“The love of Christ Impels us” (2 Co. 5:14)
Sr. Maria Ko Ha Fong
May 25, 2009
I begin my remarks for your reflection with a story from the desert Fathers:
It once happened – they say – that Abba Lot went to see Abba Joseph and said to him: “Abba, as far as I am able to, I keep a little rule of life, I observe all the fasts, I pray and meditate, I keep my peace, and as much as I can I keep my thoughts pure. What more must I do?” The old monk then stood up, lifted his hands to heaven and his ten fingers became ten torches. And he said: “Why do you not change yourself into fire?”
For us religious, men or women, besides being an opportunity to look at the state of our congregation, sort out the challenges we need to face, and undertake new projects for our future, a General Chapter is an occasion to warm up our hearts, to stir up the flames together, to allow our more useful energies – the ones that flow from love – to expand, to mature our motivation, to reinforce our convictions, to be refreshed by joy and delight, to walk the walk as a sign of our fidelity, to allow ourselves to be surprised by the wealth of God’s love and the myriad ways he has of expressing it. All this is true of our XXII° General Chapter, which has as its energy source Paul’s words: “The love of Christ impels us”.
The consecrated life flows from and is nourished by a love that at tracts, engages, and moves us. It is not a matter of observing prescriptions and keeping rules like the good monk in the story, but a “high standard” of the “tradition of charity” in the words of John Paul II (Novo millennium ineunte, 31, 50) so as to “reflect the splendor of God’s love” (Vita Consecrata, 24).
Bypassing an exegetical analysis, I give you some observations that may deepen Paul’s words in 2 Co. 5:14 for you.
That very pointed remark of Paul’s, The love of Christ impels us is found in the Second Letter to the Corinthians in which Paul had to deal with some very serious problems. Paul dreamed of a united Christian community, living in peace, full of energy and solidly based on the mystery of Christ crucified. Instead, his experience was bitter – evident already in the First Letter to the Corinthians – and he had to deal with a community that had complex problems and serious divisions. Even in respect to himself, there were sharp misunderstandings, various kinds of disbelief, and serious accusations. He was forced to defend himself and his ministry. Several person infiltrated Corinth and sent its Christian community off in a direction different from its genuine one, rooted in the Gospel and preached by Paul. They preached a gospel of Christ for utilitarian gain and for their own advantage (they ‘merchandized’ the word of God; 2:17), appealed to a letter of recommendation to legitimize their activity (3:1), made arrogant exhibitions of ecstatic displays (3:7-11), and appealed to the law of the Old Testament inflexibly interpreted by themselves (3:4-14).
At hazard was not only his person, but the integrity, the purity of the Christian faith. And when faith is at stake, Paul is incensed with the same radical reaction that Jesus showed a number of times in the Gospel. We discover a Paul who expresses himself clearly, frankly, openly, without restraint or brakes. This letter has its own rigorous rhythm.
By his reaction to those who opposed him, Paul gives us much to think about the true sense of church ministry and the identity of a Gospel apostle. The true apostle does not issue commands based on the faith of Christians but rather works with their joy (1:24), he does not preach himself but the Lord Jesus Christ, for whose love he puts himself entirely at the service of the community (4:5). He is the “fragrance of Christ” which diffuses the knowledge of God throughout the entire world (2:14-15). He is humble servant, unworthy message bearer whose persona is transcended by the message; an earthen vessel which contains and transmits a priceless treasure (cf. 4:7). The life of an apostle is not sealed by honor or success but by tribulations courageously supported because by participation in the death of Christ he must give his life to those who accept his word (4:7-12).
It is in this context that Paul observes: “the love of Christ impels us” (5:14).
- Paul’s Thought Movement
We will limit our attention to the context by taking verses 12-17 into consideration to have a sense of the way his thought works and perhaps even the emotions of his heart when he got to this point in his letter.
12 We are not commending ourselves to you again but giving you cause to be proud of us, so that you may be able to answer those who pride themselves on a man’s position and not on his heart. 13 For if we are beside ourselves, it is for God; if we are in our right mind, it is for you. 14 For the love of Christ controls us, because we are convinced that one has died for all; therefore all have died. 15 And he died for all, that those who live might live no longer for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.
16 From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view; even though we once regarded Christ from a human point of view, we regard him thus no longer. 17 Therefore, if any one is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, behold, the new has come. (Revised Standard Version, Catholic Ed.)
The difference between Paul and his opponents who “pride themselves” is that Paul opens the doors of his heart to his community in complete sincerity. He presents his daily work of disinterested and altruistic dedication to the community (v. 13), his concrete existence not for self but for the one who died for us (v. 15). He unveils the secret source from which he draws all energy and inspiration for his entire frenetic missionary activity: the thought of Christ’s love witnessed by the supreme proof of his death on the cross (v. 14); all this is an irresistible force that controls or forces or compels Paul to announce him to all, so that all may thus have a new life, no longer living for themselves but for the Christ who died and rose for all (v. 15, 17).
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At this point I want our attention to be focused only on the phrase: “The love of Christ impels us” by proposing a few simple reflections divided in two parts: the love that impels God, the love that impels us.
