What the World Needs Now

One of the purposes of Benedict's first encyclical Deus Caritas Est is to counteract the view that the desire of eros is contrary to Christian love.

D.C. Schindler's Communio article "The Redemption of Eros" explains how the Pope shows otherwise. Agape and Eros should not be counterposed. Rather, the desire of eros is purified and fulfilled through generosity, desire's desire to give. Benedict even quotes Dionysius the Aeropagite, who provocatively asserted in his book Divine Names that "God is eros." (at p. 398).

Love is not self-less; it is self-filled. Desire for the other is properly part of the most exalted love. It is desire that moves one to the other; "dis-interested" love moves nothing. Seeing the goodness of another awakens desire, moves me toward her, into her presence, with an aim to do her good. Desire becomes purified as it becomes infused with generosity: I love when I desire to give myself freely to and for my beloved.

Schindler names Jean Vanier (founder of L'Arche) as an example of a lover (p 395):

[I]magine a handicapped person receiving an act of charity from someone who has no need of this person, but carries out this act simply out of a sense of Christian duty. Compare his experience of being 'loved' to that of a handicapped person who receives a visit from someone like Jean Vanier, for example, a man who feels that he has more to receive from the person than he has to give. Which of these is the more radiant instance of generosity?

Schindler points out that one of the greatest gifts a lover can give is to be wanted. "As any lover knows, one of the greatest gifts a person can receive from another is the gift of being desired. If I desire you, my love for you is not simply the fulfillment of an abstract duty. . ." but an affirmation in my being that you are good for me! (p. 395).

And so acts of charity should not be disinterested but should entail the desire "to be with," a wanting to be personally involved. An act of charity shouldn't be done from duty but because "I want to help," as Jesus said when asked to heal. Such a person "will be personally involved in the activity, i.e., who will give the gift of his person along with whatever else he may give." (p. 390).

As I venture to Guatemala for a week's "mission work," I ask myself, why not just send the money I would spend on an airplane ticket, and stay home? The last paragraph answers my question. I want to go to be with Padre Javier, and his parishioners, in work that testifies that they are a privilege to be with and to work with.

On my first trip to Guatemala a number of years ago, a woman from the U.S. there helping said, "I thought I came to Guatemala to minister. . . I found when I got here that I was ministered to." This is the same sentiment expressed about Jean Vanier. The heart of charity and love is the desire to be with, and to be of real help, here with our Central American neighbors. Please pray for us on our trip, that we may all experience the joy of Christ's love as we spend time with each other and with the Mayans and Ladinos we see and meet.

BTW, I can't do the article (or the pope's encyclical!) justice in these few words. I commend it to your reading and study, for, in my opinion, it helps us understand better how to love, and to enjoy the blessings love promises. Isn't that the "good news" of Christianity?

Listen to Dionne Warwick, "What the World Needs Now"

Listen to Dionne Warwick, "Alfie" !!

Listen to Dionne Warwick, "Say a Little Prayer"

Listen to Dionne Warwick, "So Amazing to Be Loved"

Listen to Dionne Warwick, "The Look of Love"

Listen to Dionne Warwick, "Theme from the Valley of the Dolls"

Listen to Dionne Warwick and Whitney Houston, "Love Will Find a Way"

Listen to Dionne Warwick, "His House and Me"

The Ecstacy of Love

Philosopher John Haldane writes a provocative article in this month's First Things, entitled "Against Erotic Entitlements." In it he describes a commonly held syllogism:

Major premise: Sexual attraction and love are determinants of human happiness and should be consummated where sincerely felt.
Minor premise: You cannot choose with whom you fall in love.
Conclusion: Whether or not they are chosen, attraction and love should be consummated where sincerely felt.

Haldane points out that the argument is a common rationalization for the sexual license flooding the world today, including by some who argue for recognition of gay marriage. But he also cautions that it is "ridiculous and callous" to "call gays . . . to a standard of chastity that has long since been generally abandoned."

Haldane asserts that the ideology of "choice" enshrined in the quoted syllogism leads to a "marketplace of sentimental and erotic entitlement" which sells marriage, the true foundation of family and society, short. Rather than building on a logic of rights, which leads to more and more outlandish demands for recognition [he mentions movements for recognizing polyamory and even incest], society should be built upon the "common good." This view sees society as fundamentally based on family which is, in nature, built on heterosexual unions.

Marriage recognizes, celebrates, and protects this basic source of human society. It is not a commodity to be bought or an entitlement to be claimed, and its meaning and value were understood long before the idea of rights was ever conceived of, and the escalatory contest over them ever begun.

Haldane concludes, "The best case against same-sex marriage is a positive argument: for marriage as the cultural formation of a natural union, one that needs to be protected from the twin distortions of shallow sentimentalism and animal lust. This is an argument from natural law and so connects to the significant documents of both American and Scottish law."

