Relaxing into the Reality of Being Loved

Gallagher, Faith Maps 151-152:

Prayer is the key expression of faith.
Think of the gamut of emotions found the psalms – from confusion to gratitude, from rage to tenderness, and from painful questioning to being filled with hope again.
Christian prayer means relaxing into the reality of being loved by God, in order to rise, each day, into the gritty realism of loving.

"What things?"

After the Resurrection, the Stranger (walking along) asks the two disciples on the way to Emmaus, “What things?” Jesus Christ, most often as a Stranger, stands at the crossroads of our life to ask, “What things?”

He asked them, “What are you discussing together as you walk along?” They stood still, their faces downcast. One of them, named Cleopas, asked him, “Are you the only one visiting Jerusalem who does not know the things that have happened there in these days?” “What things?” he asked. (Lk 24:17-19, New International Version)

Like those two disciples, I’m asked to repeat the story. “What things?” In my discouragement, in my hopelessness perhaps, I’m asked to repeat the story. The story is ours, the story is mine, the story is his too. “What things?” I could easily blurt out a response, almost in irritation to the Stranger who makes me pause, who makes me even think. “What things?” I repeat the story. I’m in no mood to do so, but still I repeat the story: it’s mine, it’s his, it’s the story. That there was hope, that there was the promise, that the things were better, that there were allegedly even miracles. But I did not see, I did not experience. “What things?” The story is over. The conclusion, a blind alley. But the Stranger is not satisfied. Not just that. He scolds me, he calls me foolish. Am I foolish? Am I slow to understand? I’ve taken great care to narrate my story, to narrate the story. He repeats the story now. The same story, but from the beginning. Greater depth, greater comprehension. It’s not boring, though the same details. It’s not even new. But there’s something about the narration. I recognize this only later: “Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?” (Lk 24:32) Wasn’t my heart burning within me during the narration? Wasn’t the flame within me enkindled as he talked? He repeats the story. His narration makes me understand. His breaking of the bread makes me grasp everything of that moment. The lightning. Come and gone. It is he. I asked him to stay. I asked the Stranger to stay. He did. Surprisingly, he takes the centre place. One who pretended to go away, who seemed to have no interest, now has taken the main place at the table. He presides over the event. The Stranger knows. He knows my need for hope. He distributes the bread in a thanksgiving mode. He says take this and eat, take this and drink. Oh, that’s my bread and my drink I thought. He takes and shares that with me. I was the host, howzat he has become the host and I a guest. It is he. He is no more a Stranger. He reveals himself. He hides himself. The lightning. Come and gone. By revealing himself, he disappears. “What things?” Things of hopelessness turned into hope. The Stranger becomes the hope-giver, he is the one whom I have known from before. He reveals. But again, he hides, he disappears. I recognize. I recognize him, I recognize the things. It is he. No more a Stranger. He reveals, and my heart burns. I realize that my heart has been enkindled already. He has done that on the way. Even before I reached home. Even before I asked him to stay. Even before I prayed him to stay the evening. He has repeated my story, his story, our story and enkindled my heart. My heart is burning. My heart has been burning. I took his scolding, I listened to him. He has explained, has explained everything. All things are in place now. No more hopelessness, only hope. There is hope. There is joy and strength and courage, and even light at that dark moment. I am encouraged to leave myself, my plans, my home in order to go out into the dark. Because this Stranger has given me light and hope and courage and strength. The lightning has ocurred. Come and gone. My heart burns in love, my heart burns out of love. It is he who has made my heart burn in love.

Now that same day two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem. They were talking with each other about everything that had happened. As they talked and discussed these things with each other, Jesus himself came up and walked along with them; but they were kept from recognizing him. He asked them, “What are you discussing together as you walk along?” They stood still, their faces downcast. One of them, named Cleopas, asked him, “Are you the only one visiting Jerusalem who does not know the things that have happened there in these days?” “What things?” he asked. (Lk 24:13-19)

I was going away from Jerusalem, away from life, away from resurrection. I was going away from the centre, away from hope, away from the life, from the resurrection. Now that he has met me, asked me to repeat the story, narrated the story himself, broke the bread... he is here. He is the way, the truth, the life, the resurrection. The Stranger becomes the way and the truth, he becomes everything. I return. I return to Jerusalem, to the centre. I meet him again and again and again. I meet him on the way, in the breaking of the bread, in my return, in my peace, in my troubles, in my hopelessness. I meet him again and again and again. It is he. I recognize him. I repeat the things. He repeats his words again and again and again. He comes to me again and again and again. He comes, he ever comes. He is present. He is ever present. I recognize. Like a lightning, I recognize him again and again and again. I go and I come. I return again. I return again and again and again. It is he. I know now it is he. He the Stranger, the guest who became the host. He is everything.