I. The Love that Impels God
“Love is a sacred source of energy” Teilhard de Chardin tells us. It is the most powerful of forces. The Catechism of the Catholic Church describes love as the fundamental “engine” of every human activity: “Love is the fundamental passion” (n. 1765). The same is true for God. Love led him to give his Son to the world, to care for the world and all its children with a goodness that is both providential and protective.
In the expression the love of Christ, should the genitive be understood as a “subjective genitive” (the love with which Christ loves us) or as an “objective genitive” (the love one has objectively toward the person of Christ)? It would seem that both senses can be found in Paul. It goes without saying that the first sense is the basis for the second sense. “In this is love, not that we have loved God but that He has loved us” (1 Jo. 4:10). The “passion” of man for Christ is derived of the “passion” of Christ for man. The love for us that Christ showed us by dying and rising for us is perceived by Paul in the depths of his soul as an irresistible force that impels him to return this love.
- Incarnate Love
Every religion talks of love, but we Christians affirm that “God is love” and that love for humanity led God to become man.
“Oh, that thou wouldst rend the heavens and come down! (Is. 63:19 or 64:1); this cry of the prophet Isaiah expresses a profound appeal from humanity. Man has always held the distance between heaven and earth as insurmountable, between his world and the mysterious world in which the divinity lives as unreachable. He has always desired that such separation be diminished, that the divine and human spheres touch each other, not in an explosion but in an embrace.
Man has also attempted to overcome this separation through his own initiative and by his own means. Adam and Eve gave into the temptation to “become like God” (Gen. 3:5), and their descendents sought “to build a tower and city whose heights would reach the heavens” (Gen. 11:3). They wanted to tell God: “Stay in heaven where you are; you need not inconvenience yourself. We are capable of reaching you if ever we have need of you.” And, of course, their self-exalting undertaking failed with terrible consequences. Later history taught us gradually that the “ascent” of man to heaven is not possible unless it is preceded by the “descent” of God to earth. They thus prayed to God to “look down from heaven” upon them (cf. Pss. 14:2, 53:3, 102:20, 113:6) and they saw in every Godly intervention on their behalf a “descent” of God upon his people (cf. Ex. 3:8, 19:11; Num. 11:17; Ps. 144:5). Meanwhile the notion that there were special places in which God preferred to manifest himself matured, holy places chosen by Him to be the point of contact between heaven and earth, a “ladder” that would permit communication with God in the dream Jacob had at Bethel (cf. Gen. 28:12). Or else, by privilege, only certain people could enter into the obscure cloud (like Moses) and stand before the terrible majesty of the Transcendent One.
This reaching out to a tiny entry into communication with the divine is common to all peoples. In China, for example, in remote antiquity, people sought to “search the flight of heaven” by stellar observation, by the living rhythm of nature, by the flow of energy in the human being. Every people developed methods of divination, seeking to penetrate the occult, magic. Even the people of Israel were not an exception (cf. the rejection of these deviant religioius forms by Moses in the name of God (Deut. 18:10-12).
No one can know God unless He reveals himself; no one can see God unless He allows himself to be seen. But here is the wonder: God revealed himself in an unheard of way, marvelously, unexpectedly. The Son of God “who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven” as we profess in the Credo is the one who “is in the bosom of the Father” (Jo. 1:18), who dwells in the heart of the Father, and who reveals how incommensurate and incomprehensible is the love of God for us.
Jesus Christ is the love of God in the flesh, is the supreme expression of God’s love for humanity. John interprets it all this way: “God so loved the world that He gave his only Son” (Jo. 3:16); “In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him” (1 Jo. 4:9); and Paul “He did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all” (Rom. 8:32).
- He Loved with a Human Heart
With the arrival of the Son of God in the world, our world was transformed in the house of God; with his insertion into human affairs, our history became God’s history; with his becoming man, we became sons of God, and with his assuming a human heart, this became the place for the revelation of the love of God. The Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes of Vatican Council II states it incisively: “He worked with human hands, he thought with a human mind, acted by human choice and loved with a human heart. Born of the Virgin Mary, he has truly been made one of us, like us in all things except sin” (n. 22).
The heart of Christ felt joy most purely and sorrow most deeply; his was the experience of commotion, turbulence, marvel, disdain, affliction, exultation, and the whole entire range of sentiments that so deeply score our human identities and our daily lives.
In his dealings and relationships with others, Jesus reveals human greatness; he displays an attitude of serene engagement and openness to everything that is authentically human. It was his wish to grow up in “dailyness” in a simple milieu. His person and his words make his human warmth transparent, filled with sensibleness, wisdom, realism, and love for life. He talks about farmers, fishermen, shepherds, merchants, vinedressers, and home builders with practiced ease. He does not neglect the domestic labors of the woman who works at home: putting yeast in dough and making bread, lighting the lamp and putting it on the stand, preserving the wine, and repairing old clothing. He even knows the pain of the woman in labor and understands her state of mind very well.
He takes delight in festal joy, willingly accepts invitations to banquets, visits friends, shows up for weddings, takes children into his arms, and sympathetically looks upon their play in the village squares. He attentively observes people at prayer in the temple and the humble gesture made by the woman who puts her last two coins into the temple collection does not escape his sharp eyes.