This "argument against sentiment and lust" is at the core of Benedict XVI's Encyclical Deus Caritas Est, in which, in Christianity, erotic love is "redeemed" by agape love. Benedict writes (at par. 6):

Love is indeed "ecstasy", not in the sense of a moment of intoxication, but rather as a journey, an ongoing exodus out of the closed inward-looking self towards its liberation through self-giving, and thus towards authentic self-discovery and indeed the discovery of God.

Benedict ties this idea to Christ's life: whoever seeks to gain his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life will preserve it. (Luke 17:33). We are called to purify our possessive love to move love's search to "a real discovery of the other, moving beyond the selfish character that prevailed earlier. Love now becomes concern and care for the other. No longer is it self-seeking, a sinking in the intoxication of happiness: instead it seeks the good of the beloved: it becomes renunciation and it is ready, and even willing, for sacrifice."

So, any placing of burdens on same-sex oriented persons must involve placing the same burdens on myself: namely, to turn sentimental, passionate, lustful love to a real love of the other, a love that requires sacrifice of my own selfish desire to possess or "get my way" and focuses on the good of the other. The blessings of such a union are true knowledge and joy of those I love (with God at the pinnacle), a healthy family, and a society strengthened through that love. This is the "common good" that beckons my love, and all of our loves.

Listen to Tina Arena sing "I want to know what love is"

Listen to Jose Mari Chan, "A Love to Last a Lifetime"

Listen to Jose Mari Chan, "Deep Within My Heart"

From Despair to Faith

Abraham is the paragon of faith because he chose to believe in God's possibility over his own impossibility. God asked him to step into an unknown darkness on the basis only of His promise to make of him a great nation, numberless as the stars. To accomplish that through Isaac made sense; to sacrifice Isaac made none. Yet he followed when God said it was permitted to cast Ishmael, his other son, into the desert with his mother Hagar. After all, it was in his interest to do so, to extinguish claims to his inheritance by others than Sarah's firstborn, despite Hagar (and Ishmael) being his own (less faith filled) strategy of helping to accomplish God's promise of progeny. Could he now, in good conscience, and in light of God's continued promise, withhold his son Isaac from God's command?

To his eternal credit Abraham did not hold back, but stepped forward into the darkness of faith, believing in God's promise despite the impossibility of its being fulfilled in any way he humanly could imagine. (This based on Eleonore Stump's chapter on Abraham in Wandering in Darkness.)

As Giussani has observed in the Introduction to At the Threshold of the Christian Claim), Abraham took a step into the dizzyness of faith, the ultimate experience of our humanity. For only in faith can man enter into his greatest capacity: actively to surrender to God.

Listen to "Come to My Rescue" by Hillsong.

Listen to "At the Cross" by Hillsong.

Blame or Beauty?

Today's gospel (4th Sun. Advent) shows Jesus healing a blind man, and incurring the enmity of the Pharisees for doing so. Our homilist offered an interesting comparison to explain the homily: Hercule Poirot and Vincent van Gogh. The former looks for the criminal -- like the disciples who asked Jesus, who is to blame for the blind man's condition -- and parses all things narrowly to get to the answer. Van Gogh looks at each thing to see it as it is, and paints it in its beauty and mundaneness. A chair, a room, a flower, a haystack, a pair of shoes . . . each is seen in its haeccity (as Hopkins and Scotus would term it), its beauty and uniqueness.

This, the homilist said, was how Jesus means to cure blindness. His "good news" is that this vision is possible, through eyes of love.

Listen to Don McClean's tribute to Vincent van Gogh, "Starry, Starry Night"

Listen to "Starry, Starry Night" by Chyi Yu.

Listen to "Through the Eyes of Love" by Regine Velasquez

"I Remember . . ."

In an interesting article about science and religion, Rabbi Johnathan Sacks remarks that both modes of knowing are needed for a complete life, and so need to "work together." He boils his recent book The Great Partnership down to the following quote:

Science takes things apart to see how they work; religion puts things together to see what they mean.

Living with an appreciation of science and religion is living in stereo, he says. Without both we hear in monotone, and also miss the symphony of living. Religion is the "linking" agent that allows us to live life with meaning. Without it, life is without meaning, ultimately, because science does not seek meaning for persons, does not ask why.

The same idea appears in Chapter 8 of Benedict's Jesus of Nazareth, the reading assignment for this week's discussion group. The first part of the chapter is given to a discussion of controversies over the authenticity of John's gospel, many raised by so-called "scientific" approaches to bibilical interpretation. Some consider the Gospel of John to be a "Jesus poem," without historical authenticity. Benedict questions this, pointing out that the author(s) of the gospel pointedly brought out the remembered dimension of the facts they experienced. They could think back to an earlier comment of Jesus, which helped them understand a later event. They linked events in Jesus' life to their knowledge of the Torah and Jewish liturgical feasts.