“What things?” he asked. “About Jesus of Nazareth,” they replied. “He was a prophet, powerful in word and deed before God and all the people. The chief priests and our rulers handed him over to be sentenced to death, and they crucified him; but we had hoped that he was the one who was going to redeem Israel. And what is more, it is the third day since all this took place. In addition, some of our women amazed us. They went to the tomb early this morning but didn’t find his body. They came and told us that they had seen a vision of angels, who said he was alive. Then some of our companions went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said, but they did not see Jesus.” (Lk 24:19-24)

Is it about Jesus of Nazareth? Or is it about the Messiah? ‘He said to them, “How foolish you are, and how slow to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Did not the Messiah have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?”’ (Lk 24:25-26) This is about Jesus, but this is about the Messiah. Jesus the Messiah. Jesus the Christ. It is he. I know it’s he. I recognize again it is he. “It is true! The Lord has risen and has appeared to Simon.” (Lk 24:34) It is he. It is the Lord, who is the life, the hope, the resurrection.

My story is embedded in his. My life and hope is embedded and intrinsically tied with his life, his resurrection. My story is his, his story mine. He has become me, I him. Isn’t this grace? Isn’t this the Eucharist? Isn’t this the Incarnation?

Eros of Our Spirit

Michael Paul Gallagher writes in his book Faith Maps: Ten Religious Explorers from Newman to Joseph Ratzinger (New York/Mahwah: Paulist Press, 2011) 151: "Quite recently close friends of mine remarked that their small daughter had become a 'specialist in the interrogative'! She had discovered 'What' as in 'what is that?' before moving on to her current favourite word, 'Why?' Such simple words open a whole universe. Questioning expresses, as Lonergan liked to say, the eros of our spirit, our innate drive to know. Concerning faith there are hosts of important questions and a long inheritance of spiritually nourishing answers. Above all enjoy and embrace your questions. You have to let them come alive before the answers can make sense."

Compassionate Presence

According to Archbishop Thomas Menamparampil, the strongest tool is a "compassionate presence." (See my blog of 23 August.) He says, "Our presence itself must have a message. You will have to keep cool even if during the discussions a man jumps and shouts: 'for every one of us that they killed, I will shoot ten of them!' Even in such occasions what I must try to do is to understand his inner pain than sit in judgement on his aggressive emotion." Salesian presence, I am convinced, is such kind of a compassionate and encouraging presence. It is a non-judgmental and non-threatening presence. It is easy to be present as a police-man or spy or judge. But it is a difficult thing to be present as one who suffers with the other, as one who endures the pain and also be patient... not be pushy expecting immediate or efficient results.

Dialogue is Between Persons

Dialogue is between persons, not between ideologies or factions or religions. This is another conviction driven home by Stephanie Saldaña's article, "On Teachers as Angels" (see my blog of 24 July). She says, "dialogue can only really exist between people; not between faiths." Even if we talk about a dialogue of cultures or of faiths, ultimately it has to be personal. It has to be one that involves the whole person. This is very beautiful.

I think of Msgr. Thomas Menamparampil's peace mediations and peace missions -- peace dialogues -- in the North-East of India. Michael Gleich,  in the website Peace Counts, reports of his interview with Bishop Thomas entitled "God's Rapid Response Team," http://www.peace-counts.org/gods-rapid-response-team/. In it, Bishop Thomas insists on an awareness of one's own shortcomings and strengths. His conviction is that listening to the others without judging has a healing power. This is wonderful. Listening (h)as healing. It is the basic skill that a peace-worker should have. Listening is the best art (and the most difficult one too). How true! The basic attitude on non-judgmental listening also points towards hope. Saldaña says: "To have hope in the midst of conflict is also to believe that every small action will bear fruit in eternity." To deal with conflict situations, one needs hope and a non-judgmental openness, and of course one has to be aware of one's own weaknesses and one's own fragility.