He shares the pain of those who grieve, understands the anguish of parents with children who are ill, grieves for a mother who lost her son and for the death of a friend; he feels compassion for a crowd of people with no clear direction; he knows the feeling of impotence when he realizes that he is unable to prolong his life even by a day and knows the trepidation of one who has to keep thieves from entering the house.
What he felt was not foreign to or outside the complex dynamics of human relations as they take place in any family or in society itself. He had a wide range of relationships: with his own family and neighbors, with the disciples, with the crowds, with friends, admirers, and with those who were his opponents, with civil and religious authorities, with Jews and Greeks, with the rich and the poor, with sophisticated and unsophisticated people both, etc. In his parables, he speaks perceptively of relations between father and son, of brothers in a family, of landowners and tenants, of teachers and disciples, of kings and subjects, of rich and poor, of oppressors and the oppressed; in every case he insists on the love that must be extended toward all, even enemies.
The love of God manifested in Jesus is not abstract, or vague, but very concrete, fully felt, full of human warmth, rich in relations, having the flavor of the day by day. He invites us all: “Come to me…, learn from me; I am meek and humble of heart (Mt. 11:29). But first he came to us, “learned” from us to be like us; by his love he overwhelmed the infinite distance between man and God; only in this way can we go to him, learn from him, and make our hearts like his.
- The Cross: Incomparable Sign of God’s Love.
The actual fact has an incomprehensible scope: God became man, a creator descends to become creature; it is equally unimaginable that this God-become-man would have wanted to share not only the best side of man but also his darkest side, enduring physical, psychological, and spiritual pain in his human existence. We are ultimately thunderstruck when we see that this immortal God, life itself, wished to do something almost contrary in itself: die as a man. Not just any kind of death, either: the most painful death, the most ignominious death of its kind in those days, a cursed death, the death of a sinner. He wanted to reach man incarcerated in his own sin. He wanted to reach the place where he “ought not have been”, in the land of sin, in the place where “God is not”, at the place which, by definition, means “distanced from God”. And all this out of love! A love that lasted “to the very end” as St. John says (Jo. 13:1), a love beyond all limit and measure, a love which “surpasses all understanding” St. Paul says (Eph. 3:19).
And as if this is not enough, there is more. This limitless love impels Jesus to arrive at an almost paradoxical point, a point so extreme that it can hardly be comprehended. On his cross, Jesus even wished to suffer the most absolute solitude: the feeling of being abandoned by the very Father with whom he is united with the most intense love: “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?” This cry is replete with mystery! Yes, here we timidly approach a mysterious love which is almost too immense. There is no pain greater than that of feeling abandoned by the very person one loves most, right during one’s suffering, at the very moment in which one has the greatest need for a loving presence. Jesus wished to suffer this too: a suffering more acute than even death on a cross, in order to reach the very pit of pain, drinking the last drop from the chalice.
If the pains of hell consist basically in the tormenting inaccessibility of God, then one can truly say that Jesus experienced the pains of hell. And if the happiness of paradise consists in enjoying the presence of God, one can then say that Jesus suffered the pains of hell in order to give entry into paradise. If by his incarnation God descended from heaven to earth, then on the cross he descended even further, right into hell! God leaned down so far as to reach the very depths of man’s misery. He thus built a ladder not just between heaven and earth, between God and man, but between heaven and hell, between God and sinner.
God wished to suffer abandonment by God, God filled himself with the absence of God. God entered the land of those “without God” and filled this absence with his presence. It is precisely here that sin is definitively routed. God reached the place where He is not. This is why the cross is the point to which God will draw all things to himself (Jo. 12:32). This is why the cross is the greatest and most overwhelming revelation that God is love.
Jesus crucified shows the extent to which the omnipotence of love can go. But this act of love is not accomplished by Jesus alone, the Son, but by the entire Trinity. The entire Trinity suffers on the cross for love of man. The Son suffers the remoteness of the Father. The Father suffers from the abandonment of his Son without intervening. He who is eternally one with his Son now abstains from making himself present to the Son and allows him to enter the abyss, into that solitude of sinners to the point of dying their very death. And the Spirit, who is that union of love between Father and Son, is a suffering love at that moment of the cross, a lacerated love. Love impels us to go outside the self, to be moved and go elsewhere. Love impelled the Trinity, in a certain sense, to go outside itself, to be “excessive”.
Paul captures in very large measure this paradoxical mystery of love. He affirms that “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin” (2 Cor. 5: 21) and accepts this gift of love fully aware in his heart that it is addressed to him personally as well as to all humanity: “Christ loved me and gave himself up for me” (Gal. 2:2).
Note, though, that this love of God because it is limitless and boundless cannot be contained by the cold, hard, niggardly human heart. Hence, the cross appears to be a “weakness”, a “scandal”, a “folly” (1 Cor. 1:17-25) to the wise, to those who conform to the logic of this world. One needs to have a humble, simple, childlike heart which is sensitive to love, open to the marvelous, able to praise, to give thanks, to be fascinated, engaged, and moved.