In other words, they sought the meaning of what might otherwise be "banal facts" in their prior experiences with Jesus and in the collective experience of Jewish history and identity. In that light, the extraordinary story of Jesus' life, death and rising, was made meaningful. The authors of John's gospel captured this meaning, and offered it as an authentic witness to the crucial significance of Jesus' life, death and resurrection, for their community, and, of course, for us.

Benedict's point is that a "scientific" approach can get things oh, so wrong. This happened in the case of "scientific" biblical interpretation. The same can happen in our lives. We need a way to find meaning in the facts of our lives. Some do this with a diary or journal (blogging is another form). These activities of recording and remembering help to link the present to our remembered past and the significance it already has for us. So too with religion. Science can tell us "exterior" facts, and religion, as science's partner, can help us find our lives' "interior" meanings, the meanings that relate us to God, and in his love, to our fellow human beings.

So, blog away, and pray!

Listen to Jose Mari Chan sing "Life is a Constant Change"

Listen to Jose Mari Chan sing "Deep In My Heart"

Beautiful Friend

Yeats' Song of the Wandering Aengus is a paean to lost love. But I think of it as a meditation on love itself, its expectation and possible loss, but more so, its depth and dimensions. Love is at once (and always) one's muse and one's quest. As was the case in Yeats' life, it may be unrequited in the model sought. But its loss may have its most powerful and lasting presence and inspiration in helping us understand better love's depths and heights.

Love must always be appropriate to its object and relations. I cannot love my sister as a lover, nor claim another lover when I have a wife. These "rules" help love blossom in its many flowers and facets, bringing a joy appropriate to each experience of love.

The purest, most beautiful face of love is friendship, whose model is our love in God, and whose trace is in all loves. Philosopher Eleonore Stump says, "If a person takes God as her deepest heart's desire, all her other heart's desires [can be] woven into that deepest desire." Wandering in Darkness, p. 445. All of her loves can be nested in her love of and by God. All her loves become as gifts of God's love, enlightened, enriched, enjoyed, and returned, in God's love.

My prayer is that I may love all the loveable faces I see in the radiance of God's ever living, ever loving, love for me.

Listen to Donovan sing Yeats' poem.

Listen to Jose Mari Chan sing "Beautiful Girl."

Listen to Jose Mari Chan sing "A Love Song"

Listen to Jose Mari Chan sing, "Can We Just Stop and Talk a While?"

Listen to Jose Mari Chan sing "Tell Me Your Name"

I Will Be Careful With Your Heart

My wife Ellen turned . . . [a milestone in age] . . . last week. My kids came in from all corners of the country for a surprise party. My task was to make Ellen disappear from our home for the time it took all to assemble. And I came through! Ellen arrived home and was completely surprised, reacting with tears of joy.

I put together a video of our years together - 40 and counting -- an experience that made me realize how much I loved my wife when we first married . . . and that I can still love her with the feelings I had for her so many years ago. I recognized that true love is always young, and, in the words of Karen Carpenter, always "only just begun."

Love is a wonderful gift; may I not abuse it but return it unharmed and enhanced. The song by Jose Mari Chan, "Be Careful With My Heart" well describes the aspirations I have for our continued life together.

I must be doing something right, because she told me this morning, "I feel like a newly wed!"

Listen to Jose Mari Chan sing, "A Love to Last a Lifetime"

"Certum Est Quia Impossible Est"

It's hard to accept that "reality" could be something "impossible." The impossible is out of our control. Far better to keep things comfortably in our grasp.

But Tertullian said, I believe the Resurrection is certain, because it is impossible.

And Emily Dickinson wrote:

Impossibility, like wine
Exilarates the man
Who tastes it: possibility
Is flavorless.

Quoted in Eward Robinson, The Language of Mystery, p. 117.

God help us, if we only get what we want! Let us yearn for the impossible, and have courage to open our hands and let the dove we clutch fly free. For what is impossible for us is always possible for God. Luke 1:37 (angel Gabriel to Mary: "For nothing will be impossible for God." And as Jesus "kept saying" in the Garden of Gethsemani, "Abba (O Father), you hae the power to do all things. Take this cup away from me. But let it be as you would have it, not as I." Mk. 14:36.

Listen to Isao Tomita, "Clair de Lune"

Listen to Isao Tomita, "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring"

Listen to Isao Tomita, "When You Wish Upon a Star"

Listen to Isao Tomita, "Kosmos"

Listen to Isao Tomita, "Arabesque No.1"

Kneel to Be Real

Alexander Schmemann, in his For the Life of the World, defines secularism as "above all a negation of worship." (cited from David L. Schindler, Ordering Love, at p. 288.)

