph of the exhortation, since the preceding ones present more meta context (about the process, an outline, …). Here, Francis goes back to the origins of the family in Scripture and introduces it as Genesis does:

“At the centre we see the father and mother, a couple with their personal story of love. They embody the primordial divine plan clearly spoken of by Christ himself: “Have you not read that he who made them from the beginning made them male and female?” (Mt 19:4). We hear an echo of the command found in the Book of Genesis: “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife, and they shall become one flesh (Gen 2:24)”.”

Francis then points to it being a couple’s potential to beget life as a result of their love for each other that makes them an icon of God himself, a vehicle for salvation and a reflection of the inner life of the Trinity:

“The couple that loves and begets life is a true, living icon – not an idol like those of stone or gold prohibited by the Decalogue – capable of revealing God the Creator and Saviour. For this reason, fruitful love becomes a symbol of God’s inner life (cf. Gen 1:28; 9:7; 17:2-5, 16; 28:3; 35:11; 48:3-4). […] The ability of human couples to beget life is the path along which the history of salvation progresses. Seen this way, the couple’s fruitful relationship becomes an image for understanding and describing the mystery of God himself, for in the Christian vision of the Trinity, God is contemplated as Father, Son and Spirit of love. The triune God is a communion of love, and the family is its living reflection. Saint John Paul II shed light on this when he said, “Our God in his deepest mystery is not solitude, but a family, for he has within himself fatherhood, sonship and the essence of the family, which is love. That love, in the divine family, is the Holy Spirit”. The family is thus not unrelated to God’s very being. This Trinitarian dimension finds expression in the theology of Saint Paul, who relates the couple to the “mystery” of the union of Christ and the Church (cf. Eph 5:21-33).” (§11)

The “becoming one flesh” that is referred to right at the start of AL is then unpacked and presented as being both physical and spiritual:

“The marital union is thus evoked not only in its sexual and corporal dimension, but also in its voluntary self-giving in love. The result of this union is that the two “become one flesh”, both physically and in the union of their hearts and lives, and, eventually, in a child, who will share not only genetically but also spiritually in the “flesh” of both parents.” (§13)

Further on in the exhortation, Pope Francis underlines that Christian Scripture presents marriage as a gift from God and that this gift also contains sexuality:

“Contrary to those who rejected marriage as evil, the New Testament teaches that “everything created by God is good and nothing is to be rejected” (1 Tim 4:4). Marriage is “a gift” from the Lord (1 Cor 7:7). At the same time, precisely because of this positive understanding, the New Testament strongly emphasizes the need to safeguard God’s gift: “Let marriage be held in honour among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled” (Heb 13:4). This divine gift includes sexuality: “Do not refuse one another” (1 Cor 7:5).” (§61)

Francis also points to this position already having been put forward by Vatican II’s Gaudium et Spes:

“The Second Vatican Council, in its Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes, was concerned “to promote the dignity of marriage and the family (cf. Nos. 47-52)”. The Constitution “de ned marriage as a community of life and love (cf. 48), placing love at the centre of the family… ‘True love between husband and wife’ (49) involves mutual self-giving, includes and integrates the sexual and affective dimensions, in accordance with God’s plan (cf. 48-49)”. (§67)

This then leads to a reflection on the sacrament of marriage, where the link between the love of wife and husband for each other and of Christ for his Church is again made (§72) and where links are also shown to Christ’s incarnation and to the joys of Paradise:

“By becoming one flesh, they embody the espousal of our human nature by the Son of God. That is why “in the joys of their love and family life, he gives them here on earth a foretaste of the wedding feast of the Lamb”. Even though the analogy between the human couple of husband and wife, and that of Christ and his Church, is “imperfect”, it inspires us to beg the Lord to bestow on every married couple an outpouring of his divine love.” (§73)

Next, Pope Francis speaks directly about the role of sex in the context of the sacrament of marriage and emphasizes that it is sanctified, leads to growth in grace and has meaning in the context of complete, mutual self-giving:

“Sexual union, lovingly experienced and sanctified by the sacrament, is in turn a path of growth in the life of grace for the couple. It is the “nuptial mystery”. The meaning and value of their physical union is expressed in the words of consent, in which they accepted and offered themselves each to the other, in order to share their lives completely. Those words give meaning to the sexual relationship and free it from ambiguity.” (§74)

Francis then goes on to spell out its divine, unitive nature:

“[B]y manifesting their consent and expressing it physically, [the man and the woman who marry] receive a great gift. Their consent and their bodily union are the divinely appointed means whereby they become “one flesh”.” (§75)

Next, he speaks with nuance about the relationship between sex and procreation:

“Marriage is firstly an “intimate partnership of life and love” which is a good for the spouses themselves, while sexuality is “ordered to the conjugal love of man and woman”. It follows that “spouses to whom God has not granted children can have a conjugal life full of meaning, in both human and Christian terms”. Nonetheless, the conjugal union is ordered to procreation “by its very nature”.” (§80)

Following a beautiful reflection on St. Paul’s Hymn to Love, Pope Francis underlines through Pope Pius XI’s words the link between conjugal love and Christ’s love for us:

“[Conjugal love] is the love between husband and wife,115 a love sanctified, enriched and illuminated by the grace of the sacrament of marriage. It is an “affective union”,116 spiritual and sacrificial, which combines the warmth of friendship and erotic passion, and endures long after emotions and passion subside. Pope Pius XI taught that this love permeates the duties of married life and enjoys pride of place. Infused by the Holy Spirit, this powerful love is a reflection of the unbroken covenant between Christ and humanity that culminated in his self-sacrifice on the cross. “The Spirit which the Lord pours forth gives a new heart and renders man and woman capable of loving one another as Christ loved us. Conjugal love reaches that fullness to which it is interiorly ordained: conjugal charity.”” (§120)

Later on in AL, Francis speaks both about the good effects of sex on a married couple and about the meaning of it being used as a parallel to heavenly love, in which context he also points to the importance of pleasure and passion:

“The Second Vatican Council teaches that this conjugal love “embraces the good of the whole person; it can enrich the sentiments of the spirit and their physical expression with a unique dignity and ennoble them as the special features and manifestation of the friendship proper to marriage”. For this reason, a love lacking either pleasure or passion is insufficient to symbolize the union of the human heart with God: “All the mystics have affirmed that supernatural love and heavenly love find the symbols which they seek in marital love, rather than in friendship, filial devotion or devotion to a cause. And the reason is to be found precisely in its totality”.” (§142)

Pope Francis then revisits the idea of sex as a gift and quotes from St. John Paul’s writings on the theology of the body, in which he denies a negative view and one restricted solely to procreation:

“God himself created sexuality, which is a marvellous gift to his creatures. If this gift needs to be cultivated and directed, it is to prevent the “impoverishment of an authentic value”. Saint John Paul II rejected the claim that the Church’s teaching is “a negation of the value of human sexuality”, or that the Church simply tolerates sexuality “because it is necessary for procreation”. Sexual desire is not something to be looked down upon, and “and there can be no attempt whatsoever to call into question its necessity”.” (§150)

This leads Francis to following John Paul II’s lead further into a view of sexuality that neither deprives it of spontaneity nor denies the need for self-control, leading to a recognition of its nature being love and self-giving:

“To those who fear that the training of the passions and of sexuality detracts from the spontaneity of sexual love, Saint John Paul II replied that human persons are “called to full and mature spontaneity in their relationships”, a maturity that “is the gradual fruit of a discernment of the impulses of one’s own heart”. This calls for discipline and self-mastery, since every human person “must learn, with perseverance and consistency, the meaning of his or her body”. Sexuality is not a means of gratification or entertainment; it is an interpersonal language wherein the other is taken seriously, in his or her sacred and inviolable dignity. As such, “the human heart comes to participate, so to speak, in an other kind of spontaneity”. In this context, the erotic appears as a specifically human manifestation of sexuality. It enables us to discover “the nuptial meaning of the body and the authentic dignity of the gift”. In his catecheses on the theology of the body, Saint John Paul II taught that sexual differentiation not only is “a source of fruitfulness and procreation”, but also possesses “the capacity of expressing love: that love precisely in which the human person becomes a gift”. A healthy sexual desire, albeit closely joined to a pursuit of pleasure, always involves a sense of wonder, and for that very reason can humanize the impulses.” (§151)

The train of thought then concludes with a repeated rejection of a negative view of sex and Francis links it to goodness and happiness:

“In no way, then, can we consider the erotic dimension of love simply as a permissible evil or a burden to be tolerated for the good of the family. Rather, it must be seen as gift from God that enriches the relationship of the spouses. As a passion sublimated by a love respectful of the dignity of the other, it becomes a “pure, unadulterated affirmation” revealing the marvels of which the human heart is capable. In this way, even momentarily, we can feel that “life has turned out good and happy”.” (§152)

While sex is presented as an inherent part of marriage and as a gift from God, Francis also speaks about the dangers of its misuse as a means of egoistic consumerism:

“On the basis of this positive vision of sexuality, we can approach the entire subject with a healthy realism. It is, after all, a fact that sex often becomes depersonalized and unhealthy; as a result, “it becomes the occasion and instrument for self-assertion and the selfish satisfaction of personal desires and instincts”. In our own day, sexuality risks being poisoned by the mentality of “use and discard”. The body of the other is often viewed as an object to be used as long as it offers satisfaction, and rejected once it is no longer appealing. Can we really ignore or overlook the continuing forms of domination, arrogance, abuse, sexual perversion and violence that are the product of a warped understanding of sexuality?” (§153)

This is a point he also made very early on in AL, where he decried all forms of violence directed towards women in the family:

“Unacceptable customs still need to be eliminated. I think particularly of the shameful ill-treatment to which women are sometimes subjected, domestic violence and various forms of enslavement which, rather than a show of masculine power, are craven acts of cowardice. The verbal, physical, and sexual violence that women endure in some marriages contradicts the very nature of the conjugal union.” (§54)

Following from its nature as self-giving, Pope Francis next warns against an abuse of sexuality between husband and wife:

“We also know that, within marriage itself, sex can become a source of suffering and manipulation. Hence it must be clearly reaffirmed that “a conjugal act imposed on one’s spouse without regard to his or her condition, or personal and reasonable wishes in the matter, is no true act of love, and therefore offends the moral order in its particular application to the intimate relationship of husband and wife”. The acts proper to the sexual union of husband and wife correspond to the nature of sexuality as willed by God when they take place in “a manner which is truly human”. Saint Paul insists: “Let no one transgress and wrong his brother or sister in this matter” (1 Th 4:6). Even though Paul was writing in the context of a patriarchal culture in which women were considered completely subordinate to men, he nonetheless taught that sex must involve communication between the spouses.” (§154)

And he again points to St. John Paul who spoke out clearly about the dangers of domination perverting what ought to be a communion build on the recognition of mutual dignity:

“Saint John Paul II very subtly warned that a couple can be “threatened by insatiability”. In other words, while called to an increasingly profound union, they can risk effacing their differences and the rightful distance between the two. For each possesses his or her own proper and inalienable dignity. When reciprocal belonging turns into domination, “the structure of communion in interpersonal relations is essentially changed”. It is part of the mentality of domination that those who dominate end up negating their own dignity. Ultimately, they no longer “identify themselves subjectively with their own body”, because they take away its deepest meaning. They end up using sex as form of escapism and renounce the beauty of conjugal union.” (§155)

Like he did in Laudato Si’ with regard to a misinterpretation of passages from Genesis that have been taken as license to exploit the Earth, Pope Francis next presents an exegesis of a passage from St. Paul that could be misunderstood as giving men power over their wives:

“Every form of sexual submission must be clearly rejected. This includes all improper interpretations of the passage in the Letter to the Ephesians where Paul tells women to “be subject to your husbands” (Eph 5:22). This passage mirrors the cultural categories of the time, but our concern is not with its cultural matrix but with the revealed message that it conveys. As Saint John Paul II wisely observed: “Love excludes every kind of subjection whereby the wife might become a servant or a slave of the husband… The community or unity which they should establish through marriage is constituted by a reciprocal donation of self, which is also a mutual subjection”. Hence Paul goes on to say that “husbands should love their wives as their own bodies” (Eph 5:28). The biblical text is actually concerned with encouraging everyone to overcome a complacent individualism and to be constantly mindful of others: “Be subject to one another” (Eph 5:21). In marriage, this reciprocal “submission” takes on a special meaning, and is seen as a freely chosen mutual belonging marked by fidelity, respect and care. Sexuality is inseparably at the service of this conjugal friendship, for it is meant to aid the fulfillment of the other.” (§156)

