Dialogue...? Or Debate...?

 
On we go as we explore Pope Francis’ Fratelli tutti. Last month we saw that he dared to suggest doing a new kind of politics. This month we will explore what he calls “Dialogue and Friendship in Society” (#198-224). Don’t be deceived. What he suggests is more challenging than politics!

Real dialogue is quite different from debate. In debate there is
competition, and someone wins and someone must lose. Not in dialogue. Genuine dialogue means we respect another’s point of view even if we disagree, and we admit that it may have some real truth I need to attend to (#203). This dignity that we accept in the other is not something we have invented. Every human being possesses an intrinsic worth. As we speak with them they will sense that we do or do not honor this (#213). Ignoring this intrinsic worth will eventually erupt in some form of violence, verbal or worse (#219).

We have a lot to learn from people who are very different from us: indigenous people, those of another race or religion, or those with very different politics. We are actually unjust when we regard them merely as obstacles or annoyances (#222). 

What Francis suggests is rather surprising.He suggests we simply be kind. Yes, he suggests we deliberately call on the virtue of kindness. At the very least, he says, we resist being rude or speaking words that demean, sadden, show anger or scorn (#223). Kindness opens up the search for consensus. Hostility and conflict instead burn all bridges. Kindness listens, questions for further understanding, and then offers an alternative view or opinion.

He’s right. It bridges. It makes friends. It works!

Making Connections

 

The Church, in this Green Time has been focusing on the Bread of Life. The life won for us on the Cross is kept growing by this Bread. It is Love’s final step down into the struggle of our daily existence…to become for us what we eat.

 

Now we enter autumn. The harvest ripens. The leaves begin to show their colors. The days are a bit cooler. The Church gives us the Feast of the Holy Cross. On either side of September 14 are two Feasts of Mary, her birth and her sorrows. Is there any connection here? I think so.

 

Why did Mary have to suffer so much when she had no sin? Her sorrows are celebrated the day after the Feast of the Holy Cross. She, along with her Son, are figures for us of all those innocent ones who get caught up in the evils that plague the human family. This presents us with one of the deepest mysteries of our faith…innocent suffering.

 

In her wisdom, this may be why the Church presents these feasts before us in this harvest time. The crops we will harvest have been nourished by awful stuff we call manure. It is repulsive, rotten material. Yet from it we hold sweet corn, grapes from the vine, and countless other wonderful products. The readings this month present us with many healings. We get the sense that Jesus almost can’t keep up with the brokenness. Maybe the Cross is his solution.

 

Jesus and Mary were innocent. So are many at our borders, the people of Haiti, the people of Afghanistan. So are many children in our hospitals. I believe their suffering is redeeming us, that none of it is lost to a loving God. In looking at the mystery of the Cross we are asked to believe this. Mary invites us to give witness as she did…with little or no explanation. Suffering often makes us or breaks us. Maybe we are being called to decide now…when we are clear headed, that we will stand with these innocent ones in trust when our turn comes.

 

Nature’s beauty fades.

The leaves fade and fall.

I listen to the news and wonder…

what will those people do after the fires…the floods?

The mystery of your cross is everywhere.

The day ends, the grieving find shelter and try to sleep.

Yet we have your promise.

We hold it tight in faith…Faithful God.