A dangerous risk we run is to be too habituated to and familiar with mystery. We don’t always see the Crucified in all the crucified in our neighborhoods. The crucifixion event, once posited in God’s plan for salvation, we tend to consider doctrinally systematized, done and over with. Even Good Friday, set on our liturgical calendar, challenges us to see more than just a memorial of a remarkable event. The crucified, set in the midst of flowers, candles, and incense is no longer as disconcerting as he once was on Golgotha two thousand years ago. And then, in our daily lives, we often call countless banalities our “crosses” and they really don’t deserve this name. I am exaggerating somewhat but Paul warned the churches of Galatia against the danger of emptying the cross of its meaning; the danger of making the death of Jesus “vain” still exists.
- Divine Love Poured into the Human Heart
Love impels God to be continuously present in the life of his sons and daughters, to exercise care for them, to anticipate their needs, to pardon, correct, guide, and walk with them. Jesus invites us to abandon ourselves to the Father’s love who knows what we need and who gives us our daily bread (Mt. 6), who gives our hearts instruction by filling it with his love.
Paul deeply felt this tenderness on God’s part in his own life. In his letter to the Romans, describing the beauty to be found by believers saved by Christ he states: “God’s love has been poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit who has been given to us” (Rom. 5:4).
Love has been poured into the heart, the most intimate place, the most authentic core of man, out of which every spiritual dynamic flows, the place in which he centers his entire existence, the ground of wise reflection, discernment, maturity of conscience, and interior growth.
That same Spirit who cries out in us “Abba, Father” and who prays in us with inexpressible groans (cf. Rom. 8:15, 26) continuously pours the love of God into the human heart, fills it, nourishes it, enlarges it, makes it beat in harmony with God’s heart.
The “pouring” image that Paul uses is especially beautiful; it vividly and poetically expresses an unconditioned, abundant, continuous, unceasing love. The act of “pouring” implies generosity, surplus. Paul uses this image once more in his letter to the Ephesians: “He has poured out on us the riches of his grace in all wisdom and insight” (Eph. 1:8). The image evokes the scene in Ezekiel 47:1: water flows from the temple, fills the river, and flows to bring life wherever it passes.
The relationship between God and man is found at this level of superabundance and surplus. God dialogs with man in the very ample space of beauty and love, not in the very narrow space of laws and duties. He fills his creatures with his fullness (cf. Eph. 3:19), grants them “grace upon grace” (Jo. 1:16) and “life in abundance” (Jo. 10:10). “God is able to do far more than all we ask or think” (Eph. 3:20).
The criterion for giving that God uses is not that of “the least possible” but of the “most possible”, of surpassing superabundance, of fullness. Jesus indicates this not just by his words but by his actions. In his first miracle of turning water into wine, the amount is excessive and the quality exceptional. In feeding the crowd, bread is multiplied in such quantity that there are twelve baskets left over. The water promised the Samaritan woman is such that it will not only quench her thirst but will become an endless spring. In the miracle of the fish after having labored in vain all night long,, a few fish would have been enough for the apostles to recognize the Lord, but there were 153 fish caught, far more than necessary. Jesus desires that his disciples imitate his magnanimous heart: “give, and it will be given to you; good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap” (Lk. 6: 38).
Paul is fascinated by God’s generosity and he prays that “we may be able with all the saints to comprehend the breadth, length, and depth” (Eph. 3:18) of the love with which we are loved.
Thoughts for Reflection
“From the Heart of Jesus, open on the cross, human beings are reborn in heart” (Cst. SCJ 3).
Let us examine our heart: is it arid, hard, cold, closed, inert, tired, sorrowful, empty, insensitive, unaffected, indifferent, thankless when it comes to love? Is it a “heart of stone”? Is it a heart that is “slow” (as was those of the disciples at Emmaus)? Do we allow it to be penetrated by the love of God? Do we allow it to be stirred up, surprised by the abundant love of God? Do we allow it to be engaged, upended, “pierced” (cf. Act. 3:37)? Do we have a “heart of flesh”, a simple, humble, fresh, and richly human heart?
From the bible we clearly learn this fact: what makes God lament the most is the hardness of heart of his people. The prophets express the pain, the “impotence” of God before the insensitivity of man with words and images that truly touch us: (e.g., the ungrateful vineyard in Is. 5:1-7 “What more was there to do for my vineyard that I have not done for it?”; the rebellious son in Os. 11:1-6 “The more I called them, the more they went from me…they did not know I healed them”; the process against Israel in Mic. 6:1-8 “My people, what have I done to you? How have I wearied you? Answer me”). In the Gospels, too, with stern words Jesus frequently censures those who oppose him, the crowd, and even his own disciples for their indifference and insensitivity to love (e.g., to the crowd: “But to what shall I compare this generation? It is like children sitting in the market places and calling to their playmates, ‘We piped to you, and you did not dance;
we wailed, and you did not mourn.’” (Mt. 11:16-19); to those who opposed him: “…but I know you and I know that you do not have the love of God in you” (Jo. 5:42); and to his own disciples: “Do you not yet perceive or understand? Are your hearts hardened? Having eyes do you not see, and having ears do you not hear?...” (Mk. 8:14-21) .