Concluding this section of Amoris Lætitia, in which Francis warns about distortions of sexuality, is a passage that reaffirms, with the help of Benedict XVI’s beautiful words from Deus Caritas Est, the intrinsic importance of sex also as a safeguard against a dualism that would result in a loss of the value of both body and spirit:

“All the same, the rejection of distortions of sexuality and eroticism should never lead us to a disparagement or neglect of sexuality and eros in themselves. The ideal of marriage cannot be seen purely as generous donation and self-sacrifice, where each spouse renounces all personal needs and seeks only the other’s good without concern for personal satisfaction. We need to remember that authentic love also needs to be able to receive the other, to accept one’s own vulnerability and needs, and to welcome with sincere and joyful gratitude the physical expressions of love found in a caress, an embrace, a kiss and sexual union. Benedict XVI stated this very clearly: “Should man aspire to be pure spirit and to reject the flesh as pertaining to his animal nature alone, then spirit and body would both lose their dignity”. For this reason, “man cannot live by oblative, descending love alone. He cannot always give, he must also receive. Anyone who wishes to give love must also receive love as a gift”. Still, we must never forget that our human equilibrium is fragile; there is a part of us that resists real human growth, and any moment it can unleash the most primitive and selfish tendencies.” (§157)

Speaking about marriage preparation, Pope Francis introduces a new aspect to his presentation of sexuality, which again builds on St. John Paul II’s thought, who links it to the wedding liturgy and who thinks of sex as its continuation:

“[young people] need to be encouraged to see the sacrament not as a single moment that then becomes a part of the past and its memories, but rather as a reality that permanently influences the whole of married life. The procreative meaning of sexuality, the language of the body, and the signs of love shown throughout married life, all become an “uninterrupted continuity of liturgical language” and “conjugal life becomes in a certain sense liturgical”.” (§215)

Finally, Pope Francis mentions sexuality again in one of the last paragraphs of the exhortation, where he speaks about it in the context of family spirituality and where he links it to the resurrection:

“If a family is centred on Christ, he will unify and illumine its entire life. Moments of pain and difficulty will be experienced in union with the Lord’s cross, and his closeness will make it possible to surmount them. In the darkest hours of a family’s life, union with Jesus in his abandonment can help avoid a breakup. Gradually, “with the grace of the Holy Spirit, [the spouses] grow in holiness through married life, also by sharing in the mystery of Christ’s cross, which transforms difficulties and sufferings into an offering of love”. Moreover, moments of joy, relaxation, celebration, and even sexuality can be experienced as a sharing in the full life of the resurrection. Married couples shape with different daily gestures a “God-enlightened space in which to experience the hidden presence of the risen Lord”.” (§317)

Amoris Lætitia: Communion for the divorced and remarried

2314 words, 13 min read

The most hotly debated aspect of Amoris Lætitia, much to Pope Francis’ chagrin, is whether or not it opens access to the Eucharist for at least some divorced and remarried Catholics. Some say that it clearly does not (e.g., Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Müller, prefect of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, or Bishop Philip Egan of Portsmouth), others say that is clearly does (e.g., the German Synod Fathers, Card. Marx, Abp. Koch and Bp. Bode, the great German philosopher Robert Spaemann, who by the way doesn’t like that one bit), yet others are reported as saying that it doesn’t, while – if you listen to what they say – they don’t actually do so (e.g., Cardinal Christoph Schönborn of Vienna, whose introduction to Amoris Lætitia Pope Francis singled out as being authoritative). What is clear from the numerous reactions so far is that Pope Francis’ words are being interpreted in contradictory terms not only by some, whose capacity for interpreting them could be questioned and whose conclusions could easily be dismissed, but by competent and expert readers of this 264 page apostolic exhortation.

Instead of engaging with interpretations of Francis’ text, I would here like to take a look directly at what he says in AL that could lead us to a “yes” or “no” conclusion, and instead of presuming to settle the issue, just offer you my own reading.

The obvious starting point is a passage from §305, which is often quoted and which is in the middle of the section entitled “The discernment of “irregular” situations” that spans paragraphs 296-312. Before looking at it, let’s get a sense of the lay of the land first. Right from the get go, in §296, Francis declares that:

“There are two ways of thinking which recur throughout the Church’s history: casting off and reinstating. The Church’s way, from the time of the Council of Jerusalem, has always always been the way of Jesus, the way of mercy and reinstatement… The way of the Church is not to condemn anyone for ever; it is to pour out the balm of God’s mercy on all those who ask for it with a sincere heart… For true charity is always unmerited, unconditional and gratuitous.”

In §297, Francis then reiterates that “No one can be condemned for ever, because that is not the logic of the Gospel!” and speaks with great clarity about the need to preserve the Gospel ideal:

“Naturally, if someone flaunts an objective sin as if it were part of the Christian ideal, or wants to impose something other than what the Church teaches, he or she can in no way presume to teach or preach to others; this is a case of something which separates from the community (cf. Mt 18:17). Such a person needs to listen once more to the Gospel message and its call to conversion.”

What reinstatement and inclusion do not mean is an “anything goes” or a change to what the Church has taught about Christian ideals. At the same time, in §298, Francis calls for nuance instead of a “one size fits all” approach when it comes to the divorced and remarried:

“The divorced who have entered a new union, for example, can find themselves in a variety of situations, which should not be pigeonholed or fit into overly rigid classifications leaving no room for a suitable personal and pastoral discernment. One thing is a second union consolidated over time, with new children, proven fidelity, generous self giving, Christian commitment, a consciousness of its irregularity and of the great difficulty of going back without feeling in conscience that one would fall into new sins. […] Another thing is a new un- ion arising from a recent divorce, with all the suffering and confusion which this entails for children and entire families, or the case of someone who has consistently failed in his obligations to the family.”

Francis echoes Benedict XVI in acknowledging that no “easy recipes” exist here and adds that “the discernment of pastors must always take place “by adequately distinguishing”, with an approach which “carefully discerns situations”.” §300 then sets out a specific, five-stage “examination of conscience” that is to be part of a discernment process involving a pastor and the divorced remarried person. Such a process also has specific pre-conditions: “humility, discretion and love for the Church and her teaching, in a sincere search for God’s will and a desire to make a more perfect response to it.”

§301 presents the consideration of “mitigating factors in pastoral discernment” and Francis declares that it “can no longer simply be said that all those in any “irregular” situation are living in a state of mortal sin and are deprived of sanctifying grace.” (Bearing in mind that “sanctifying grace” is the state that one needs to be in to be eligible for the reception of the Eucharist.) §302 then backs up the legitimacy of the concept of mitigating factors by pointing to passages in the Catechism, which Francis summarizes by saying:

“For this reason, a negative judgment about an objective situation does not imply a judgment about the imputability or culpability of the person involved.”

§303 then calls for a “better incorporation” of “individual conscience […] into the Church’s praxis,” saying that

“conscience can do more than recognize that a given situation does not correspond objectively to the overall demands of the Gospel. It can also recognize with sincerity and honesty what for now is the most generous response which can be given to God, and come to see with a certain moral security that it is what God himself is asking amid the concrete complexity of one’s limits, while yet not fully the objective ideal. In any event, let us recall that this discernment is dynamic; it must remain ever open to new stages of growth and to new decisions which can enable the ideal to be more fully realized.”

Next, we get a section entitled “Rules and discernment,” which opens with the following statement at the beginning of §304:

“It is reductive simply to consider whether or not an individual’s actions correspond to a general law or rule, because that is not enough to discern and ensure full fidelity to God in the concrete life of a human being.”

Next, Francis “earnestly ask[s] that we always recall a teaching of Saint Thomas Aquinas and learn to incorporate it in our pastoral discernment”:

“Although there is necessity in the general principles, the more we descend to matters of detail, the more frequently we encounter defects… In matters of action, truth or practical rectitude is not the same for all, as to matters of detail, but only as to the general principles; and where there is the same rectitude in matters of detail, it is not equally known to all… The principle will be found to fail, according as we descend further into detail”.

What does this mean? Even general rules that set out an absolute good, cannot – in their formulation – provide for all particular situations. Therefore, Francis says in the opening line of §305, “a pastor cannot feel that it is enough simply to apply moral laws to those living in “irregular” situations, as if they were stones to throw at people’s lives,” which brings us to the key passage in §305 where Francis declares that a person “in an objective situation of sin” (such as re-marriage after divorce) can nonetheless be “living in God’s grace” (a pre-requisite for access to the Eucharist¹):

“Because of forms of conditioning and mitigating factors, it is possible that in an objective situation of sin – which may not be subjectively culpable, or fully such – a person can be living in God’s grace, can love and can also grow in the life of grace and charity, while receiving the Church’s help to this end.”

To elaborate on what help can be expected from the Church, the above sentence points to the following, much-debated footnote number 351:

“In certain cases, this can include the help of the sacraments. Hence, “I want to remind priests that the confessional must not be a torture chamber, but rather an encounter with the Lord’s mercy” (Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium [24 November 2013], 44: AAS 105 [2013], 1038). I would also point out that the Eucharist “is not a prize for the perfect, but a powerful medicine and nourishment for the weak” (ibid., 47: 1039).”

The most obvious interpretation, to my mind, here is that, yes, what Pope Francis is saying is that access to the Eucharist is a possibility in the context of the pastor-lead discernment, where he understands the particular circumstances of a person who approaches him on the back of the pre-conditions spelled out above. It is worth noting here that Cardinal Müller has specifically denied such an interpretation of footnote 351, claiming that “this footnote refers to objective situations of sin in general, not to the specific case of civilly remarried divorcees.” Personally, I find this very hard to see, given that the entire section, in the very middle of which we are here, is all about the divorced and civilly remarried … Furthermore, it is primarily §301 that is the basis of the Eucharist being offered to some divorced and civilly remarried – as “medicine and nourishment”, since it states that those in “irregular” circumstances may nonetheless be in a state of grace. Footnote 351 is then just a spelling out of §301’s consequences.

Before wrapping up my reading of AL from the perspective of whether or not the divorced and civilly remarried have access to the Eucharist (through the above process of pastor-lead discernment), it is also worth noting two aspects of the exhortation that, I believe, indirectly support my interpretation.

First, that Pope Francis never says that the divorced and civilly remarried are excluded from access to the Eucharist, while at the same time making categorical statements about abortion (“So great is the value of a human life, and so inalienable the right to life of an innocent child growing in the mother’s womb, that no alleged right to one’s own body can justify a decision to terminate that life.” (§83)), same-sex marriage (“there are absolutely no grounds for considering homosexual unions to be in any way similar or even remotely analogous to God’s plan for marriage and family” (§251)) and the indissolubility of marriage (“only the exclusive and indissoluble union between a man and a woman has a plenary role to play in society as a stable commitment that bears fruit in new life” (§52)). If Pope Francis would have wanted to maintain pastoral practice as it stands, he could have said that there is no change to it. In fact, even when asked directly after the publication of AL about whether there were “new, concrete possibilities that didn’t exist before” with regard to the “discipline that regulates access to the sacraments for the divorced and remarried”, his response was: “I can say yes, many.”

Second, Pope Francis does explicitly speak about obstacles to receiving the Eucharist in a different context, which consist in “creating scandalous distinctions and divisions among [the Church’s] members” and in “turn[ing] a blind eye to the poor and suffering, or consent[ing] to various forms of division, contempt and inequality”:

“The Eucharist demands that we be members of the one body of the Church. Those who approach the Body and Blood of Christ may not wound that same Body by creating scandalous distinctions and divisions among its members. This is what it means to “discern” the body of the Lord, to acknowledge it with faith and charity both in the sacramental signs and in the community; those who fail to do so eat and drink judgement against themselves. The celebration of the Eucharist thus becomes a constant summons for everyone “to examine himself or herself”, to open the doors of the family to greater fellowship with the underprivileged, and in this way to receive the sacrament of that eucharistic love which makes us one body. We must not forget that “the ‘mysticism’ of the sacrament has a social character”. When those who receive it turn a blind eye to the poor and suffering, or consent to various forms of division, contempt and inequality, the Eucharist is received unworthily. On the other hand, families who are properly disposed and receive the Eucharist regularly, reinforce their desire for fraternity, their social consciousness and their commitment to those in need.” (§186)

Against the background of the above secondary features of Amoris Lætitia, but primarily because of the introduction of greater granularity to how the state of grace is understood of those who are divorced and civilly remarried, as expressed in §301, I have to side with the German Synod Fathers’ and with Robert Spaemann’s reading that Amoris Lætitia does indeed allow for access to the Eucharist for some divorced and civilly remarried Catholics.^{2, 3}

[UPDATE on 13 September 2016] Last Friday, a pair of documents were published that confirm the above reading of Amoris Lætitia directly through the words of Pope Francis, who, responding to a document shared with him by the bishops of the diocese of Buenos Aires, stated that “there is no other interpretation” of Amoris Lætitia’s chapter 8 than that the divorced and civilly remarried may in some cases be admitted to receiving the Eucharist. In addition to the continence scenario that the Buenos Aires document mentions (and that comes from St. John Paul II’s Familiaris Consortio), it also states that such access may also be an option under other circumstances:

“Under other, more complex circumstances, and when it was not possible to obtain a declaration of nullity, the option mentioned above [i.e., continence] may not in fact be feasible. Nonetheless, a path of discernment is still possible. If this arrives, in a specific case, at the conclusion that there are limitations that attenuate responsibility and culpability (cf. 301-302), in particular when a person deems that they would commit further faults that would harm the children of the new union, Amoris Lætitia opens the possibility of access to the sacraments of Reconciliation and the Eucharist (cf. notes 336 and 351). These in turn will dispose the person to continue maturing and growing with the power of grace.”

