Tuesday, August 30, 2022

Dreaming with Pope Frances : More on Section II

 In section II of Pope Francis’ Let Us Dream: The Path To A Better Future, we ended last time in considering his concern for the voices and gifts of women. (See August Community Connections.) Remember, he is building a point of view that provides the wisdom for some important ‘Choosing.’ Get ready. Francis is building up the qualities that equip us to tackle synodality. This is where he is going. Synodality is the focus of the whole end of section II.

So, what is the bridge? The pope’s concern about the vital role women must play is but lead-in to two ideas that speak to the heart of the evening news: fraternity vs. individualism, and what he calls the “isolated conscience.”  Fraternity is “the sense of belonging to each other and to the whole of humanity…(It) is the capacity to come together and work together against a shared horizon of possibility…It’s a unity that allows people to serve as a body despite differences…preserves and respects plurality, inviting all to contribute from their distinctiveness, as a community of brothers and sisters concerned for each other. (68)

 Then Pope Francis tackles the major obstacle to this fraternity: the isolated conscience. Pointing first to the Church, Francis describes the person of isolated conscience as one in the grips of “a bad-spirit temptation to withdraw spiritually from the body to which I belong, closing us in on our own interests and viewpoints by means of suspicion and supposition…(turning) us…into beleaguered, complaining selves who disdain others, believing that we alone know the truth.” Whether revolutionary or restorationist, what marks these ideologies is rigidity. (69) When I’m asked to step out and become part of something bigger, suspicion supplies reasons to hold back, justifying this by my pointing out the faults of others. I become a master of criticism, a charitable openness to the other is replaced by clinging to the supposed superiority of one’s own ideas. (71)

 The antidote, says Francis, is self-accusation…admitting I am a sinner in need of great mercy. This can prevent polarization, the downward spiral of accusation and counteraccusation.

But engage with conflict and disagreement we must, in ways that keep us from descending into polarization. We do this by allowing for new thinking that goes beyond division. We need the art of civic dialogue that weaves together a different view on a higher plane.

 Referring to Romano Guardini, Francis challenges us to consider that the pulling apart of differences in tension really all coexist within a larger unity. The spirit of conflict turns contrapositions into contradictions, demanding we choose: thus polarization. Mediocre thinking allows this, taking us away from the possibility of a greater reality. Likewise, we can deny the tension in the two poles of a contraposition. Let be. The result is relativism…the unreal position that anything goes. Deep stuff, but it is going on before our eyes in the evening news. It is with these keen observations that Francis approaches synodality where we will join him next time.

 

Sunday, August 7, 2022

Check Points for a Disciple

 We’re in the second half of Ordinary Time, and sure enough, the Church brings us back to center: the Cross. It is not by chance that the Exaltation of the Cross is a central September feast. The whole of Ordinary Time is a formation in discipleship flowing from the Cross and Resurrection. So, what are the formation points for us this month?

First, we’re reminded that we can’t be part-time disciples. We need full-time resolve. Then we are given the powerful parable of the Prodigal Son, to remind us that we are to be Reconcilers wherever our families, communities, work, or retirement take us. Then the last two Sundays make sure we understand where true riches lie…inwardly and outwardly in our public lives.

But we are not to lose sight of the Cross. Why? Because the Cross is the fullness of revelation about God and ourselves. About God, because nowhere, in any other religion, is God revealed as hanging on a tree, dying. Here the hidden God is revealed through the Word, joined to our humanity as a self-sacrificing Lover. More, we are not merely told. We are shown, by life-blood being poured out in a Spirit-burst upon the unsuspecting world. Among all the world religions, this is radical revelation.

But we too are revealed. We are tortured, tormented, broken, scourged, ridiculed, thirsty, abandoned and abused. And where is God while we struggle? There…in our midst. Look at the human form of your brother and sister. There…that’s where God is. The radical revelation is complete. The union finalized. God is not safe in heaven. God is wherever we are.

“We adore you, O Christ, and we bless you,

For by your holy Cross you have redeemed the world.’

It’s shocking.

It turns everything upside down.

Where is the majesty, the power, the splendor, the glory?

Head mocked for its hopes, plans, and dreams…

Hands nailed so they can’t help…

Feet fastened so they can’t come running…

Heart open like a window without shutters,

where I can run and hide anytime.

No condemnation?

No.

No condemnation.

Amen.