As a Chinese proverb puts it: “The more a heart is empty, the more it weighs!” Is our heart heavy and drained because it is empty of love for God? Is it filled with other things? In our post-modern society, man lives a “liquid life” (expression of Z. Bauman), with no consistency, simply accumulating passing and disordered impressions, but always less capable of deep experiences. The signs of God’s love as they are described in the Gospel parable of the sower of the seed often are overwhelmed by superficiality or suffocation.
II. The Love of God that Impels Us
Let us return to highlight some parts of the Pauline phrase “the love of Christ impels us”. Christ’s love, a love that goes before us, is immense and marvelous, arouses in us a response of love for him and for what he loves. Love for Christ generates in us a love for every human being. Love has an internal dynamism (a reciprocal love among the persons who love each other) and an external movement (and toward others). A. Saint-Exupery put it this way: “Love does not mean looking into each other’s eyes, but together looking in the same direction”.
The love that impels God continues to impel us; the love with which God’s heart is filled is poured into other hearts. The dynamism is on-going.
A reflection on the word “impel” which Paul uses is helpful. The Greek word synéchei (συνέχει) is not easy to translate because it has quite a few shades of meaning; it can be rendered as “pressed from every side”, “compressed”, “bound together”, “constrained”, “contained”, “sustained”, “solicited”, “goaded”. Jerome in the Vulgate translates it with the Latin urget. The new CEI version translates it as:” L’amore di Dio ci possiede” (and it is interesting to compare the various versions in other languages: the love of Christ urges us, impels us, compels us; l’amour du Christ nous presse, nous domine; die Liebe Christi drägt uns, hält uns zusammen).
The love of Christ unites all the inner energies of a person toward a single focus. This is that interior flame or that “deception/seduction” of which Jeremiah speaks: “O Lord, thou hast deceived me, and I was deceived; thou art stronger than I, and thou hast prevailed…. there is in my heart as it were a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I am weary with holding it in, and I cannot (Jer. 20:7-9).
Paul has experienced that identical “seduction/deception” and feels its “possession by being immersed in a dynamic spiral of love which changes his entire personality: “it is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me” (Gal. 2:20), who impels him to go outside himself and run to “conquer Christ” and let himself be conquered by Christ (Phil. 3:12), to share the very love he has experienced with others, boldly and creatively, in suffering and adversity. We all understand that this is what he means when he say: “Woe to me if I do not preach the Gospel” (1 Co. 9:16).
I will now attempt to express some ideas for reflection on how the love of Christ can impel us at the personal, community, and missionary levels using these three poles indicated in the Instrumentum Laboris.
1. Harmonize the Heart with the Heart of Christ – The Work of Spirituality.
Around the turn of the millennium, the entire church was asked to return to the center of Christianity: to fix our eyes on Christ. Various continental synods, all focused on Christ, and then the Synod on the Eucharist and the Word, the teaching of John Paul II and Benedict XVI, various documents from the Roman Curia (e.g., Begin with Christ from the Congregation for Consecrated Life) are all aimed at this one center. It is the Spirit itself who led the Church in this direction.
The love of Christ impels us (makes us united) to possess an interior unity within ourselves, to be free of the disorder, confusion, and dispersion within our spiritual lives so common to our era. Article 17 of your Constitutions describes the centrality of Christ very well:
As disciples of Father Dehon,
“Remain in me, as I remain in you.
unless it remains on the vine,
the person of Christ and the mystery of His Heart, and to proclaim His love
“That Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the holy ones what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God”. (Ephesians 3:17-19).
The Johannine category of “remaining” in this article expresses the meaning of the centrality of Christ very well and what it means to be impelled by his love. In the first account of a call in the Gospel of John, the word remain/abide appears three times. The two disciples of John Baptist, fascinated by Jesus, follow him asking: “Master, where do you stay/abide”? And after Jesus invites them to come and see, these disciples “they came and saw where he was staying/remaining and they stayed/remained with him that day”. The disciples wanted to know about Jesus’ dwelling-place while Jesus becomes their dwelling-place. To follow Jesus means, therefore, to remain with him.
Drawn by the Father in the following of Jesus, the disciple enters into that communion of life and love that exists between Father and Son and allows himself to be loved gratefully and simply. Jesus himself guarantees it: “As the Father has loved me so I have loved you. Remain in my love” (Jo. 15:9). Love molds and shapes a person and makes him/her ever more disposed to the other. By remaining in God’s love, the disciple acquires a new way of seeing things, a new source of wanting. The disciple wants what God wants. It is in this sense that Jesus says: “If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love as I have keep the Father’s commandments and abide in his love […]. You are my friends if you do what I command you” (Jo. 15:10-12). These are not commandments coming from without, but a harmonious adaptation to the world of God, acquiring “a kind of supernatural intuition” as it is stated in Vita Consecrata (n. 94).
Remaining/abiding close to Jesus, in Jesus, becomes an inexhaustible fountain of internal resources for the life and mission of a disciple. Remaining in Jesus constantly like branches in a vine permits an ever closer and deeper union by him and the life of the disciple becomes especially fruitful. “Whoever remains in me and I in him will bear much fruit” (Jo. 15:4-5).