The document then proceeds to caution against interpreting this as unrestricted access to the sacraments and emphasizes the importance of continuing accompaniment, and examination of conscience.

Having Pope Francis identify this as the only interpretation of Amoris Lætitia now confirms the substantial change that it has introduced to the Church’s pastoral care for the divorced and civilly remarried.

¹ The Catechism of the Catholic Church states that “Anyone conscious of a grave sin must receive the sacrament of [Penance and] Reconciliation before coming to communion.” (§1385) and that “[t]he whole power of the sacrament of Penance consists in restoring us to God’s grace and joining us with him in an intimate friendship.” (§1468), with Pope Benedict XVI even bringing these two points together explicitly in in Sacramentum Caritatis §20, emphasizing “the need to be in a state of grace in order to approach sacramental communion worthily”.
² Beyond what Familiaris Consortio set out in its §84, where the divorced and civilly remarried who abstained from sex were declared to be in a position to receive the Eucharist. I.e., already with St. John Paul II the prohibition was not absolute.
³ Just in case you feel like exclaiming that the Church’s understanding and teaching never changes, take a look here and here (but mainly at the second “here”).

Ravasi: art and faith – the invisible in the visible

Today I’d like to bring you my, rough English translation of Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi’s 2011 talk, entitled: “The invisible in the visible: art and faith,” which has given me great joy and which I hope will delight you too:

The title of this talk, “The invisible in the visible: art and faith”, points spontaneously to two great painters of the last century. On the one hand Paul Klee and on the other Joan Miró, who in different ways, but with the same substance, have declared that art does not represent the visible, but the invisible that is in the visible. […]

For Vasari, the holy and the beautiful, holiness and beauty, intertwine. Not as extrinsic realities, but almost as if they were, among themselves, sisters. So, in a certain sense we can say, and I would like to demonstrate only […] this sisterhood between art and faith. […]

As a premise, we know that a single expression is used, curiously, to indicate two realities that are similar, but that are also profoundly different. Isn’t it true that one speaks about the inspiration of the Scriptures, of the word of God? The word of the Scriptures is inspired. And doesn’t this same expression also get used to speak about artistic inspiration? It can therefore be seen that both faith and art, the witness of the divine word and of the human word, have inside them a seed of eternity. A seed of the infinite. A dimension that precedes them and that exceeds them, that surpasses them.

The artist, in a certain sense like the prophet, has inside them a voice that comes from the beyond and the other. And Beyond and Other need to be written with capital letters. The invisible that is in the visible.

It is interesting to note that, e.g., in the Scriptures, chapter 35 of Exodus speaks about Bezalel, who is an artisan, an artist, who built the ark and the mobile temple of the desert that the Hebrews carried with them. Having left the drama of their enslavement in Egypt behind, they carry with them a mobile temple. So, what is said about this artist is that he was filled with the spirit of God (cf. Exodus 35:30-31), exactly like a prophet.

And think about how in the first book of Chronicles, in chapter 25 […] musicians are mentioned, the singers in the temple. It is said that they were inspired by God. And do you know what Hebrew expression is used? Navi – the same one as used for prophets (cf. 1 Chronicles 25:1). Prophets and musicians are almost the same reality, infused by the spirit of God.

This is why speaking about art and faith isn’t speaking about two external realities. Unfortunately, however, as we know well, a divorce has been consummated and art and faith do not walk together anymore. Therefore we must struggle to rediscover [..] the harmony that is beneficial for art, precious for art, so that it no longer has to lose itself in the vague, the inconsistent, the banal, and may rediscover the great narratives, the great symbols, the great themes, the great challenges: the invisible. On the other hand it is beneficial for faith because we must say “God” in a beautiful way, as the Bible says in Psalm 47: “sing to God with art!”¹

My reflection […] is linked to two movements that revolve around a single symbol. A symbol that, I have to say, is a bit strange and that might puzzle you. […] I take this symbol from a phrase of the then-Cardinal Ratzinger, from one of his articles on faith and art. He wrote the following words, in which you will see the symbol that I’ll then use: “Beauty wounds, and by doing so reminds the person of their ultimate destiny.” Hence, beauty, art as a wound. And we will see that faith too is a wound.

So, let’s start with this theme: the wound. The wound makes us bleed. The wound unsettles, torments. It doesn’t let you sleep. It is a plague. Hence, art, like faith, have this scope. To make you tremble.

What is the great illness of our times? […] Indifference, superficiality, banality. The French Catholic writer, Bernanos, in one of his novels […] – The Impostor, tells the story of a priest – Fr. Cenabre – who loses his faith and becomes an atheist. He writes: “There is a fundamental difference between emptiness and absence. Emptiness is nothing, a lack of substance. Absence is not a nothing.” When I go home, to my sisters, in the north, in Milan, we still have the two empty chairs of my dad and my mother. They are apparently empty. But, in reality, they aren’t. They are an absence. An absence that, in this case, is filled with memories, and for the believer also with another type of presence, by a nostalgia. Our times have lost the absence of God, the nostalgia for great values. These are empty times, lacking substance.

Some of you will know the great painter, Braque, friend of Picasso, cubist, who then also went beyond cubism, and so on, and who died in 1963. And Braque said this phrase, which is not entirely true, but that has its meaning: “Art is made to disturb, science to reassure.” Technology. We are children of technology. Technology will solve all your problems. Don’t ever ask yourselves the great questions.

This is why we must return greatness to art. When I speak about art I don’t only have figurative arts in mind – sculpture, painting, etc. – I speak about art in general, with all of its thousand manifestations that pass from literature through music to photography to the cinema. We have a need for returning to, rediscovering this restlessness.

[…] Henry Miller, who as a profoundly anti-christian writer, even a scandalous one at a certain moment, wrote a book entitled “The wisdom of the heart.” And in that work there is the following paradoxical phrase on which we must meditate: “Art, like faith, is good for nothing, other than to give you the meaning of life.”

You see, if you have to look for food, for the immediate, are chasing fashions, you have no need for art. On the contrary! Poetry. What’s it for? Hölderlin wrote an entire poem: “Wozu Dichter?” [“Why poets?”] Apparently they are good for nothing. But, like faith, they point you to the meaning of life.

That is why we need this wound, this restlessness, in a time that is so superficial, in which we are dragged along, in which we have passed from immorality, which means that we are at least aware of it, to amorality, total indifference. […]

The wound keeps you awake. And it therefore keeps you continuously looking. So, there is another element that associates art and faith in this context of the wound. Wonder. When you are in front of a work of art, that work of art isn’t to be explained, to tell the truth. You can say something about its origin, about the image it depicts, about something. But, you have to, in the end, if you want to enter in harmony with it, succeed in establish a bond of wonder, of contemplation, as is indeed the case with faith. Yes, there is need for reason, but in the end, art is an intuition, something that dazzles you.

The poet, Ezra Pound, said:² “Do you perhaps explain the charm of an April wind? Do you perhaps explain the luminous beauty of one of Plato’s thoughts? Do you perhaps explain the unexpected beauty that you perceive in a woman’s face?” They don’t have explanations. You discover them, unexpectedly. They are an epiphany. So, we still need clear eyes. Eyes that has been dirtied by so many images of extreme vulgarity and superficiality and violence … We need to regain the eye of a child that is filled with wonder when faced with the marvels of being and of human creatures. In front of the marvels of the divine. This is why faith and art are like each other.

The English writer […] Chesterton, wrote these words: “The dignity of the artist lies in his duty of keeping awake the sense of wonder in the world.” And he continued: “The world will never starve for want of wonders; […] There are plenty of them, I assure you […], but only for want of wonder.” Because it is no longer able to contemplate, to look, to go beyond the skin, the surface of things.”

This was my first reflection, the simpler one, the second one is a little more complex, also because I would like to enter the theme in a more profound way.

Art and faith as wound, as we have said, that generates restlessness, that makes you tremble, that looks for something that isn’t there in our times anymore: the question about the meaning of what you do, who you are, of what is.

In the second reflection I will take that same symbol of the wound [“ferita”] that in Italian has another word that derives from it: “slit” [“feritoia”].³ So, I would say that art, like faith, is a slit through which the absolute, the transcendent, mystery can be accessed. I would, therefore, like to invite you now to look for where these slits are so that we may discover a mystery, something that exceeds us, that transcends us, which is what true art and great, authentic faith need to do. I would, in this regard, like to put forward five ways, which in the end justify the fact that there exists a religion like the Christian one, which is the celebration of art.

Let’s start from a Biblical text what, paradoxically, begins with a negation of art. You remember the first commandment of the decalogue, the great, so called aniconic commandment, i.e., that wipes out images: “You shall not make for yourself an idol or a likeness of anything in the heavens above or on the earth below or in the waters beneath the earth” (Exodus 20:4). Avert your eyes from the golden calf! Sure, it is idols that are condemned here, but then you know that during the course of history some have taken this by the letter, and have drowned art. Think of Islam which, for some time already is moving in this direction. God must never be represented, and human beings neither, because there is always this risk of idolatry. […] It is not for nothing that at a certain moment Protestantism has exalted music in a particular way. Bach was a protestant. Schütz was a protestant. Pachelbel – protestant. Then there is Handel. A whole line that goes towards music, towards its sound that is extraordinarily potent in speaking to us about the eternal and the infinite, while avoiding recourse to images. Why is it then that Christianity has instead, over the centuries, returned to and celebrated the image.

Overcoming this silence, the silence of the images of art therefore, has been done in certain ways, which I would now like to evoke because they are ways in which the famous slit appears.

In parenthesis, regarding slits, I would like to tell you something that you may not have heard before. […] You all know a great painter, who was important in the last century: Lucio Fontana. I knew his widow, and I know many of his works since I am from Milan and he was from Milan too. Why is Fontana famous? Because, at a certain moment, he made that famous gash in a canvas. He painted it and slashed it. And do you know that when others asked: “But why?,” critics elaborated complicated discourses to explain it. But when they asked the artist himself, he responded with a phrase that is almost the formulation of the thesis of this second movement. He replied: “For me, this cut is a glimmer of the absolute, of the infinite.” It is almost a going beyond the canvas, beyond matter, to look for depth, for the secret.

First of all there is a place where the Bible sees a slit opening towards the infinite, the eternal, the divine. And this reality, a reality that is fundamental also, e.g., for literature, is the word. If you look closely, God, precisely because images are forbidden, is presented in the beginning of the first line of the Bible using this expression: “God said: Let there be light, and there was light.” (Genesis 1:3). The silence of nothingness is slashed by a word. Also, how does the New Testament begin? Ideally, with the prologue of John: “In the beginning was the Word.” (John 1:1). Absolute primacy.

When Moses, and maybe you have never heard this phrase, because it is from a book that is read little, speaks in Deuteronomy, the fifth book of the Bible, in its fourth chapter, verse 12. When in Deuteronomy Moses describes the entire experience of Sinai, of what the Hebrews have experiences up there, once they were back down in the valley. Moses says: “Then the LORD spoke to you from the midst of the fire. You heard the sound of the words, but saw no form; there was only a voice.” (Deuteronomy 4:12) God is a voice. He is a word that creates, that saves, that liberates. So, the first place where we find a slit: the word. It is not for nothing that the Bible is at the center of our faith. It is a word. And this word pierces and shows you the horizon that is God.