Schmemann believes that the "real," in truth, includes nature's relation to God, but that we have adopted (in modernity) a perspective that cuts it off from God. Why? Ultimately, to make matter amenable to our manipulation. But without a connection of matter with God, we, who are also matter, lose our own identity as creatures of God. Our own bodies become material fit for technology. We become something bodiless, and ultimately, unreal.

Schmemann invites us to a renewed sense of sacramentality:

We need water and oil, bread and wine in order to be in communion with God and to know Him. Yet conversely . . . it is this communion with God by means of 'matter' that reveals the true meaning of matter, i.e., of the world itself.

It is as sacramental that the world becomes real, has meaning. And, in seeing the sacramental nature of the world, we also become "real," we become who we are: homo adorans, the privileged being for whom a god, our God, is real.

To kneel is thus the proper human posture; it brings us to our reality, our elevated posture, in the nature of things.

Listen to Tantum Ergo Sacramentum.

Listen to Magnificat.

Listen to Charlie Daniels' "Kneel at the Cross"

Listen to John Michael Talbot, "Holy is His Name"

The Joy of Children

We have a new refugee family in our parish: Gregory and his wife Mary, their three children, and Mary pregnant with their fourth. Gregory is about 33 years old. They lived before in Idaho (for one year) and just arrived in Wheaton this week. Gregory told me that he asked his son David (age 5) if he missed Idaho and wanted to go back. (This was 2 days after they arrived.) David replied, "No dad, I have too many friends here."

In fact, when I was at Gregory and Mary's apartment I saw a gaggle of kids, barefoot, washing this way and that in front of the apartment, like the ebb and flow of a tide. The kids could find plenty to occupy themselves with on the concrete sidewalk, and in the small apartment, climbing on furniture and exploring, and generally creating a commotion!

Gregory came here to be with his brother and nephew. He said there were few Burmese families in Twin Falls, Idaho. He is happy here. Judging from his kids, I could see why. I could see a real community forming, and who wouldn't want to be a part of that! I told Gregory how happy we were to have him in our parish community of St. Michael, and in our town of Wheaton!

One always finds commonality with others through children, who are a common denominator for all. To be pro-life is to be pro-children, to see all kids as a great blessing from God, made from love.

Listen to Stevie Wonder, "Isn't She Lovely?"

Listen to Whitney Houston, "Children are our Future."

Listen to Martina McBride sing "In My Daughter's Eyes"

Listen to Celine Dionne, "My Precious One"

Chen

Towards the late OT period the concept of chesed (see post of March 5th) begins to lose its legal and contractual sense and morphs into a tone of “pure favor and grace”. Balthasar points then to a word more consistent with the idea of this later period, chen, which he goes on to describe as “the element of favor, of the bestowal of a favor … the idea of a kindness to which no one may lay claim”.


He goes on, “Do I find chen with you? Means: Will you turn your favor freely in my direction? Ruth finds chen with Boaz, David with Saul and with Johnathan; Joab finds chen with David when his request for the return of Absalom is granted. When Hadad flees, he finds chen with Pharaoh; Esther finds chen with the King.”

This idea, used at first with respect to human relationships also was used in the sense that chen could be the quality through which one obtains favor for himself through charm or lovliness. However, God is able to bestow his favor on whoever he chooses without respect to person. The idea of chen is not a part of the covenantal relationship and cannot be an expectation of man. Again, quoting Balthasar:

“The same is true of rachamim, ‘mercy’ … a reaction that man in hope attributes to God; he cannot actually (in terms of the covenant) presuppose that this exits in God, but he needs it bitterly when he must find God’s forgiveness for himself as a sinner, and the re-establishment of fellowship with him. God himself says that he feels this compassionate mercy for Jerusalem (Zech 1:16). The initial reference of the word (chen) is wholly to human feeling … and may have originally meant the act whereby the father expressed his definite will to acknowledge the newborn child. …it is used of God as the one who has mercy on Israel and especially of the poor, the widow and the orphans in Israel.
In this way, the covenantal relationship between God and the people takes on an inner richness, light and warmth. A sphere of common life and fellowship is opened up: man has the right of access to this because he has affirmed the covenant, but the contents and extent of this sphere cannot be calculated …”

Man affirms the covenant through, “… fear of the Lord, which is the basis of all wisdom … [and] places man only in that distance of reverence which permits true and unlimited intimacy with God.”

How Silly!

In his poem "In Memory of W. B. Yeats" W.H.Auden compliments his fellow poet, saying: "You were silly like us. . ." Mike Casey explained that the word silly has connotations of innocence. I looked up the word and found also that its derivation is from a word for "happy, blessed."

I saw a friend of mine on Sunday at church and I asked her how her marathons were going. She already has run one in each of the 50 states, and said her friends are now going on to 100 marathons. Annette told me, "I think I'm done with that silliness."