How can anyone “remain in Jesus” who has not known him during his life on earth? To “remain in him” means to remain in his words, those spoken by him during his historical existence, passed on by witnesses, and then fixed in the scriptures. He makes himself present in the Word beyond the limits of time and space: “If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free” (Jo. 8:31-32). “If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you will, and it shall be done for you” (Jo. 15:7). “Reading the bible is entry into the heart of God through his Word” according to Gregory the Great; frequent attention and continual abiding in the word of Christ gradually brings us into harmony with the heart of Christ.
Such harmony with the heart is intensified through the Eucharist, the Sacrament of Love in which one finds communion of life, the flow of love.
2. The Prophecy of Unity in Diversity – the Orbit of the Community
In a globalized world where we strain ourselves to avoid division and conflict among races, cultures, religious, etc. and in which we discover ourselves unable to make the richness of multiculturalism and universal brotherhood stand out, the task of religious community life to give a witness is especially important. I will cite some church documents as reference:
- Religious community is a visible manifestation of the communion which is the foundation of the Church and, at the same time, a prophecy of that unity toward which she tends as her final goal. (Fraternal Life in Community n. 10)
- The fraternal life is itself prophetic in a society which, sometimes without realizing it, has a profound yearning for a brotherhood which knows no borders. (Vita Consecrata n. 85).
- The Church entrusts to communities of consecrated life the particular task of spreading the spirituality of communion, first of all in their internal life and then in the ecclesial community, and even beyond its boundaries, by opening or continuing a dialogue in charity, especially where today's world is torn apart by ethnic hatred or senseless violence. Placed as they are within the world's different societies-societies frequently marked by conflicting passions and interests, seeking unity but uncertain about the ways to attain it-communities of consecrated life, where persons of different ages, languages and cultures meet as brothers and sisters, are signs that dialogue is always possible and that communion can bring differences into harmony.
- Holiness and mission come through the community because in and through it Christ makes himself present. Brother and sister become Sacraments of Christ and of the encounter with God, the concrete possibility, and even more, the unsurpassable necessity in carrying out the commandment to love one another and bring about Trinitarian communion. In recent years communities and various types of fraternities of consecrated persons are seen as places of communion where relationships seem to be less formal and where acceptance and mutual understanding are facilitated. The divine and human value of being together freely in friendship and sharing even moments of relaxation and recreation together as disciples gathered around Christ the Teacher is being rediscovered. (Starting Afresh From Christ: A Renewed Commitment To Consecrated Life In The Third Millennium n. 29)
The love of Christ impels us to create unity in diversity to be witness and prophet to the world. We keep our model in mind: the community of the early church. I try to imagine the job of creating a website for that early community and scattering some pictures of it throughout several books of the New Testament.
A group photo: the community chosen and established by Jesus
The twelve apostles all came from a variety of different places. We know Philip came from Bethsaida (Jo. 1:44), Peter and Andrew had a house at Capernaum (Mk. 1:29), Simon was from Canaan (Mk. 3:18), and Bartholomew, traditionally identified as Nathanael, was from Cana in Galilee (Jo. 21:2).
They had different professions. Some were fishermen while Matthew was a tax collector. Some had been disciples of John Baptist and were, therefore, somewhat given over to a more intense and demanding spiritual life; whereas others, like the fishermen on the Lake of Tiberias (Mk. 1:16-20) or Matthew at the tax office (Mt. 9:7-9), were fully involved in the common life of people and daily work; they were unexpectedly called by Jesus with no preparation of any kind, remote or proximate.
Before becoming disciples of Jesus many of them did not know each other while others were bonded by blood or friendship. Andrew and Peter, James and John, were two sets of brothers; the fishermen belonged to the same work company; Philip was probably a friend of Nathanael.
The twelve apostles also reflect diversity of social order and ideological tendencies. Alongside simple fishermen from Galilee were to be found: Matthew a publican, Nathanael a “true Israelite” and Simon a zealot.
If we could enter into the photo to learn their characters and personalities, the difference among them are even greater. (Benedict XVI has given us a gallery of their images in a catechetical series in his general audiences on Wednesdays.)
Among those in the group, Simon Peter draws a lot of attention: he is an impulsive man, impetuous, given to action more readily than to reflection, readier to promise than to keep promises. He is the kind of person who easily tends toward extremes, who fails quickly but who also gets up immediately upon recognizing his failure. He is impatient and wants everything clearly and immediately explained. He can hardly bear to stop and wait in mystery. He follows Jesus with all the ardor he is capable of, and with all his love, and it is to this person that Jesus confides the task of guiding his nascent church.
John, too, has an ardent love for Jesus but he expresses it very differently. Gifted with a great capacity for reflection and intuition together with a extensive sensitivity to the mystery, he is the theologian and the mystic of the group.
Andrew is known as a sociable person, generous, zealous, and disposed to bring others to Jesus. When he learns of something good and beautiful he is in a rush to share it immediately with others. It was he that brought Peter to Jesus. It was he that brought the boy with the two fish and the five loaves to Jesus, thus contributing to the miracle.