Jesus, for example, is his word, his lips, his parables; his 32 parables, or 72 if one also includes the extended metaphors, are an expression of the power of this word. I don’t know whether you have in your minds that episode recounted in the seventh chapter of John. One day the priests of the temple decide to shut up this voice that is so annoying – Christ, so they send their police, i.e., the temple guard, and tell them to go and arrest him. These simple people go and return. But they come back with empty hands. And the priests ask: why haven’t you brought him? And their response is, in my opinion, illuminating for this first way: “Never before has anyone spoken like this one.” (cf. John 7:32-46) And the hands drop. Words can’t be imprisoned.

This is why it is important for the word, the word of God, to be at the center of our liturgy, of our lives. And it is important for art, for poetry for example, to continue to exist, to open this slit onto the infinite.

The second element, and I will do this one more quickly, because in a certain sense I have already called it out. The second place, the second slit is the cosmos, nature. Nature that is seen as a decipherable element, not as an accumulation either of cells or of matter. There is a phrase in the book of Wisdom (13:5), that is important. It says: “For from the greatness and the beauty of created things their original author, by analogy, is seen.” Analogos in Greek means a ladder – rung by rung. So, you see: this experience is to be had in nature. This is why art so often starts from nature. Not to represent her as such but to manage and create landscapes of the soul. All the great scenes of nature that are in the backdrops made by great artists are an evocation of something that speaks of harmony and that therefore speaks of beauty and of God.

Let’s think along this line about Psalm 19. Do you remember it? The song of the sun: “The heavens declare the glory of God; the firmament proclaims the works of his hands.” (Psalms 19:2) When the Hebrews even now, today, in the synagogue celebrate what we call the feast of Pentecost, they call it Shavuot, the Feast of Weeks, seven weeks after Easter, they sing a hymn that basically says this: Between heaven and earth, God has unfurled a great parchment that is nature and on it He wrote a message. We must tear a quill from a shrub to write on this parchment our response of praise: the alleluia.

So, you see this idea that in nature, in the beauty of nature, that art transfigures, there is the secret of God. A word of God that has been called the cosmic revelation, open to all. The revelation of the Bible is open to believers, that of the cosmos – the great book of the universe, as Galileo said.

The third way is a way that is particularly significant and that, in the context of art, has a particular meaning, but that we’ll base on a phrase of the Bible that is usually interpreted in a completely different way, which is not the correct reading of the text. It is an extremely famous expression. But, first, let’s start with saying what this way is. It is that way that in this moment allows you to communicate also beyond words. It is the way of faces. Faces. We know that communication happens through faces. They aren’t planes, surfaces. They are signals. Think, e.g., of two people in love. When they have exhausted all words, and if they are truly in love, what do they do? They look into each other’s eyes. This, looking each other in the eyes, is not merely about seeing the pupils of the other. It is, instead, a language. As Pascal said: “In faith, as in love, silences are far more eloquent than words.” A communion of faces.

In the Bible there is this phrase, in Genesis 1:27, that says: “God created mankind in his image; in the image of God he created them.” Here we have that fundamental law of Eastern languages, that is the Biblical one, of parallelism. Things get repeated so that they may leave more of a mark in one’s attention, or also to explain them. “God created mankind in his image; in the image of God he created them.” And then it continues and explains what the image is, what is it that corresponds to the image. “[I]n the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.” So, the image, the statue that looks most like God, what is it? The Patristic tradition, the tradition influenced by the Greeks, responded that it is our soul. But the Bible doesn’t say that. What’s more, the Bible speaks about the soul in an altogether different way. The Bible considers the human being in its fullness.

So, what would it be instead? Is it that God is both male and female? Evidently not. The Bible has continuously fought against a sexist concept of the divine, as the nations who surrounded it had and that the Bible condemned. Peoples who, for example, believed that when there was a storm it was the orgasm of a male and a female god and the rain was the seed, the fertile seed of the god who thereby fertilized nature. And the cracked earth was like a womb that received the seed of the god. The Bible rejected this type of concept and continues to consider it an idolatry. So, what would this image of God be like? And here the slit can be seen in the faces of man and woman, the male and the female, through which we see God. And the answer is obvious because as Genesis unfolds, the history of salvation is built on generations. What this means is that that which represents God most for us are man and woman in their capacity to give live. If you will, their capacity to love. So, this is why the human figure of the male and female saint becomes so fundamental, because at the heart of this reality, which is that of the human person in their generative capacity, in their capacity to give live, is the reflection of the Creator Himself. Creation continues precisely because man and woman continue to generate and generation in man and woman is born of a wellspring of love. So, this is the third way, a slit open onto the divine.

Number four. And here we arrive at another face, a fundamental face, that is at the center of all of our churches. A face that also dominates artistic tradition, but above all it also dominates faith. It is the face of Christ. Colossians 1:15. What does Paul say? “[Christ] is the image of the invisible God.” God has His image in Christ and it is a carnal image. And it is because of this that when the temptation comes, which is the temptation of iconoclasm that I referred to before, that negates the possibility of art, artists and theologians like St. John Damascene continue to repeat: if we negate images, we also negate the incarnation. We negate that God has made himself visible in a face. And it is because of this that the face of Christ is a face that is repeated infinitely many times. And it is because of this that St. John Damascene encouraged the following experience: […] “If a pagan comes to you and ask you: “How is your faith? What is your faith?,” don’t answer them. Take them by the hand, lead them into a church and show them the paintings, the images.” You see, God is in the image of Christ that reflects the divine, that reflects the mystery, the transcendent.

In some cases though, and I wouldn’s say always, since we are starting to revive the sisterhood between art and faith, but in some contemporary, modern churches it is better not to bring pagans, atheists since they would completely lose their faith. […]

The fifth and last way that I would like to recall is the way of the liturgy. The liturgy is the place where […] music succeeds in passing through hearts. Therefore it is necessary ceaselessly to return to the beauty of temples, of art, where the liturgy is celebrated, to a proclamation of the word in a beautiful way, to song, to celebration that is a drama that has its own dignity and nobility. […] It is said that contemporary music is [inadequate] … That is not true, because in contemporary music, the music of our days, that has its own musical grammars, there is its own beauty. Think about what happened when in the 16th century, imagine being inside St. Peter’s, where before only Gregorian chant was heard. Gregorian chant is most pure in spaces like that because, thanks to the echoes that are there, it becomes a song that is enshrined and held in that space and it is a monodic song that rises up high and allows for the possibility of being welcomed by a sonorous womb. But, what happens in the 16th century? Palestrina introduces polyphony into the liturgy. Polyphony disrupts the unicity of Gregorian chant, it multiplies the voices, makes them cross each other, one above the other, it constructs new harmonies through a sequence of crossings. This must have been scandalous at the time! But then think about the masterpieces of faith that have been created thanks to it. Slits, also in this case, onto the beauty of the divine. Let’s just think of the absolute pinnacle of music, who is Bach. Or think of Palestrina’s Sicut cervus, with its absolute purity that, however, consists in a richness of voices and that celebrates a need of the divine, which is like an instinctive, physical need. Like the doe [cerva] that charges ahead towards the river bed, where it expects to find water but that is dry. And now it launches into a cry of lament, a lament of thirst … in Hebrew there is a thing that can’t be translated into our languages, because in Hebrew there is a single word – nefesh – that at the same time means throat and soul. So, when we translate: “My soul thirsts for the living God” (cf. Psalms 42:3), in Hebrew there is a joke – the throat, which indicates a need for God that is physical. So, all of this has been exalted through new music and it is because of this that I am struggling for contemporary art with its new expressions [to have its place]. Not always and only retracing the past, which, however, is the great, supreme heritage that we mustn’t forget or humiliate, we mustn’t discard it […] but we also have to be open so that the liturgy may once again become the highroad on which art and faith meet each other and walk together.

There was a very important thing in the statutes of the artists of Siena in the 14th century. In the statutes of these artists, one of the first paragraphs was this: “We, artists, have as our task to show to people who don’t know how to read the Bible the great marvels worked by God throughout history.” The artist, you see, was in the cathedrals, the great churches of the past, for a good reason. There was a Bible of stone, pages of stone, the bas-reliefs, or, instead there were pages of frescoes, or paintings, that spoke about God. The liturgy always needs to have in its interior, as Jean Guitton, the French Catholic philosopher, said – making a play on words in Latin – it needs to have at the same time mumen and lumen. Lumen, because it must be light, must be representation, must show reality straightaway in all its beauty. But, it is not just any old representation like you would have in some arbitrary building. It also must be mumen, that is mystery, which is beyond the slit.

I have presented two moments to you about this single symbol. I have concluded. We have presented, on the one hand, art and faith as wound. We need a thrill. We need to be a bit shaken. To return again to this intensity. It is always impressive to see, e.g., in great squares, and it is sad because it is often the young generations, people moving as if they were flocks. They move like that – without purpose. And they may even be next to marvelous monuments that used to speak in extraordinary ways […]. This flow, almost a drift … This is the great need of our times. To do things again so that this thrill may return.

I often quote […] a phrase from the diary of a Danish, Christian, Protestant philosopher, a strong believer, of the 19th century – Søren Kierkegaard. He spoke in the 19th century, but think how true this reality is in our days too … He said – he used this image […]: “The ship is in the hands of the cook’s mate and what the captain’s megaphone transmits is no longer the route of the ship but what we shall be eating tomorrow.”⁴ How many are, e.g., in front of a television, or a computer. They learn about everything. They know, they can look for everything. But what they are lacking, and let’s return to Miller, is the route, meaning.

Once, in Florence, I was walking along with a friend of mine, whom many of you know – one of the greatest poets of the last century: Mario Luzi […], and he – it was an afternoon or maybe evening – […] said to me: “Look,” the lights in the windows were coming on in the houses and in the flats you could literally see in almost all of them the bluish rectangle of the television. And he said a phrase to me – he spoke slowly – a phrase that has always impressed me. He said: “We don’t know whether these people, who are there in front of the television, have their hands up as a sign of surrender or adoration.” Effectively this is true. In the end it tells you everything about what you’ll eat tomorrow, about all that is happening – the banal and the vulgar. It tells you all about fashions, but about the route? Here is the open wound.

On the other hand we have also wanted to evoke the need for transcendence. Art and faith that take you towards the beyond, the divine, in these different forms, these five ways that we have called out: the word, the world, the human face, the face of Christ, and finally the celebration.

And now I’ll finish and conclude with two witnesses that I would like to seal together […]. I’d like to finish with a lay voice, the voice of a writer, since we need both the voice of faith and the voice of art. He is a famous writer whose books still sell even after a long time since his death. It is the German, Herman Hesse, who is much liked also by the youth. The author of Siddhartha, of Narcissus and Goldmund. He once wrote a historical novel that has two artistic protagonists already in its title: Klein und Wagner. So, on the one hand figurative art and on the other music. And at the end he says, he explains what art is. And, look, he wasn’t a particularly strong believer. He did have his own spirituality in his own way, imbued with oriental elements. And this is the definition he writes: “Art means: seeing God in everything.”⁵ The slit. Seeing God in everything.

But, I would like to conclude with the voice of believers, a choral voice, and I’ll leave the words as they sound. There are two subjects who speak, in a choral way representing also all of us.

On 8th December 1965, the Council concludes and messages are sent, where one is also addressed to artists. Let’s hear the words of the council fathers: “This world in which we live needs beauty in order not to sink into despair. It is beauty, like truth, which brings joy to the heart of man and is that precious fruit which resists the year and tear of time, which unites generations and makes them share things in admiration. And all of this is through your hands.” The Council has thanked artists, the true, great artists.

On the other hand there is the voice from which I have started, the voice of Benedict XVI […] who addressed artists in the Sistine Chapel and his talk finished as follows. And I too will finish with these words that speak to artists, that speak about beauty and that are spoken by a pastor, a believer, by him who continuously feels the need for art and faith to be together. So, here are his words, spoken on 21 November 2009: “You are the custodians of beauty: thanks to your talent, you have the opportunity to speak to the heart of humanity, to touch individual and collective sensibilities, to call forth dreams and hopes, to broaden the horizons of knowledge and of human engagement. Be grateful, then, for the gifts you have received and be fully conscious of your great responsibility to communicate beauty, to communicate in and through beauty! Through your art, you yourselves are to be heralds and witnesses of hope for humanity! And do not be afraid to approach the first and last source of beauty, to enter into dialogue with believers, with those who, like yourselves, consider that they are pilgrims in this world and in history towards infinite Beauty! Faith takes nothing away from your genius or your art: on the contrary, it exalts them and nourishes them, it encourages them to cross the threshold and to contemplate with fascination and emotion the ultimate and definitive goal, the sun that does not set, the sun that illumines this present moment and makes it beautiful.”