I reminded her that the "silliness" she had already engaged in was a blessed part of her life. Yes, she said, she had to agree with that.

So maybe the silliness should continue?

Listen to Bruce Springsteen, "Born To Run"

The Sounds of Freedom

Perhaps Yeats' most famous poem is The Lake Isle of Innisfree, in which he describes the yearning he feels for the freedom of a life far from the "pavement" of the city, a life with nature in a "bee-loud glade." The poem speaks to the desire of each of us to "arise" to the spiritual.

In the last stanza Yeats says that "always night and day" he hears "lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore" in his "deep heart's core."

I am reminded of my own experience of standing at the edge of the Atlantic Ocean, gazing into the vast expanse, hearing the waves lap the shore. My thought: I am standing on the edge of mystery.

Richard Wilbur expressed the same thought in his poem, "For Dudley:"

All that we do
Is touched with ocean, yet we remain
On the shore of what we know.

Quoted in Edward Robinson, The Language of Mystery, at p. 5. Robinson explains:

That, in Richard Wilbur's words, is the universal human condition: to live on the edge of an infinity that touches us at every point, but which we rarely explore. All of our lives begin and end in mystery, and though we are generally successful, often for long periods, in finding distractions that will keep our minds off it, there are few who do not from time to time find some sense of this mystery encroaching upon them.

The "background noise" of the quiet lapping of the lake on the shore is a gentle reminder of the mystery that surrounds us. Like the slight whisper of the wind that Elijah hears, our greatest privilege as humans is to hear, and listen to, this lapping. For in it we experience awe before the greatness of the eternal mystery, God. And we experience a sign of our freedom: to be at home in the presence of our Creator, now and forever.

Listen to Yeats read his poem.

Listen to The Isle of Innisfree from the Quiet Man.

Listen to "Going Home"

Cor ad cor loquitur

One tends to distinguish between dis-interested or neutral "knowledge," and human emotion, human love, human desire. One is objective, the other subjective, and the aim is to move from subjective to objective in order to gain true knowledge.

This, of course, is a caricature of how we know and feel. In reality, we live at once on various levels of cognition and feeling, so our knowledge involves and is motivated by both.

This lesson applies to all we do, from science to the humanities, from philosophy to biblical criticism and theology. The idea is to find the personal dimension in what we study, so that heart speaks to heart.

A good example from science is Nobel prize winning biologist Barbara McClintock, who observed that she learned the secrets of corn genetics while loving her corn plants. In love they became almost personal, communicating their uniqueness to her. See her A Feeling For the Organism.

From the humanities, one can't find a higher authority than Goethe:

One cannot come to know anything unless one loves it; and the deeper and deeper and more complete the knowledge is to become, the stronger, more powerful, and livelier must that love, indeed passion, be.

Man lernt nichts kennen, als was man liebt, und je tiefer und vollstandiger die Kenntnis werden soll, desto starker, kraftiger und lebendiger muss Liebe, ja Leidenshaft sein.

Quoted in The Nature of Biblical Criticism, by Robert Barton, at p. 59, n. 66. Barton also quotes Manfred Oemin, "Man kann nur verstehen, was man liebt" (One can only understand what one loves.) Barton says he agrees with Oemin's position that "love is necessary, insofar as it means a commitment to studying this or that text, but that rational detachment is also necessary . . . the two attitudes can coexist; not all love is blind!" Ibid.

And so, as is so often the case, life is not either or, but both . . . and more and more. Distinctions unite in a whole, brought together by love. Heart to Heart.

Listen to "Love Knows No Borders" (James Loynes)

Listen to "How Can I Keep From Singing?" (James Loynes)

Listen to Enya, "How Can I keep From Singing?"

Tragedy and Hope

We experienced a tragedy at our office in Ireland. An employee came to work and hanged himself, leaving behind a wife and four children. He left a note describing his long struggle with depression. How sad for us, for his family, for him.

What can one do in response but pray for God's healing touch for his family. And for him. It's not too late, though he is in God's hands. After all, he was there too while living on this earth.

This weekend I spoke to a friend I happened to see in the park. We spoke about our families, our children, our dreams for them, and the vicissitudes all can expect. She said something I want to remember. She told me that she asked her high school son to pray now for his future spouse, that God would preserve her, protect her, help her grow in virtue and love.

That brought home to me that love is not bound by time. We can love backwards and forwards, so to speak. So I can pray for this man's rescue before his trial, as all can, and does, happen in God's time.

Listen to Cyndi Lauper, "Time after Time"

Listen to Nazareth sing "Love Hurts"

Listen to Bee Gees, "How Can You Mend a Broken Heart?"

