P. 37-38.
“Gandhi once asked: “How can he who thinks he possesses absolute truth be fraternal?”
Let us be frank about it: the history of Christianity raises this question again an again.
The problem: God has revealed himself to men in Christ, but He has revealed Himself first of all as love. Absolute truth is then grasped as love: therefore, not in such a way that it excludes love in certain limited situations. Only he who loves can be sure that he is still in contact with the truth, which is in fact to absolute to be grasped by the mind. Hence, he who holds to the gospel truth is afraid that he may lose the truth by a failure to love, not by a failure of knowledge. In that case, he is humble, and therefore he is wise. But knowledge expands a man life a balloon and gives him a precarious wholeness in which he thinks that he holds in himself all the dimensions of a truth the totality of which is denied to others. It then becomes his duty, he thinks, by virtue of his superior knowledge, to punish those who do not share his truth. How can he “love” others, he thinks,
In the refectory (dining room in the monastery) a tendentious book about Communism is being read. Communism is insidious. We should hate all that is insidious, especially this ultimate diabolical insidiousness which is Communism. If we truly hate it with all the power of our being then we can be sure that we ourselves are, and will remain, righteous, free, sincere, honest, open. Today, then (we are told) hatred of communism is the test of a good Christian. The pledge of all truth is our political hate. Hate Castro. Hate Khrushchev. Hate Mao. All this is in the same breath as “God’s merciful love” and “the beatings of the Sacred Heart.” There seems to be some other dimension we have not discovered…
Chrysostom has some fine things to say about sheep and wolves …” As long as we remain sheep we overcome. Even though we may be surrounded by a thousand wolves, we overcome and are victorious. But as soon as we are wolves, we are beaten: for then we lose the support from the Shepherd who feeds not wolves, but only sheep. (Homily 34 on St. Matthew).
My comments:
One of the most important documents in the entire history of the Church is Evangelization in the Modern World. It was issued by Paul VI in 1976.
This is its statement on evangelization, the basic mission of the Church:
“For the Church evangelizing means bringing the Good News into all strata of humanity and through its influence transforming humanity and making it new…the Church evangelizes when she seeks to convert, solely through the divine power of the message she proclaims, both the personal and collective consciences of people, the activities in which they engage and the lives and concrete millelux which is theirs.” (#18)
The Church’s job is to trust in the power of the message we proclaim. People need to be called but they are free to accept or not accept the call. The Church needs to be the sheep letting the power of God feed us. We are not the wolves of power and control, Instruments of hate and division.
In our history, so often we have slipped away from the Gospel whether it is hating Communists or Muslims, Evangelicals or gang members. Our task is to love. We need solely to humbly proclaim in deep and trusting faith the Christ of the Gospels. The good news is the Lord’s. We need to celebrate it in joy and openness. We need to proclaim in peace and wonder. We need to live in harmony and reconciliation. We need to leave the winning and losing in the hands of God who so often invites us into victory through defeat, into life through death.
Another comment:
When I was a young priest my first assignment was to an African American community just a mile away from where I grew up. It had just recently become 100% African American and one of the most overcrowded communities in the history of Chicago.
I soon became immersed in the experience of injustices that pervaded the situation: high rents, profiteering merchants, double shift schools that still were overcrowded, police brutality, a health system ready to disintegrate and the beginning of gangs.
The intensity of the exposure allowed me to see the flawed white culture that had nurtured me all my life. I became one angry young man.
I was a perfect example of what Merton was talking about: using the truth as a weapon, using the insight into the unfairness as an instrument of further division far removed from a Gospel of love and inclusion.
It took me many years to discern a true Gospel response to the reality. Then, as always, it was far from a full Gospel expression that usually evades most of us.
An interesting insight was that only after many decades was I able to bring a critical eye to the culture of the African American community and its failure to be a full expression of the Gospel.
All cultures bring gifts and challenges. They are a manifestation of the weeds and wheat also. They, too, need the transforming power of evangelization.