Thank you.

¹ Note that this is a verbatim translation of the Italian rendering of the end of Psalm 47:8, the term “art” does not appear in most English ones. The New American Bible simply says “sing praise”, while the King James Bible, which – in this case – comes closest to the Italian that Ravasi uses, renders that phrase as “sing ye praises with understanding.”
² This probably refers to the following passage from Pound’s The Serious Artist:“You don’t argue about an April wind, you feel bucked up when you meet it. You feel bucked up when you come on a swift moving thought in Plato or on a fine line in a statue.”
³ “Feritoia” in Italian can refer to a narrow slit or opening, e.g., in a wall that can can let light in, or an arrow loop through which archers can shoot out of a fortress’ walls.
⁴ It looks like this refers to the following entry in Kierkegaard’s diary from 24th January 1847: “Suppose there is only one megaphone on a ship and the cook’s mate has appropriated it, an act that all regarded as appropriate. Everything the cook’s mate to has to communicate (“Some butter on the spinach” or “Fine weather today” or “God knows if there’s something wrong below in the ship” etc.) is communicated through the megaphone, but the captain has to give his commands solely by means of his voice, for what the captain has to say is not so important. Yes, the captain finally has to ask the cook’s mate to help him so that he can be heard, if the cook’s mate would be no good as to “report” the order, which, it must be admitted, sometimes gets completely garbled in going through the cook’s mate and his megaphone, in which case the captain strains his little voice in vain, for the cook and his megaphone are heard. Finally the cook’s mate gets control, because he has the megaphone.”
⁵ Incidentally Benedict XVI quotes that same definition in his address to artists two years earlier.

A heart as great as the heart of God

Today is the feast of Mary’s assumption into heaven, a belief held by Christians since at least the second century and proclaimed as a dogma of the Catholic Church in 1950 by Pope Pius XII:

“we pronounce, declare, and define it to be a divinely revealed dogma: that the Immaculate Mother of God, the ever Virgin Mary, having completed the course of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul into heavenly glory.”

To get a better sense of what this teaching of the Church means and, even more importantly, what its implications are, I would like to share some passages from homilies given by the last three popes on this important marian feast that have given me most joy.

To begin with, St. John Paul II situates the feast of the Assumption not only as a guide for Catholics or Christians, but for all “people of good will” and links it to two themes so central to Pope Francis’ teaching: the poor and mercy:

“Taken up into heaven, Mary shows us the way to God, the way to heaven, the way to life. She shows it to her children baptized in Christ and to all people of good will. She opens this way especially to the little ones and to the poor, those who are dear to divine mercy. The Queen of the world reveals to individuals and to nations the power of the love of God whose plan upsets that of the proud, pulls down the mighty from their thrones and exalts the humble, fills the hungry with good things and sends the rich empty away (cf. Lk 1:51-53).” (St. John Paul II, 15 August 1999)

Pope Benedict XVI then elaborates on what is meant by the destination of Mary’s assumption – Heaven – and how this teaching of the Church is central to two important aspects of its world view: that all of what is on earth is destined for salvation and that there is a profound continuity between the here and now and the eternal:

“All of us today are well aware that by the term “Heaven” we are not referring to somewhere in the universe, to a star or such like; no. We mean something far greater and far more difficult to define with our limited human conceptions. With this term “Heaven” we wish to say that God, the God who made himself close to us, does not abandon us in or after death but keeps a place for us and gives us eternity. We mean that in God there is room for us. To understand this reality a little better let us look at our own lives. We all experience that when people die they continue to exist, in a certain way, in the memory and heart of those who knew and loved them. We might say that a part of the person lives on in them but it resembles a “shadow” because this survival in the heart of their loved ones is destined to end. God, on the contrary, never passes away and we all exist by virtue of his love. We exist because he loves us, because he conceived of us and called us to life. We exist in God’s thoughts and in God’s love. We exist in the whole of our reality, not only in our “shadow”. Our serenity, our hope and our peace are based precisely on this: in God, in his thoughts and in his love, it is not merely a “shadow” of ourselves that survives but rather we are preserved and ushered into eternity with the whole of our being in him, in his creator love. It is his Love that triumphs over death and gives us eternity and it is this love that we call “Heaven”: God is so great that he also makes room for us. And Jesus the man, who at the same time is God, is the guarantee for us that the being-man and the being-God can exist and live, the one within the other, for eternity.

This means that not only a part of each one of us will continue to exist, as it were pulled to safety, while other parts fall into ruin; on the contrary it means that God knows and loves the whole of the human being, what we are. And God welcomes into his eternity what is developing and becoming now, in our life made up of suffering and love, of hope, joy and sorrow. The whole of man, the whole of his life, is taken by God and, purified in him, receives eternity. Dear Friends! I think this is a truth that should fill us with deep joy. Christianity does not proclaim merely some salvation of the soul in a vague afterlife in which all that is precious and dear to us in this world would be eliminated, but promises eternal life, “the life of the world to come”. Nothing that is precious and dear to us will fall into ruin; rather, it will find fullness in God. Every hair of our head is counted, Jesus said one day (cf. Mt 10: 30). The definitive world will also be the fulfilment of this earth, as St Paul says: “Creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and obtain the glorious liberty of the children of God” (Rom 8: 21). Then we understand that Christianity imparts a strong hope in a bright future and paves the way to the realization of this future. We are called, precisely as Christians, to build this new world, to work so that, one day, it may become the “world of God”, a world that will surpass all that we ourselves have been able to build. In Mary taken up into Heaven, who fully shares in the Resurrection of the Son, we contemplate the fulfilment of the human creature in accordance with “God’s world”. (Benedict XVI, 15 August 2010)

Benedict also traces the belief in Mary’s Assumption to her closeness with her Son and, like Francis does in Evangelii Gaudium (§269) with regard to the life and passion of Jesus, explains its deep continuity:

“[T]he Mother of God is so deeply integrated into Christ’s Mystery that at the end of her earthly life she already participates with her whole self in her Son’s Resurrection. She lives what we await at the end of time when the “last enemy” death will have been destroyed (cf. 1 Cor 15: 26); she already lives what we proclaim in the Creed: “We look for the Resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come”. (Benedict XVI, 15 August 2010)

Two years later, during the last year of his pontificate, Benedict XVI focuses on what the specific implications of the Assumption are for our life as Christians, and he points to two complementary statements: in God there is room for man, and in man there is room for God:

“But now let us ask ourselves: how does the Assumption of Mary help our journey? The first answer is: in the Assumption we see that in God there is room for man, God himself is the house with many rooms of which Jesus speaks (cf. Jn 14:2); God is man’s home, in God there is God’s space. And Mary, by uniting herself, united to God, does not distance herself from us. She does not go to an unknown galaxy, but whoever approaches God comes closer, for God is close to us all; and Mary, united to God, shares in the presence of God, is so close to us, to each one of us.

There is a beautiful passage from St Gregory the Great on St Benedict that we can apply to Mary too. St Gregory the Great says that the heart of St Benedict expanded so much that all creation could enter it. This is even truer of Mary: Mary, totally united to God, has a heart so big that all creation can enter this heart, and the ex-votos in every part of the earth show it. Mary is close, she can hear us, she can help us, she is close to everyone of us. In God there is room for man and God is close, and Mary, united to God, is very close; she has a heart as great as the heart of God.

But there is also another aspect: in God not only is there room for man; in man there is room for God. This too we see in Mary, the Holy Ark who bears the presence of God. In us there is space for God and this presence of God in us, so important for bringing light to the world with all its sadness, with its problems. This presence is realized in the faith: in the faith we open the doors of our existence so that God may enter us, so that God can be the power that gives life and a path to our existence. In us there is room, let us open ourselves like Mary opened herself, saying: “Let your will be done, I am the servant of the Lord”. By opening ourselves to God, we lose nothing. On the contrary, our life becomes rich and great.” (Benedict XVI, 15 August 2012)

Finally, Pope Francis, in his first Assumption homily as pope, outlined the strong parallels between Jesus’ and Mary’s lives, as a result of Mary’s unity with her Son, making her not only our Mother, but also our “eldest sister”:

“The Apostle Paul, writing to the Corinthians, insists that being Christian means believing that Christ is truly risen from the dead. Our whole faith is based upon this fundamental truth which is not an idea but an event. Even the mystery of Mary’s Assumption body and soul is fully inscribed in the resurrection of Christ. The Mother’s humanity is “attracted” by the Son in his own passage from death to life. Once and for all, Jesus entered into eternal life with all the humanity he had drawn from Mary; and she, the Mother, who followed him faithfully throughout her life, followed him with her heart, and entered with him into eternal life which we also call heaven, paradise, the Father’s house.

Mary also experienced the martyrdom of the Cross: the martyrdom of her heart, the martyrdom of her soul. She lived her Son’s Passion to the depths of her soul. She was fully united to him in his death, and so she was given the gift of resurrection. Christ is the first fruits from the dead and Mary is the first of the redeemed, the first of “those who are in Christ”. She is our Mother, but we can also say that she is our representative, our sister, our eldest sister, she is the first of the redeemed, who has arrived in heaven.” (Francis, 15 August 2013)

Thinking about the words of these three popes, what stood out for me is the profound logic of Mary’s assumption into heaven – body and soul – and her closeness to all of humanity, and this – in turn – reminded me of a beautiful passage from the intellectual visions that the Servant of God Chiara Lubich had in 1949. There, she one day saw the following image:¹

“Looking at nature, it seems that Jesus has given his new commandment also to it.

I observed two plants and I thought about pollination. Before it happens, the plants grow upward, as if they loved God with their whole being. Then they unite, almost as if they loved one another as the Persons of the Trinity love one another. Out of two they make one single thing. They love to the point of abandonment, to the point of losing – so to speak – their personality like Jesus in His forsakenness.

Then, from the flower that emerges, the fruit is born and, therefore, life continues. It is like the eternal Life of God imprinted in nature.

The Old and New Testaments form a single tree. Its flowering came about in the fullness of time. And the only flower was Mary.

The fruit that followed it was Jesus.

Also the tree of humanity was created in God’s image.

In the fullness of time, at the point of blooming, unity came about between heaven and earth and the Holy Spirit married Mary.”

¹ Apologies for the limitations of the following translation from Italian, which is mine.

The broken bread, shared and eaten

On 26th June this year, the Spanish priest and writer Pablo d’Ors (appointed consultor to the Pontifical Council for Culture by Pope Francis) published an essay entitled “Will anyone in the Church dare?” in the magazine Vida Nueva, because of which he has since been accused of heresy and condemned by no less than three Spanish bishops.

Let’s first take a look at the essay in question (rendered in my own, crude translation):

The sacraments of the Church now mean virtually nothing to the vast majority of those who still participate in them. A sign that no longer signifies isn’t a sign anymore, but a game of magic. Christian rites, and the symbols in which their foundations lie, have degenerated, for the majority of believers, into pure magic. Of course men and women today still need magic, that is, words and gestures that in an automatic and irrational way connect us with the transcendent. But that’s not the point.

I argue that many of the behaviors of priests and lay people during the Eucharistic celebration are fundamentally magical, not religious. Can you imagine the apostles kneeling before the bread or Jesus collecting crumbs from a plate? These behaviors reflect our attitude towards the sacramental sign being much more magical than religious.

For them to convey meaning, signs have to be understood. The doctrine of ex opere operato, which postulates that the sacrament is effective irrespective of the understanding of the recipient, has disconnected the sign from the subject and has degenerated and objectified it. The sacraments need to be understood, at least to some extent. Otherwise, they sacramentalize nothing, which is what is happening today in our temples. Nobody understands anything. What our masses remind me of most is Beckett’s theater of the absurd.

Let’s take the example of the Eucharist, whose symbols are bread and wine. Bread is, of course, something everyday, soft and nutritious. That bread is a symbol of God means that God is something everyday, that God is soft, that God is nutritious. But if the symbol is the bread, the sign or sacrament is the broken bread, shared and eaten. So that what it is about is to break and share the bread consciously; to lift it to one’s mouth consciously; to, consciously, chew it and swallow it.

Consciously means knowing that it is not just about giving bread to others, but about be being bread for them, to turn yourself into the food that relieves their need. Eating of this Bread gives us the strength to be bread. In the same vein, the sign is not simply the wine, but the wine shared and drunk. Drinking from this Wine enables us to be wine for others. And wine is blood, that is, life: to be life for others.