"Be Compassionate as your Heavenly Father is Compassionate"

This quote from Luke in today's gospel (Lk. 6:36) is a command to be as generous in compassion as God is. Matthew's similar gospel says, "Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect (Mt. 5:48). "

Apart from the impossibility of being as generous as God, how can we understand our role in God's compassion? This quote from Cardinal Etchegary in his talk to young people in Rome for the new millenium might help:

The church is asking you to be attentive to the weak and the vulnerable, those in whom Jesus Christ rejoices because they see what has been hidden to the clever and the capable (cf Mt. 11:25). Never forget this criteria, it is the most precious, the most certain, the most concrete criteria which will help you to recognize what Christ expects from you. . . The direction is clear: live poorly as Christ did, live with the poor in order to live with Christ. The renewal of the church always comes as we dare to live a covenant with the poor.

Cited in Jean Vanier, Befriending the Stranger, at p. viii. Compassion is the way to unity in the church and among peoples, the way of holiness.

Listen Johnny Cash and Kris Kristofferson, "Sunday Morning"

Backsliding in Love

In our conversation Saturday we expressed our consternation at how often we fail to love, often because we react in passion to events that set us off. I related a disagreement I had with my dad, whom I love very much, but not then. Another discussed a similar altercation with a co-worker. The third observed that she was trying to learn rules of "dis-engagement:" Don't be judgmental; don't be drawn in; allow the person you are dealing with (trying to love) to be unreasonable.

As happens often enough, I soon after read a passage that helped me focus on this backsliding and its remedy. In a nutshell: Real love is participation in "divine kenosis." Here is what Kierkegaard says in Works of Love:

Christianly to descend from heaven means limitlessly to love the person, just as you see him. If, then, you will become perfect in love, strive to fulfill this duty, in loving to love the person one sees, to love him just as you see him, with all his imperfections and weaknesses, love him as you see him when he is utterly changed, when he no longer loves you, when he perhaps turns indifferent away or turns to love someone else, love him as you see him when he betrays and denies you.

Quoted from Oliver Davies, A Theology of Compassion, at p. 93.

It shouldn't be too hard to understand why Christian love is a command. ("A new command I give you: Love one another as I have loved you (John 13:34).") We are all backsliders. At this point we should ask forgiveness and, in surrender, try (yet again) to follow the path of kenotic love, the path Jesus walked, to which he beckons: "Follow me."

Listen to "She Drives Me Crazy" (Fine Young Cannibals)

Listen to "What is Love, Anyway?" Howard Jones

Listen to "Heaven is a Place On Earth" (Belinda Carlisle)

Chesed - kindness

Chesed, chen, rachamim – kindness, mercy, favor


Balthasar goes on to describe the nature of the OT covenant. He does it by using several Hebrew words that in some cases give the concept a flavor that has been altered or nuanced differently through translation. One of these words is chesed.

Quoting from pages 159 and 160:

“Chesed belongs primarily to the sovereign Lord who establishes the alliance, in this sense the word means … benevolence, grace, love; but following on from this, the inferior partner who enters the covenant must live in accordance with the favor which has been bestowed on him, he must … reflect it back and order his general behavior … in keeping with chesed.”

This conduct appropriate to the favor bestowed must be based on the root of the covenant being “a personal, benevolent, loving attitude that indicates and opens up a sphere of mutual trust.”

“Naturally, in the alliance between God and Israel, it is only God who can show chesed … God offers man his grace like a gift to a bride so that the only possible response of man to God is the free gift of his heart.”

“… chesed cannot be thought of without the idea of reliability and truthfulness, (emeth), and … salvation and pacification (shalom)” these are closely related to chesed. “To appeal to God’s chesed does not mean merely to cry out to his grace, but also to remind him of his covenantal fidelity by giving signs of repentance and conversion which allow God to see that one still stands by this covenant of faithfulness. One dares to remind God of his fidelity to the covenant and to depend on this as something that is already present by grace … the entire mutuality of the alliance rests on the originally one-sided initiative of God’s grace … especially when the man who has sinned has once seen that he has no right to God’s mercy (rachamim) … a new and free bestowal of God’s grace is necessary in order for the relationship of chesed and emeth to be restored.”

I find the warmth, protection and love offered by God in his covenant very comforting. Being a sinner though, I might be a bit sheepish about reminding God of his promised faithfulness.

Love as Dis-possession

In our Sat discussion we asked, "Where does compassion come from?" The three parables discussed (The Good Samaritan, Prodigal Son, Rich Man and Lazarus) all have a theme of awakening to true love, which includes compassion and forgiveness. Where does it come from?

If eros is possessive love, agape love, including compassion, is dis-possessive love. It is essentially the reaction to dis-possessive evil. "The assumption of another's suffering as one's own entails a radical decentering of the self, and putting at risk of the self, in the free re-enactment of the dispossessed state of those who suffer." Oliver Davies, A Theology of Compassion, at p. 17. This movement (or need for movement) can be seen in all three parables noted above. Mr. Davies cites Etty Hillesum and Edith Stein, both who decided to share in the physical fate of the Jewish victims of the Shoah.