Similar in this respect to Andrew is Philip, the mediator between Nathanael and Jesus at their first meeting. He is a simple and sincere man; it is an effort for him to go beyond the visible, to enter into the deeper meaning. We know this from the question posed by Jesus: “Have I been with you so long, and yet you do not know me, Philip?”
Nathanael had the privilege of getting a nice compliment from Jesus at their first meeting: “Behold a true Israelite in whom there is no guile” Jesus helped this man move from an ironic skepticism “Can anything good come from Nazareth?” to a confession of faith: “Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!”.
The group also contains the silent James, always present at momentous occasions but always discrete: we also have a James, son of Alpheus, a Jude, son of James, a Simon the Zealot about whom we know nothing except the name. Finally we have Judas Iscariot, a man of weak character, who betrays Jesus in the end.
Despite their diversity, these are the men whom Jesus exhorted: “Love one another as I have loved you” (Jo. 13:34). At the end of his life Jesus prayed to his Father for them: “May they become perfectly one” (Jo. 17:23). It was to them that Jesus handed himself over, his words, his deeds, his mission, and in a certain sense, his own future.
Our communities today reproduce this photo. Our differences are even greater and more complex but the center for unity is still the same. Our prophetic message to a world filled with division is this: dialog and union among those who differ is possible, beautiful, real, and doable wherever there is love and wherever God is at the center.
A series of group meeting photos from the early church
Luke gives us a series of photographs of the life of the early church in the Acts of the Apostles and of particular interest are those of group meetings: awaiting the Holy Spirit; discernment of Judas’ substitute and the election of Matthias; meetings for prayer and the breaking of bread; meetings to share missionary experiences; meetings filled with joy and gratitude over marvels accomplished by the Lord; prayer meetings during persecution, etc. I want to show you photos taken of the collegial meetings undertaken for resolving the problems that arose, for facing challenges with audacious creativity.
According to Acts the first conflict that arose in the church at Jerusalem was that where “the Hellenists murmured against the Hebrews because their widows were neglected in the daily distribution” (Acts 6:1). There is discomfort in the community; this discomfort manifests itself as a murmur, discontentment. This phenomenon is inevitable in human communities.
How do the Twelve react? They could have imposed their authority by requiring silence from the discontent or exhorting them to patience in enduring their discontentment, or they could have minimized the problem by putting their head in the sand like ostriches or by murmuring in turn about the malcontent. But instead they intervene and face the problem wisely and realistically.
The tension arose in the treatment of the widows, in the organization of the works of charity, but what they see is beyond the tip of an iceberg, they see a problem with vast consequences and deep roots. In reality, the matter is one of two linguistic groups living together which in turn hid two different ethno-cultural groups, with two different ways of seeing the new Christian reality being formed. In any case, this tension is felt precisely at the moment in which the communion of faith needed to become visibly operative: in the witness of charity.
The problem is examined and the solution is provided in a collegial mode. This is the first pastoral decision made by the church, an innovative one: the institution of a new ministry to oversee the works of charity.
Is this merely a new division of work? Is it merely a way of pacifying the Hellenists by giving them greater scope and participation? Anyone who thinks so reduces and dilutes the theological sense that Luke attributes to this entire matter. The tension between the two groups impelled the disciples to enlarge their horizons, stimulated their creativity to seek pastoral ways more in keeping with the needs of the situation; at the same time it forced them to have a greater understanding of their role within the church. “We will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word” (Acts 6:4). They are not the factotums of the community. There are priorities and there are roles which are theirs exclusively by reason of their ocular witness of the earthly life of Jesus.
Luke mentions other tensions in Acts. They always revolve around the relationship between Christian converts from Judaism and converts from paganism. A discussion arises at Antioch between the two groups: “some men came down from Judea and were teaching the brethren, ‘Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved’”. “Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension and debate with them” (Acts 15:1-2). The controversy was resolved at the great assembly at Jerusalem (Acts 15: 5-29) under the guidance of the Holy Spirit (“it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us,,,” v, 28),; it is here that two elemental principles to safeguard and to reconcile were: the universality of the Gospel and the unity of the Church. Both are essential and must coexist therefore. To be faithful to Christ and to its own nature, the church must always live in universality and in unity, be one yet open to everyone, and therefore open to plurality of experience and Christian expression.
Thus here we have prophetic witness of a community that knows how to face tensions, conduct discussions, discern, and reach decisions together.
Photographs of meetings between different communities
It would be very interesting to see the photos that Luke presents of the meeting and relationships of Paul with the community at Jerusalem. They are not very clear, not very impressive. It rouses our curiosity to learn how this community received this ‘outsider’, this ‘former persecutor’ who entered the church in a very unusual manner, and how Paul managed some very delicate relationships, and how love can overcome all relational problems within any community.
Yet diversity is not found in people alone, but also between groups and different ecclesial communities. While the Jerusalem community dwelt in a Jewish environment, the communities at Antioch and throughout Asia Minor and Europe (those founded by Paul) were ‘mixed’ communities made up of converted Jews and those who were not Jewish. This development led to fearless pastoral solutions like throwing the doors of the church wide open to those who were not Jews, without any kind of intervention.