And storing the Eucharist in a tabernacle, what’s that about? Have we not said that the true sign is sharing it? A proof of our mentality being magical is that we think that God is more in the tabernacle than outside it. But that … is absurd! It is not as if he were more there than elsewhere. It is that he is there to … show us that he is everywhere, so that we may remember it. God is everywhere, we say, but then we endeavor to put him into a box. Enclose him in a few theories we call theology and symbols that we call sacraments, but that do not sacramentalize anything.

There is only one solution: to explain everything as if it had never been explained before, because maybe that’s the situation; and it is, of course, to be all done as if for the first time, perhaps because it is the truth. We will see then, in wonder, the power of our symbols, we will save our rites, we will discover, at last, their transformative power for the human soul.

But will anyone in the Church dare? Will anyone present these symbols and rites not only as those in which the most genuine Christian identity is encoded, but as symbols and rites of universal value, suitable for everyone, Christian or not? Will someone, finally, present Christianity as a religion that includes humanism, not one that excludes it or is exclusive?

Respect for difference from other spiritual traditions must not make us lose sight of Christianity as a universal humanizing proposition. I detect in my contemporaries not only a hunger for spirituality, but a desire to recover, in an understandable and contemporary way, the religious tradition we come from. Care for silence, a sensibility that is growing, will bring with itself a care for the word and the gesture. But, will there be anyone in the Church who dares? Where will be the prophets who’ll make us understand that the only possible fidelity to the past comes from creativity and renewal in the present?

And now, for completeness’ sake, let’s look at the criticism leveled at it by José Rico Pavés, one of the three Spanish bishops who have condemned this essay as heretical (again in my own translation and only focusing on the passages that specifically address d’Ors’ text):

[I have] read the article by Pablo d’Ors entitled ‘Will there be anyone in the Church who dares?’ with sadness and concern. Sadness, because of finding, in so little space, such a vast number of doctrinal errors whose consequences are dramatic for Christian life. Concern, noting that the article’s author is a writer and priest, and since not long ago, a consultant to the Pontifical Council for Culture.

Without offering any proof beyond his own perception, the author affirms in a way that exudes absolute certainty that “The sacraments of the Church now mean virtually nothing to the vast majority of those who still participate in them”; he argues that “many of the behaviors of priests and lay people during the Eucharistic celebration are fundamentally magical, not religious”; and, as an argument, ask the reader whether they can imagine “the apostles kneeling before the bread or Jesus collecting crumbs from a plate” (sic); he blames the doctrine of ex opere operato for disconnecting the subject and the sign, objectifying and degenerating it; he explains the Eucharist departing from the bread as “a symbol of God”, whose meaning is “to break and share the bread consciously”, from which he deduces that the Eucharistic reservation in the tabernacle becomes meaningless, and he considers it a proof of our magical mentality to think that God is more present in the tabernacle than outside it.

The author proposes to “explain everything as if it had never been explained before,” and to present the sacraments as “symbols and rites of universal value, suitable for everyone, Christian or not” showing “Christianity as a religion that includes humanism, not one that excludes it or is exclusive”. But, he asks finally, will someone in the Church dare to implement this solution?

To find in so few lines so much nonsense results in a great weight. Does the author know what the Catholic Church means by sacrament? Does he ignore the difference versus magical rites? Does he know that the sacred character of the sacraments does not lie primarily in the meaning that we give them, but in being born of the salvific will of Christ to communicate his Life to us? Why doesn’t he mention even once the word faith and the verb to believe? Does he think that the sacraments can be understood without faith? Does he maybe not know the teaching of the Church on the permanent presence of Christ in the Eucharist, on the eucharistic reservation and worship due to this Sacrament of Love outside of the Holy Mass?

How is it possible that almost 50 years after the encyclical Mysterium Fidei (03/09/1965), the same weak proposals concerning the Eucharist and the sacraments, which were already rejected by Pope Paul VI, continue to spread today? In these times, it may be that the only thing that we need to dare is this: believing with the Church, believing in the bosom of the Church.

So, here we have two texts: an essay on the popular lack of understanding of the sacraments and a call for their revival, and a refutation of that essay. But, you could ask, why should I care about a Spanish argument between a priest and a bishop? Well, I can certainly tell you why I care: because this is one of the few examples I have seen so far of a theologian accepting Pope Francis’ invitation from paragraph 49 of Evangelii Gaudium:

“I prefer a Church which is bruised, hurting and dirty because it has been out on the streets, rather than a Church which is unhealthy from being confined and from clinging to its own security. I do not want a Church concerned with being at the centre and which then ends by being caught up in a web of obsessions and procedures. If something should rightly disturb us and trouble our consciences, it is the fact that so many of our brothers and sisters are living without the strength, light and consolation born of friendship with Jesus Christ, without a community of faith to support them, without meaning and a goal in life. More than by fear of going astray, my hope is that we will be moved by the fear of remaining shut up within structures which give us a false sense of security, within rules which make us harsh judges, within habits which make us feel safe, while at our door people are starving and Jesus does not tire of saying to us: “Give them something to eat” (Mk 6:37).”

When I read d’Ors’ essay, what I see is someone who is concerned for the good of the Church, who sees his “brothers and sisters […] living without the strength, light and consolation born of friendship with Jesus Christ” and who identifies an anachronistic and life-detached exposition of the sacraments as a barrier and as a source of degeneration. He perceives a perversion of the sacraments to the point of being confused with magic – not in the good way of Arthur C. Clarke’s: “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic”, but by deforming a gift from God that builds on faith but that does not suppress reason into a mere irrational, “God-spray” gimmick. A danger that has a reminder built into the very vocabulary of magic, where the term “hocus-pocus” itself is likely a corruption of Jesus’ words at the last supper: “Hoc est corpus meum.”

d’Ors then offers readings of the Eucharist that are simple, broadly understandable and that powerfully underline its being gift, communion and source of life. He finally makes a call for a new language, a new explanation, explicit (very much like last year’s Synod on the Family), points to the latent hunger for transcendence in the world (a need also recognized by atheists) that the Church is called to sate, and closes with an exhortation to continuity through renewal (wholly in-line with Benedict XVI’s ““hermeneutic of reform”, of renewal in the continuity of the one subject-Church”).

Yes, d’Ors is critical of the doctrine of “ex opere operato,” but he does not deny it, only attributing negative consequences to it (or – arguably – its misuse). He also speaks about God’s presence in the tabernacle pointing to His presence outside it, which is in fact in line with how the Catechism speaks about it: “God, who reveals his name as “I AM,” reveals himself as the God who is always there, present to his people in order to save them.” (§207) and – incidentally, quoting from Paul VI’s Mysterium Fidei:

“The mode of Christ’s presence under the Eucharistic species is unique. It raises the Eucharist above all the sacraments as “the perfection of the spiritual life and the end to which all the sacraments tend.” (St. Thomas Aquinas, STh III, 73, 3c.) In the most blessed sacrament of the Eucharist “the body and blood, together with the soul and divinity, of our Lord Jesus Christ and, therefore, the whole Christ is truly, really, and substantially contained.” (Council of Trent (1551)) “This presence is called ‘real’—by which is not intended to exclude the other types of presence as if they could not be ‘real’ too, but because it is presence in the fullest sense: that is to say, it is a substantial presence by which Christ, God and man, makes himself wholly and entirely present.” (Paul VI, Mysterium Fidei 39)” (§1374)

d’Ors’ sentiment about the tabernacle pointing to God’s presence all around us is also very much along the lines of St. John Chrysostom’s homily on the Gospel of Matthew where he too warns against false formalism and where he calls for a harmony between Eucharistic adoration and – to borrow Pope Francis’ words – a care for His flesh in the poor:

“God does not want golden vessels but golden hearts. […] Of what use is it to weigh down Christ’s table with golden cups, when he himself is dying of hunger? First, fill him when he is hungry; then use the means you have left to adorn his table. Will you have a golden cup made but not give a cup of water? What is the use of providing the table with cloths woven of gold thread, and not providing Christ himself with the clothes he needs? What profit is there in that? Tell me: If you were to see him lacking the necessary food but were to leave him in that state and merely surround his table with gold would he be grateful to you or rather would he not be angry? What if you were to see him clad in worn-out rags and stiff from the cold, and were to forget about clothing him and instead were to set up golden columns for him, saying that you were doing it in his honour? Would he not think he was being mocked and greatly insulted?”

I do not wish to dissect Bishop Pavés’ words or speculate about the motives of his choice of what to focus on or why he transferred the lack of understanding that d’Ors describes and laments among the faithful to a supposed lack of d’Ors’ understanding of Church teaching. Instead I would like to close with appreciating d’Ors’ clear desire to see the sacraments understood and brought closer to the lives of the faithful today and to extend their gifts to all, whether they be in the Church or beyond it.

Judaism and Christianity: A common heritage

Chagall jacobs dream

A very good friend of mine (CA) lent me a great book about Judaism, entitled “What is a Jew?” and aimed at providing an introduction to a broad variety of aspects of what it means to be Jewish. The book is structured in the form of questions and answers and its tone exudes warmth and a desire to share rather than to impose or indoctrinate. Even before I started reading the book, I was looking forward to learning more about Judaism, both because of a desire to have a better understanding of the religion of several friends of mine, and because of the heightened insistence on a rediscovery of Judaism made by the Catholic Church since Vatican II.

John Paul II was famously the first pope to visit a synagogue, during which visit he spoke with clarity and warmth about the relationship between Christianity and Judaism:

“The Jewish religion is not ‘extrinsic’ to us, but in a certain way is ‘intrinsic’ to our own religion. […] With Judaism, therefore, we have a relationship which we do not have with any other religion. You are our dearly beloved brothers, and, in a certain way, it could be said that you are our elder brothers.”

Benedict XVI went on to maintain very strong relationships with Judaism, both acknowledging the Church’s past wrongs and expressing its gratitude and debt to the Jewish people:

“Abraham, father of the people of Israel, father of faith, has become the source of blessing, for in him ‘all the families of the earth shall call themselves blessed.’ The task of the Chosen People is therefore to make a gift of their God – the one true God – to every other people. In reality, as Christians we are the inheritors of their faith in the one God. Our gratitude therefore must be extended to our Jewish brothers and sisters who, despite the hardships of their own history, have held on to faith in this God right up to the present and who witness to it…”

Finally, Pope Francis has not only continued along the direction indicated by his predecessors, but has also benefitted from close personal friendships with the Jewish community. An example of this is the book – “On Heaven and Earth” that he co-authored with Rabbi Abraham Skorka, who also accompanied him on his recent visit to Israel and who has been a frequent visitor at the Vatican. Pope Francis has also reiterated, in his apostolic exhortation Evangelii Gaudium, the brotherly relationship that his predecessors have stressed:

“We hold the Jewish people in special regard because their covenant with God has never been revoked, for “the gifts and the call of God are irrevocable” (Rom 11:29). The Church, which shares with Jews an important part of the sacred Scriptures, looks upon the people of the covenant and their faith as one of the sacred roots of her own Christian identity (cf. Rom 11:16-18). As Christians, we cannot consider Judaism as a foreign religion; nor do we include the Jews among those called to turn from idols and to serve the true God (cf. 1 Thes 1:9). With them, we believe in the one God who acts in history, and with them we accept his revealed word. Dialogue and friendship with the children of Israel are part of the life of Jesus’ disciples. […] While it is true that certain Christian beliefs are unacceptable to Judaism, and that the Church cannot refrain from proclaiming Jesus as Lord and Messiah, there exists as well a rich complementarity which allows us to read the texts of the Hebrew Scriptures together and to help one another to mine the riches of God’s word. We can also share many ethical convictions and a common concern for justice and the development of peoples.” (§247-9)

Against this background I was particularly pleased to see the relationship between Christianity and Judaism described by Rabbi Morris Kertzer in “What is a Jew?” as follows:

“[The] German dramatist, Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, caught the essence of this common heritage [of Judaism and Christianity] in a play called Nathan, the Wise. One of the most memorable scenes depicts a meeting between a friar and the Jew Nathan. Moved by the beauty of Nathan’s character, the friar exclaims, “Nathan! Nathan! You are a Christian!” His friend replies, “We are of one mind, for that which makes me, in your eyes, a Christian, makes you, in my eyes, a Jew!”” (pp. 279)

I have to say that this paragraph from the last pages of the book very much rang true for me and expressed with accuracy the feeling I had as I made my way through the whole book. To give you a sense of what triggered such a recognition of what I believe to be very much mine in Rabbi Kertzer’s description of Judaism, I will share a number of excerpts from it next.