Mr. Davies points out that compassion is recognized as a central element in a society:

The principle of self-denying or kenotic love, of which compassion is a particularly radical manifestation, appears to touch all levels of human existence and, indeed, to make harmonious social existence possible. Without such a principle of self-emptying for the sake of the other, enacted in some degree by a myriad people in countless different ways, most human societies could not keep at bay the violent and selfish tendencies of the human spirit. Despite all the ambiguities of human socialization and motication, the fact that a multitude of ordinary individuals do repeatedly subordinate their own interests to those of another in everyday situations of life can be construed as the very principle of civilization. . . . Such acts of exceptional self-risking love, motivated by compassion for another individual, constitute for many a point of unsurpassable meaning.

Ibid. at p. 21. It thus appears that sacrificial love takes its place at the top of the scale of values, in both secular and Christian traditions. Here there is a point of agreement. Dis-interested love is of the highest interest and value.

How different from the point of view expressed in an earlier post in which the most insignificant desire of an "actual" human being outweighs that of a "potential" human life, whose expectation is decreed to be zero. In fact, a "potential" human being becomes actual in relation to its mother and others who love him (her). As Davies puts it:

The very earliest contact of a child with the 'world' or non-self is in the form of the mother, or principal carer, who embraces the child in the field of an all-encompassing relation. . . . An open I-Thou relation of self to self provides the existential condition for the emergence of personhood. A child is constantly treated by adults as an adult human being in the making, with all the rights and privileges of adult personhood, and so an existential space is created into which the child can grow as a process of self-determination in personhood. The essence of self, as person, originates in the mutuality of persons therefore, a relation which is animated and quickened by the creative recognition of personhood by one self of another.

Ibid at p. 21. There is no point at which actuality emerges. All is potency moving into actuality, at whatever age, it seems. And so, rather than to be based on selfish autonomy, our social outlook should be founded on agape love, which is altruism and compassion. Only by such means are human beings made. And human beings are being made (or unmade) from the moment we experience them, born or unborn, young or old.

As Pope Benedict says, the way of love is love. To learn to love, love.

Listen to Kris Kristofferson, "Why Me Lord?"

Covenant - An Old Idea?

Quoing Vol. 6 of The Glory of the Lord

“The people will be granted admittance to God’s own royal realm, to the extent that it is willing to accommodate itself to the images and attitudes that hold good for the king.” This is the way Balthasar frames the covenantal relationship.


Balthasar continues, "Deuteronomy … separates the paradox of the living community that has been established into its two complimentary parts: the utter one-sidedness of the grace of God, which establishes the community, and the utter mutuality which is based therein: word and answer, love and answering love, directive and obedience.” P.155

This covenant is made:

With the election of this one people, for which no reason can be given:

For you are a people holy to the Lord your God; the Lord your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on earth to be his people, his treasured possession. It was not because you were more numerous than any other people that the Lord set his heart on you and chose you – for you were the fewest of all peoples. Deut. 7:6-7

Without any merit on the people’s part:

Do not say to yourself, “My power and the might of my own hand have gotten me this wealth.” Deut. 8:17

On the basis of love alone:

Know therefore that the Lord your God is God, the faithful God who maintains covenant loyalty with those who love him and keep his commandments, to a thousand generations, …. (Deut.7:9) … yet the Lord set his heart in love on your ancestors alone and chose you, their descendants after them, out of all the peoples, as it is today. Deut. 10:15

The only possible response to this love is unlimited love:

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might. (Deut.6:5) You shall love the Lord your God, therefore, and keep his charge, his decrees, his ordinances and his commandments always. (Deut. 11:1) “If you would only heed his every commandment that I am commanding you today – loving the Lord your God, and serving him with all your heart and all your soul … (Deut. 11:13)



To the Israelites this covenant would look like a pretty good deal. Rescued from the captivity of the Egyptians, being sheltered from the vicissitudes of the environment and protected from the many peoples who could ravage them, God’s proven protection was an offer that could not be refused.

What is the relevance to us? We are so sophisticated. Many of us have the necessities of life – food, shelter and clothing. We have established a civilization that for the most part protects us from famine, floods and other hardships of the natural world. We have established laws and ethical standards to safeguard our rights. So now we have become self-assured. That old concept of a covenant is out of fashion. We can protect and provide for ourselves.

This reminds me of the story of the business man on his way, and late for an important meeting. Arriving and finding it difficult to find a parking space, he begins to pray and offer to God all sorts of promises if he could just get a spot to park. After reaching desperation levels and promising much to God he finds an opening just where he needs it. With much relief he offers his final prayer, “Never mind Lord, I found one.”