The new communities away from the mother community, each with its own character, did not see themselves as independent or disconnected, but one in faith and brotherhood. A communication network was formed, visits were made back and forth, and news and help were exchanged. Impelled by the love of Christ, living in solidarity and in harmony, the church grew in true catholicity toward universal communion embracing men and women “of every nation, race, people, and language” (Rev. 7:9).
3. Wisdom, Audacity, and Creativity in Evangelization – the Realm of Mission
Love impels. The love that filled the heart does not stop, does not lose its energy, but it turns about and shares itself by running over every boundary that surrounds it. Benedict XVI says: “love … by its very nature must then be shared with others. Love grows through love” (Deus caritas est n. 18).
Everyone knows how powerful the force of love is. Impelled by love, man succeeds in giving himself without measure, going beyond any personal thresholds, becoming inventive and creative, reaching impossible heights. Love energizes all the resources of a man and increases his physical powers, enlightens his intelligence, widens his heart, makes him intuit more acutely, heightens his senses, increases his poetic-esthetic proclivity, makes him bold and adventurous, wise and considerate, brave and tender.
Paul, “seized” by Christ and totally possess by love for him, has achieved the impossible. His love for Christ has become the motor of his existence. Everything in him is indebted to this love and there is no more space for anything else except it. If Christ died for all, life cannot be lived except for him, i.e., to bring the “all” to meet him. If it is the love of Christe that impels, then it is altogether normal that anything else no longer interests him (cf. Phil. 3:7-9), that every person becomes “most precious” because he/she is “a brother/sister for whom Christ died” (1 Co. 8:11). He who learned at Damascus of Christ’s solidarity with mankind (“Paul, why do you persecute me?”) understands that he can no longer live for himself but for Christ and for the salvation of all mankind. The love he received must be shared. The Saul centered on self has become the Apostle who makes himself “all things to all men” in order to save as many as possible (1 Co. 9:22). There is no longer any desire for perfection at the center of his life but only attraction to Christ. He will draw others to Christ as one who is fascinated, as one who is ardent.
The powerful impulse of love also served as model for Mary’s life. We see her eagerly climbing the hills of Judea. We see her watchful at Cana, ready to find any need and provide remedy. The philosopher, Joseph Piper states: “There are eyes to see where there is love”. Love intuits, sees, foresees, anticipates.
In the history of evangelization (to which religious have made the greatest contribution) men and women, ardent lovers of Christ, have accomplished works far beyond their abilities and have discovered the best ways, often very creatively, to proclaim the Gospel. Our society today is much more complex and the challenges we face are more difficult and the ardor and impulse of love are more indispensible than ever.
The Holy Spirit who pours the love of God into our hearts so abundantly impels us and suggests the best way to spread love. I love to recall the episode found in Acts 8 with which Luke narrates the beginnings of the mission of the church to pagan territory and the conversion of the first pagan. The Spirit moves someone to go, not just beyond geographical boundaries but those of the heart as well. “Go up and join this chariot” (v. 29). This is an invitation, an impulse, to take advantage of the occasion, to profit from a favorable moment, to not lose an opportunity which may never occur again, to take the first step, to come close, to meet another without awaiting for his approach.
The Spirit tells Philip to approach the chariot, but not what he will find in the chariot or what he must do or say. It is simply an invitation to deal with something entirely new, to allow oneself to be confidently surprised that the Lord is present and at work. Apostolic ardor impels the evangelizer to bring Christ to others with every effort but not to attribute success to himself, to his own competence, diligence, to the suitability of his methods or strategies.
The chariot contained a man. The chariot is not the final object to which the Spirit directs Philip, but to the man seated within. The center for all evangelizing activity is the man, not buildings or institutional structures. Here we have an Ethiopian who is already reading Scripture. The Spirit is at work in the evangelizer but also in those destined for evangelization. The Ethiopian invites Philip “to come up and sit with him” (v. 31). Seated alongside, they are together; Philip becomes neighbor, companion. He learns that he has not planted the seed but is rather the harvester of the fruit of the Holy Spirit; he sits alongside as a friend and speaks frankly, cordially, and full of admiration about God. The Word itself creates friendship and hearts in harmony. The transmission of the Gospel is not accomplished through theoretical disquisitions or abstract speculations but, instead, through heartfelt experiences, mutual respect and exchange, in dialog and friendship.
The dialog flows into baptism and at the end Philip disappears and the Ethiopian “went on his way rejoicing” (v. 39). Philip does not become the eunuch’s master, or create a dependent relationship. Having received the impulse, the eunuch goes his way rejoicing; he is no longer the person he was but is interiorly transformed. The love of God fills his heart and joy sustains him on his way. Paul understood this dynamism very well when he told the Corinthians: “Not that we lord it over your faith; we work with you for your joy, for you stand firm in your faith” (2 Co. 1:24). Apostolic ardor or passion impels the Christian to transmit to others the joy he has in his heart, to give it as gratuitously as he first received it. But Philip, too, departs with joy, full of admiration and understanding. Apostolic ardor does not benefit just those whom the mission is aimed at but the apostle, the missionary, above all.
Love impels, God impels, and man impels. This dynamism is irresistible and forever engaging .