To begin with, the mystical tradition in Judaism, and its propensity to expressing itself by means of short stories reminded me immediately of the stories told about the Desert Fathers (and also about Zen kōans and the stories of the Sufi Mullah Nasrudin):

““Rabbi,” one of the disciples complained, “some of the congregants are gossiping in the midst of prayer!” “How wonderful are your people, O God,” The rabbi retorted. “Even in the midst of gossip, they devote a few moments to prayer!”

“Can you tell me, Rabbi, why the wicked are always looking for companions while the righteous are not?” “The answer is simple: The wicked walk in darkness, so are anxious for company. Good people walk in the light of God; they don’t mind walking alone.”” (pp. 21-22)

Next, I was struck by a repeated insistence on orthopraxy, which has a strong tradition in Christianity too:

“Jews are urged to put their religion into action. “Talking is not the main thing; action is,” goes a talmudic maxim, and action includes not just activity within the confines of the Jewish world, but working for the welfare of the larger society in which we live. We call this tikkun olam, meaning the “reparation of world.”” (pp. 30)

And Rabbi Kertzer goes on to recounting the same story about the building of the Tower of Babel that Pope Francis reflects on in his above-mentioned book, and then to presenting a synthesis of principles that resonate very strongly with Christianity too:

“The Rabbis used telling parables to illustrate this point. Why did the Tower of Babel crumble? Because the leaders of the project were more interested in the work than in the workers. When a brick fell to earth, they would pause to bewail its loss; when a worker fell they would urge the others to keep on building. The brick was more important than the human being. So God destroyed the imposing edifice. […]

Basic to Judaism are these fundamental principles, which are also basic to democracy: 1) God recognizes no distinction among us on the basis of creed, color, gender, or class; all of us are equal in God’s sight. 2) We are all our brother’s and sister’s keepers; we bear responsibility for our neighbors’ failings as well as for their needs. 3) All of us, being made in God’s image, have infinite capacity for doing good; therefore the job of society is to evoke the best that is in each of us. 4) Freedom is to be prized above all things; the very first words of the Ten Commandments depict God as the Great Liberator: “I am the Eternal your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt.”” (pp. 31)

A couple of questions later, Kertzer then sets out an understanding of Scripture that could have come from the Vatican II dogmatic constitution Dei Verbum:

“[M]ost Jews look upon the accounts of miracles as inspiring literature, rather than as actual historical events. That is to say, we do not necessarily accept older interpretations of their significance, since an important lesson for the fifth century may be unimportant in the face of today’s spiritual questions; but we do use these tales as sources of inspiration ourselves, trying to draw religious lessons from the text, even the text of an event that may not be literally true. God did not create the world in precisely six days, just as the biblical text insists, but we can learn lessons for our lives from such stories as the Garden of Eden or the Tower of Babel.” (pp. 45)

On the subject of death and the Kaddish prayer, the book presents a profoundly beautiful reflection by Rabbi Steinberg:

“It is easier for me to let go of life with all its treasures, because these things are not and never have been mine. They belong to the Universe and the God who stands behind it. True, I have been privileged to enjoy them for an hour but they were always a loan to be recalled.

And I let go of them the more easily because I know that as parts of the divine economy they will not be lost. The sunset, the bird’s song, the baby’s smile, the thunder of music, the surge of great poetry, the dreams of the heart, and my own being—all these I can well trust to the God who made them. There is a poignancy and regret about giving them up, but no anxiety. When they slip from my hands they will pass to hands better, stronger, and wiser than mine.

Life is dear; let us then hold it tight while yet we may. But we must hold it loosely also! It is at once infinitely precious and yet a thing lightly to be surrendered. Because of God, we clasp the world, but with relaxed hands; we embrace it, but with open arms.” (pp. 67)

The juxtaposition of an enjoyment of the beauty of the universe and a detachment from it leads to an experiencing of everything in relationship with and gratitude to God:

“Because of its innate trust in both God and God’s world, Judaism affirms the value of life and life’s pleasures. It is therefore a religion that urges us to pay attention to the wonderful universe about us. To help us do so, it provides blessings for all of life’s bounties: seeing a rainbow; experiencing a thunderstorm; observing the first blossoms of springtime; putting on new clothes; even eating our first garden produce, as each crop ripens year after year.” (pp. 85)

That the above relationship with God is not simply an individual matter is shown clearly through the concept of minyan, which also reminded me of Jesus’ promise of his presence where “two or three” are gathered together in his name:

“Personal prayer between the individual and God may take place anywhere, any time, and with no one present but God and the individual worshiper. Public services, however, have traditionally required what is known as a minyan, that is, the presence of at least ten adult worshipers. […] Behind the idea of a minimum number is the notion that Jewish spirituality is in some sense communal. We all received the Torah together on Mount Sinai. We are all part of the people Israel.” (pp. 86)

Kertzer then goes on to presenting a simultaneous openness to diversity and faithfulness to God, that has echoes in the Church’s desire for “unity in diversity”:

“Our experience with diverse cultures has enriched our religion in many ways. Above all, perhaps, has been our hospitality to differences. Every question of Jewish law contains both an austere interpretation and a liberal one, and the Rabbis ruled that “both opinions are the word of the living God.” […] One famous rabbinic aphorism pictures God as saying, in effect, “As long as Jews do My will, they need not believe in Me.” That is an exaggeration, of course. Judaism does teach some beliefs, among them the firm conviction that God is real: a real presence in the lives of men and women, children and adults. We can know that reality as surely as we know the beauty of love, the satisfaction of faithfulness, or the buoyancy of hope.” (pp. 108)

In more specific terms, the three pillars of the Jewish faith are presented next, and unity among them is declared:

“We believe, then, in God: a personal God whose ways may be beyond our comprehension, but whose reality makes the difference between a world that has purpose and one that is meaningless.

We believe all human beings are made in God’s image; our role in the universe is thus uniquely important, and despite the failings that spring from our mortality, we are endowed with infinite potential for goodness and greatness.

We believe too that human beings actualize their potential as part of a community. The people Israel is such a community, harking back to Sinai, existing despite all odds from then until now, and still the source of satisfaction for Jews who wish to pursue a life of purpose grounded in the age-old wisdom we call Torah.

And we believe in Torah, therefore, as a continuing source of revelation.

It has been said that you can sum up Jewish belief in these three words, God, Torah, Israel. As the mystics used to say, “God, Torah, and Israel are all one.” If we lose our faith in any one of them, the others quickly perish. […]

In antiquity, it was common for scholars to distill the essence of religion in a simple formula. Thus, Hillel, the great Rabbi and scholar of the first century B.C.E., was asked to sum up Judaism while the questioner stood on one foot! Hillel replied: “Certainly! What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor. That is all there is in the Torah. All the rest is mere commentary. I suggest you study the commentary.”” (pp. 109)

The transcendence of God, the universal access to following Him and its being rooted in a putting into practice of His qualities brings the exposition of the Jewish faith to completion:

“Jews believe in the existence of a God who cannot be accurately conceived, described, or pictured. But God is a real presence in the universe at large; and the lives of each of us in particular. We believe also that we most genuinely show God honor when we imitate the qualities that are godly: As God is merciful, so we must be compassionate; as God is just, so we must deal justly with out neighbor; as God is slow to anger, so we must be tolerant in our judgment.” (pp. 110)

“It is the recognition of the reality of God, and the basic moral virtues, such as kindliness, justice, and integrity, that we regard as eternal verities. But we claim no monopoly on these verities, for we recognize that every great religious faith has discovered them. That is what Rabbi Meir meant some eighteen centuries ago, when he said that a non-Jew who follows the Torah is as good as our high priest.” (pp. 113)

Finally, Kertzer also speaks very powerfully about the necessity of remembering the horrors of the Shoah:

“[T]he moral reason [to remember the Shoah] may be the most important one. When the mass murderer Adolf Eichmann was on trial, the Israelis informed the world that the motive behind the judicial proceedings was not vengeance but the moral education of contemporary women and men. The striking thing about Eichmann was precisely that he was so ordinary, a living symbol of what historian Hannah Arendt called “the banality of evil.” Contemplating the events of the Nazi era, we came to see that the sin of omission on the part of the decent peoples of the world was the sin of silence, the refusal to believe that a highly enlightened people like the Germans could permit themselves to be led by a madman into acts of national depravity that culminated in the events of Auschwitz and the other death camps. We had to learn to readjust our vision and take evil seriously once again.” (pp. 161)

Not only is it essential to pursue the doing of good, but so is a taking seriously of evil and a standing up to it, since omission and silence too are grave sins – insights that are of acute relevance today and that were at the time of the Shoah also shared by Christians. The Lutheran theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, whose anniversary of being murdered in the Flossenbürg concentration camp in 1945 was yesterday, said:

“Silence in the face of evil is itself evil:
God will not hold us guiltless.
Not to speak is to speak.
Not to act is to act.”

The Parable of the Good Lesbian

A very good friend of mine, MK, wrote the following on Facebook a couple of days ago: “I think that if Jesus was telling the parable of the good Samaritan today, maybe it would be the parable of the good gay.” And, as soon as I saw it, I “liked” it, since it seemed to fit Jesus’ choice of profile for that particular parable character like a glove – i.e., as someone who is frowned upon, mistrusted and seen as repulsive by “good” God-fearing folk, and with whom there is an us-versus-them that needs to be undermined.

A short while later I noticed that MK’s Facebook status had received 43 comments, dominated by outrage, exhortations to read St. Paul (undoubtedly a good idea, and one, which that comment’s author should also self-apply) and a bandying-about of phrases like “the truth of Christ” (as if there were different flavors of truth). There were also reasonable comments, but these formed a small minority among the sea of tirades that followed the outrageous suggestion that homosexuals could be thought of as today’s equivalent of first-century Judea’s Samaritans.

My immediate reaction to seeing this was to look more closely at the Good Samaritan parable and get a sense of how well founded MK’s suggestion for its contemporary adaptation is – not so much for the sake of assessing its reasonableness (which had intuitive appeal to me from the start), but to get a more specific sense of its context and exegesis.

To get an idea of how Jews and Samaritans got on with each other, Blessed John Henry Newman provides the following summary, after giving an account of mutual killings between the two peoples:

“[… T]he strongest expression of hatred the Jews could invent against Christ was ‘Thou art a Samaritan and hast a devil’ (John 8:48). [… I]f a Jew and a Samaritan met in a narrow way, they were particularly careful to avoid touching each fearing to receive pollution from the other.”

Saying “Samaritan” in the first century AD to an audience of Jewish lawyers (as Jesus – and, lets not forget, himself a Jew, did), seems to have been the same kind of trigger as saying “gay” is today to my friend’s “Christian” contacts. 1:0 to MK – the glove does indeed seem to fit.

Let me next take a look at how the last three popes have read this parable and see whether that sheds light on the transposition proposed by my friend.

St. John Paul II spoke at length about the Parable of the Good Samaritan in his apostolic letter on suffering, Salvifici Doloris (§28):

“The parable of the Good Samaritan belongs to the Gospel of suffering. For it indicates what the relationship of each of us must be towards our suffering neighbour. We are not allowed to “pass by on the other side” indifferently; we must “stop” beside him. Everyone who stops beside the suffering of another person, whatever form it may take, is a Good Samaritan. This stopping does not mean curiosity but availability. It is like the opening of a certain interior disposition of the heart, which also has an emotional expression of its own. The name “Good Samaritan” fits every individual who is sensitive to the sufferings of others, who “is moved” by the misfortune of another. If Christ, who knows the interior of man, emphasizes this compassion, this means that it is important for our whole attitude to others’ suffering. Therefore one must cultivate this sensitivity of heart, which bears witness to compassion towards a suffering person. Some times this compassion remains the only or principal expression of our love for and solidarity with the sufferer.

Nevertheless, the Good Samaritan of Christ’s parable does not stop at sympathy and compassion alone. They become for him an incentive to actions aimed at bringing help to the injured man. In a word, then, a Good Samaritan is one who brings help in suffering, whatever its nature may be. Help which is, as far as possible, effective. He puts his whole heart into it, nor does he spare material means. We can say that he gives himself, his very “I”, opening this “I” to the other person. Here we touch upon one of the key-points of all Christian anthropology. Man cannot “fully find himself except through a sincere gift of himself” (Gaudium et Spes, 24). A Good Samaritan is the person capable of exactly such a gift of self.”