Awakening To Love

Chapter 7 of Pope Benedict's book Jesus of Nazareth (this week's reading assignment) focuses on three parables: The Good Samaritan, the Prodigal Son, and The Rich Man and Lazarus. The Pope believes the theme of these parables and parables in general is "Wake up, Wake up to Love!"

A parable, the pope says, is a way to bring distant things to closer sight, or to lead the listener onto a journey. (p. 192). The story of the parable is a familiar image to invite listeners to "go beyond their existing horizons, to come to know and understand things previously unknown." Ibid.

Each of the parables discussed invites us to awaken to love. The Good Samaritan story invites the listener to compassion, to view himself or herself as neighbor to all, rather than to include or exclude others in the tribe or social group. The Prodigal Son story invites the listener to walk through the younger son's life history and to see that true freedom lies "in my father's home," rather than in selfish escapade. The primary love here is of the father's forgiveness, which heals. The story of the rich man and Lazarus at his gate invites the listener to see that true riches lie in love, first with God, then with our fellow humans, and never with material goods and hedonism.

In each case the parable also invites us to awaken to truth of love here and now. The eschaton is not an other-worldly existence, but is experienced now, in this world. Once we wake to reality as it is in truth, we can truly start to live.

The pope ends with a discussion of the rich man's demand for a sign. Why a sign? All men want reassurance that the asserted "better way" will indeed lead to the better life. The rich man is not gratified by yet another sign, but we readers of scripture know that "the sign of Jonas" is actually Jesus himself, who has been sent by the Father to invite us, in part via parables, to awaken to the truth of love, which is Jesus himself.

Listen to Bach, "Sleepers Awake!"

Why Not Abortion AFTER Birth?

Infanticide apparently has been around for all of human history. See here. However, Christianity has uniformly opposed infanticide. One could expect a culture receding from Christian belief to return again to child killing. That is the essential meaning of abortion, and explains why the Catholic Church has always opposed the practice.

With pre-birth abortion established, certain medical ethicists are now openly arguing for after birth abortion. According to these ethicists (following Peter Singer), overt infanticide is ethically permissible. The authors define a fetus or newborn baby as only a "potential" person and flatly state that:

however weak the interests of actual people can be, they will always trump the alleged interest of potential people to become actual ones, because this latter interest amounts to zero.

The differences between a secular, utilitarian mindset and Christianity become unmistakable at this point. Christianity views a fetus and a new-born as full and actual human beings, no matter their medical or health condition. They must be protected by law and society no less than any other "actual" person.

This issue came home to me on reading the Pope's discussion in Ch. 7 of Jesus of Nazareth, of the parable of the Good Samaritan (at p. 197).

The Christian perspective on the "neighbor" is that I become a neighbor to the other, whom I identify as myself. In other words, I think of the other person as another me. "The question is about me. I have to become the neighbor, and when I do, the other person counts for me 'as myself.'" Ibid. This is a stronger identification than when I consider someone in my own familial or social group to be my neighbor. To see myself in another, in all others, erases all social boundaries. If I identify any other as myself, I became neighbor to all; no restriction may properly be drawn as to the essential dignity of human beings, including the asserted distinction between "potential" and "actual" human beings. This is a core Christian truth.

We all need to pray that God may help us to maintain our grasp on this (Christian) truth in the face of the drumbeat that is sounding toward active infanticide and euthanasia. Otherwise, the killing of abortion, as horrible as it has been at 50 million strong, will mark just the beginning of our killing.

What's Happenin'?

In W.H. Auden's poem, "In Memory of W.B. Yeats," Auden writes (in stanza II) about the nature of poetry:

For poetry makes nothing happen: it survives
In the valley of its saying where executives
Would never want to tamper; it flows south
From ranches of isolation and the busy griefs,
Raw towns that we believe and die in; it survives,
A way of happening, a mouth.

These are well-known lines. "Poetry makes nothing happen" . . . nothing an executive [someone who makes things happen] would be interested in. Still, poetry (as the last line says) is a "way of happening."

We don't have to "make things happen" in order to experience the haps and mishaps, the fortunes and misfortunes, of life. After all, life does "happen"! Poetry is a "way" to make sense of life's happenings, to discover meaning, even though it doesn't change anything. The "mouth" of poetry can be a mouth to wisdom.

I think of "the way of poetry" as comparable to the "way" mentioned in the first Psalm (and others like Psalm 119). It is a way, not of sinners, but of meditating "day and night" on God's law, on the true things that bring good fortune. Auden likens the "way" to a river or stream; Psalm one does the same, asserting that the way of meditation on God's law leads to thriving and fruitfulness, because it unwinds under God's loving gaze.

Followers of Christ also thought of themselves as "people of the Way" (Acts 9:2), following in the footsteps of the Christ who went before, walking as disciples of love. What happens along this "way" is what matters most in life: love and its fruitfulness.