In this encounter of persons, another necessary condition would be a context of friendship. Without friendship, a true dialogue cannot be achieved. Bishop Thomas says that after having given time for expressing anger and other emotions in a conflict-resolving dialogue, the persons should talk and share about on those that we agree. Start with agreements, not the differences. The differences can be a topic of dialogue, but that has to come only later. Stephanie Saldaña's interesting affirmation that her Christian faith was saved precisely because of Muslims made me think a lot. She says, "It would not be an overstatement to say that I discovered my faith, my Christianity, in the midst of Islam—that I was inspired to see that the Sermon on the Mount, and the radical compassion asked for in the gospels, might actually be possible. For the first time, I saw that I had cut myself off from other people, and I realized that to be Christian is only possible in communion with others, something I had lost in the midst of my busy life in America. I experienced my faith profoundly by being a guest in the homes of others, mostly Muslims but also Christians, who took care of me without even knowing who I was, who recognized me and claimed me as their own." God's plans are indeed marvellous, unfathomable.

The lightning guides everything

I love this statement of Heraclitus, "The lightning guides everything." Here are Jean Grondin's words quoted in Ivo's notes on Hermeneutics: "Gadamer recalls the maxim of Heraclitus, ‘The lightning guides everything,’ which was scratched over the doorway of Heidegger’s hut. Lightning here means ‘the suddenness of lightning-like illumination that makes everything visible with one strike, and yet is immediately swallowed up in darkness again.’ To that extent the truth of understanding means more something like participation than ceaseless, irremediable appropriation." [Grondin, Introduction to Philosophical Hermeneutics 136. The Gadamer reference is from GW 6:232 and 241.]

DBBISFFI

DBBISFFI - A drab name for a lovely venture: Don Bosco Bicentenary International Short Film Festival of India. But really a beautiful idea... Simultaneously held at 55 cities across India. I participated in it to watch some of the already selected films at Don Bosco Bhavan, Nashik, yesterday. Thanks to Jude, Goyal, and Christopher, and the other local and national organizers.

Reynold reports on his blog (slightly edited): "On the evening of 8 August 2015, I together with my community members had an opportunity to attend the film festival DBBISFFI at Don Bosco Parish conducted by BOSCOM - the department of Salesian Social Communications in India/South Asia. I had a good time. I enjoyed all the short films that were shown to us, but the best ones for me were “Love at First Sight” and “Kurtha”.

This film festival was conducted in honour of Don Bosco the father and founder of the Salesian congregation to mark the conclusion of his birth bicentenary 1815 -2015, and only the best videos were shown."

Ivo reports about the Mumbai (Matunga) event: "The DBBISFFI (Don Bosco Bicentenary International Short Film Festival of India) was held at 55 locations in 18 different states in India today. I happened to be in Don Bosco Matunga, and saw a couple of films: a bit of "Not Anymore", on the situation in Syria; "Devil in the Black Stone", a snippet from the life of a dirt poor Muslim family of 3 widows and a boy; "The Journey," which is Thathi Reddy's movie on the vocation journey of a young salesian; "Rage," which is about road rage and the disorder that leads to it; "Final Cut," from Poland; "Amoortha," shot in Kannada; "Fulwanti and Slim-C," an animated movie; "I 4 U," a 2 min. movie encouraging people to donate their eyes and other organs. Excellent choices. The Rector Major will give away the awards when he comes to Delhi later this year."

Respect for Creation

Jurgen Möltmann is a great theologian who took the lead on many theological issues. He wrote one of the first books on the theology of creation that speaks of the spirituality of care for the earth in contemporary terms. His approach is simple. He believes that what we have to do is consider the old life laws as found in the first book of the Bible. One law he would like to see restored is the Sabbath law, not only to guarantee every human being, every animal, and every plant a seventh day of rest, but also to guarantee such a rest to the land every seventh year.

We desperately need that kind of respect for ourselves, for others, for all that is alive and gives life, to begin to offset the ecological disasters we have allowed. A seventh day of rest, a simpler life, another order of priorities.

Another theologian who stressed this point not so long ago is Pope John Paul II in his encyclical Centesimus Annus. He writes that every worker has a right to that rest, not only to obtain the leisure it provides, but also because it gives us the time to reflect on who we are, on how we relate to the world and to God, the source of it all. John Paul wonders whether that human right is sufficiently respected in our industrialized societies.

Maybe it is through our ever-growing respect for animals and plants, the water and the sky, that we might rediscover a greater respect for ourselves, for our own human environment.

Wasn’t it said and written that we should learn from the creation around us?

(From the CD material, Entering the Lectionary.)