What strikes me here immediately are two things: first, the deep-seated universality of St. John Paul II’s words, addressed to “each of us,” “everyone,” “every individual,” where “Good Samaritan” status is predicated only on one’s capacity for “a gift of self.” Second, the imperative nature of his words which insist both on what we must do (being sensitive to, moved by and helping our suffering neighbors; being compassionate and self-giving) and what we are not allowed to do: be indifferent. This exegesis too easily extends to homosexuals, who are undoubtedly in a position of showing compassion to those around them and of selflessly coming to their aid.

Pope Benedict XVI adds further clarity to this universally-predicated imperative to love, in his exceptional piece of thinking: the encyclical Deus Caritas Est:

“14. […] Union with Christ is also union with all those to whom he gives himself. I cannot possess Christ just for myself; I can belong to him only in union with all those who have become, or who will become, his own. […] We become “one body”, completely joined in a single existence. Love of God and love of neighbour are now truly united: God incarnate draws us all to himself. […] the “commandment” of love is only possible because it is more than a requirement. Love can be “commanded” because it has first been given.

15. This principle is the starting-point for understanding the great parables of Jesus. […] The parable of the Good Samaritan (cf. Lk 10:25-37) offers two particularly important clarifications. Until that time, the concept of “neighbour” was understood as referring essentially to one’s countrymen and to foreigners who had settled in the land of Israel; in other words, to the closely-knit community of a single country or people. This limit is now abolished. Anyone who needs me, and whom I can help, is my neighbour. The concept of “neighbour” is now universalized, yet it remains concrete. Despite being extended to all mankind, it is not reduced to a generic, abstract and undemanding expression of love, but calls for my own practical commitment here and now. The Church has the duty to interpret ever anew this relationship between near and far with regard to the actual daily life of her members.”

For me, the most significant aspect of this passage is Benedict’s insistence on love being a commandment and on the justification of its imperative status being the precedent of God’s love. Since the source of this “obligation” to love is inexhaustible, its scope too is universal (as St. John Paul II already made clear). Furthermore, Benedict also calls for a keeping current of what such universality means in the present. This is very much in line with the current process of discernment underway in the Catholic Church, which is on the road to the second Synod on the Family this October. Specifically, the challenges of how to provide opportunities for homosexuals to feel part of the Church are on the table there too, which is easily read as an instance of Benedict’s “interpret[ing] ever anew this relationship between near and far.”

Finally, let’s hear what Pope Francis has to say about this parable:

“The Gospel passage from St Luke (10:25-37) tells of a certain man, half dead, who had been thrown into the street. Now by chance a priest was going down that road. A good priest, in his cassock: good, very good. He saw him and looked: I’ll be late for Mass, and he went on his way. He didn’t hear the voice of God there”. […] It is curious to note that only a man who habitually fled from God, a sinner, the Samaritan, was the very one who perceived the voice of God. He drew near to the man. He bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine; then he set him on his own beast. Oh how much time he lost: he brought him to an inn, and took care of him. He lost the whole evening! In the meantime, the priest arrived in time for the Holy Mass and all the faithful were content.

Why did the priest flee from God? Because his heart was closed. When your heart is closed you cannot hear the voice of God. Instead, it was a Samaritan on a journey who saw the wounded man and had compassion. His heart was opened, he had a human heart. His humanity enabled him to draw near.

The priest had a plan for his life: he wanted to write his own history well, according to God’s ways. But he was the one writing it. However, this other sinner allowed God to write the history of his life. He changed all his plans that evening because the Lord placed before him this poor, wounded man who had been thrown out onto the street.

I ask myself and I also ask you: do we allow God to write the history of our lives or do we want to write it? This speaks to us of docility: are we docile to the Word of God? Yes, I want to be docile, but are you able to listen to his Word, to hear it? Are you able to find the Word of God in the history of each day, or do your ideas so govern you that you do not allow the Lord to surprise you and speak to you?”

What strikes me here is the supremacy of openness over righteousness. Making oneself the ultimate judge (+ jury & executioner), instead of opening oneself up to discerning the will of God and listening to the promptings of the Holy Spirit through one’s conscience, leads to a spoiling even of things that are good in themselves and to an assumption of ultimate power by an imperfect subject. Instead, the admission of sinfulness, that Pope Francis (and before him the saints universally) has made for himself and that each one of us can recognize in our own lives, if we are sincere enough, helps us both to recognize brothers and sisters in all, without exception, and to open ourselves up to God’s surprises.

Teilhard de Chardin’s Universe

No reflection about the nature of the Universe can be complete without including the thought of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin SJ, the French Jesuit philosopher, paleontologist and geologist. As a paleontologist, Teilhard participated in the discovery of Peking Man, while – as a philosopher and naturalist – he elaborated a profound analysis of evolution in his most famous work, The Phenomenon of Man. Not only does Teilhard endorse evolution and reconcile it with his religious beliefs, but he argues for it being a principle that governs not only life, but all of matter: from its earliest moments and forms trough the emergence of life and consciousness and beyond to future, social forms of thought, along an axis of increasing complexity and interconnectedness.

Instead of looking at Teilhard’s scientific and philosophical work, I would here like to think about how he understood the nature of the Universe as a Christian – a Christian who contributed to science at the highest level and whose philosophy (suppressed by the Catholic Church during his lifetime, but having received some endorsement from Pope Benedict XVI) is yet to see the widespread recognition it merits.

Among Teilhard’s writings, the richest and most in-depth source about his understanding of the universe is the beautiful book of reflections, meditations and prayers: Hymn of the Universe, which I recommend in full wholeheartedly. In one of its earliest chapter – “Fire over the Earth” – Teilhard presents his vision of cosmogenesis and its daily persistence in being matter:

“In the beginning was Power, intelligent, loving, energizing. In the beginning was the Word, supremely capable of mastering and molding whatever might come into being in the world of matter. In the beginning there were not coldness and darkness: there was the Fire. This is the truth.

So, far from light emerging gradually out of the womb of our darkness, it is the Light, existing before all else was made, which, patiently, surely, eliminates our darkness. As for us creatures, of ourselves we are but emptiness and obscurity. But you, my God, are the inmost depths, the stability of that eternal milieu, without duration or space, in which our cosmos emerges gradually into being and grows gradually to its final completeness, as it loses those boundaries which to our eyes seem so immense. Everything is being; everywhere there is being and nothing but being, save in the fragmentation of creatures and the clash of their atoms.

Blazing Spirit, Fire, personal, super-substantial, the consummation of a union so immeasurably more lovely and more desirable than that destructive fusion of which all the pantheists dream: be pleased yet once again to come down and breathe a soul into the newly formed, fragile film of matter with which this day the world is to be freshly clothed.”

Teilhard then turns to God with the following words of invitation into, and already recognition of presence in, his own life:

“Radiant Word, blazing Power, you who mold the manifold so as to breathe your life into it; I pray you, lay on us those your hands — powerful, considerate, omnipresent, those hands which do not (like our human hands) touch now here, now there, but which plunge into the depths and the totality, present and past, of things so as to reach us simultaneously through all that is most immense and most inward within us and around us.

May the might of those invincible hands direct and transfigure for the great world you have in mind that earthly travail which I have gathered into my heart and now offer you in its entirety. Remold it, rectify it, recast it down to the depths from whence it springs. You know how your creatures can come into being only, like shoot from stem, as part of an endlessly renewed process of evolution.”

Finally, Teilhard identifies all of what is positive in the universe with Jesus’ body, and – in a stunning move of insight – all of what is suffering and death with His blood: a beautiful recognition of the being-by-non-being dynamic of the Trinity:

“Over every living thing which is to spring up, to grow, to flower, to ripen during this day say again the words: This is my Body. And over every death-force which waits in readiness to corrode, to wither, to cut down, speak again your commanding words which express the supreme mystery of faith: This is my Blood.”

In the next chapter – “Fire in the Earth” – Teilhard revisits God’s presence in the Universe, and speaks about it as a fire permeating it at the macro and micro scales:

“Not with sudden crash of thunderbolt, riving the mountain-tops: does the Master break down doors to enter his own home? Without earthquake, or thunderclap: the flame has lit up the whole world from within. All things individually and collectively are penetrated and flooded by it, from the inmost core of the tiniest atom to the mighty sweep of the most universal laws of being: so naturally has it flooded every element, every energy, every connecting link in the unity of our cosmos; that one might suppose the cosmos to have burst spontaneously into flame.”

And he proceeds to derive from this extreme-encompassing presence of God a tension flowing from His simultaneous intimacy and transcendence:

“All of us, Lord, from the moment we are born feel within us this disturbing mixture of remoteness and nearness; and in our heritage of sorrow and hope, passed down to us through the ages, there is no yearning more desolate than that which makes us weep with vexation and desire as we stand in the midst of the Presence which hovers about us nameless and impalpable and is dwelling in all things. Si forte attrectent eum [“so that people might seek God, even perhaps grope for him and find him” (Acts 17:27)].”

Teilhard then speaks about an interconnectedness among all that is not restricted to the Universe, but that places God at its center and attributes to Him its unity:

“Now, Lord, through the consecration of the world the luminosity and fragrance which suffuse the universe take on for me the lineaments of a body and a face in you. What my mind glimpsed through its hesitant explorations, what my heart craved with so little expectation of fulfillment, you now magnificently unfold for me: the fact that your creatures are not merely so linked together in solidarity that none can exist unless all the rest surround it, but that all are so dependent on a single central reality that a true life, borne in common by them all, gives them ultimately their consistence and their unity.”

The final, extensive passage that I would like to share with you from Teilhard’s writings (still from the same “Fire in the Earth” chapter) contains an explicit comparison between his, Christian view of the Universe and a number of alternatives:

“What I experience as I stand in face of — and in the very depths of — this world which your flesh has assimilated, this world which has become your flesh, my God, is not the absorption of the monist who yearns to be dissolved into the unity of things, nor the emotion felt by the pagan as he lies prostrate before a tangible divinity, nor yet the passive self-abandonment of the quietist tossed hither and thither at the mercy of mystical impulsions.”

However, instead of dissociating himself from monist, pagan and quietist world views, as may seem to be the case at first, Teilhard goes beyond their rejection:

“From each of these modes of thought I take something of their motive force while avoiding their pitfalls: the approach determined for me by your omnipresence is a wonderful synthesis wherein three of the most formidable passions that can unlock the human heart rectify each other as they mingle: like the monist I plunge into the all-inclusive One; but the One is so perfect that as it receives me and I lose myself in it I can find in it the ultimate perfection of my own individuality; like the pagan, I worship a God who can be touched; and I do indeed touch him — this God — over the whole surface and in the depths of that world of matter which confines me: but to take hold of him as I would wish (simply in order not to stop touching him), I must go always on and on through and beyond each undertaking, unable to rest in anything, borne onwards at each moment by creatures and at each moment going beyond them, in a continuing welcoming of them and a continuing detachment from them; like the quietist I allow myself with delight to be cradled in the divine fantasy: but at the same time I know that the divine will, will only be revealed to me at each moment if I exert myself to the utmost? I shall only touch God in the world of matter, when, like Jacob, I have been vanquished by him.”

The above synthesis of disparate positions other than his own shows both a basis for dialogue with those who hold them (having recognized beauty, goodness and truth in each) and a going beyond each. It is not so much a rejection as an evolution of each into a single, richer whole, that Teilhard then makes explicit:

“Thus, because the ultimate objective, the totality to which my nature is attuned has been made manifest to me, the powers of my being begin spontaneously to vibrate in accord with a single note of incredible richness wherein I can distinguish the most discordant tendencies effortlessly resolved: the excitement of action and the delight of passivity: the joy of possessing and the thrill of reaching out beyond what one possesses; the pride in growing and the happiness of being lost in what is greater than oneself. Rich with the sap of the world, I rise up towards the Spirit whose vesture is the magnificence of the material universe but who smiles at me from far beyond all victories; and, lost in the mystery of the flesh of God, I cannot tell which is the more radiant bliss: to have found the Word and so be able to achieve the mastery of matter, or to have mastered matter and so be able to attain and submit to the light of God.”

Teilhard sees presence in the Universe as rich and complex to the point of self-contradiction, where “the most discordant tendencies [are] effortlessly resolved.” It is “a continuing welcoming […] and a continuing detachment” lived in the bosom of “the One [who] is so perfect that as it receives me and I lose myself in it, I can find in it the ultimate perfection of my own individuality.” It is a presence in “the magnificence of the material universe,” a being smiled at by the God who permeates it and a game of discovering matter through God and God through matter. It is a vision that is able to recognize the good, the true and the beautiful, wherever it may be, and one in which the encounter with the Universe and with fellow humans is always also an encounter with God.