love – Writing to Pray

Doctrine of Love

I recently engaged in two independent conversations about social justice with vowed religious. One said, “It’s not hard; just love everybody,” and the other, “It’s all about love.” These statements imply everyone knows all they need to know about love: just do it. If we believe we have more to learn about the Lord, and God is love, why would we not need to learn more about love?

Our own experiences can tell us a great deal, however, we are shaped by our environment and culture. If we lived in another place, at another time, would our knowledge and experience be different? Where should we go to learn more about love?

Because these two conversations included the Catholic social teachings, we discussed people’s negative impressions of doctrine. Frequently referred to pejoratively as ‘dogma,’ doctrine is often generalized as a set of rules around what the Roman Catholic Church will and will not allow. Those who preach guilt and shame have misrepresented and twisted scripture and doctrine. Such bully points, however, do not appear to be the talking points of either the Lord or Church Doctors.

We say the Word of the Lord, scripture, is efficacious—it will fulfill the purpose the Lord intended. It is organic and relevant in every time and place. We believe it to be living, alive and a spark to ignite life. While Church doctrine is not considered efficacious in the same way, if given the opportunity, could it not inform, reform and transform our perceptions, words and actions? Might it add to our insights about love in any way?

A few months ago, I would have said, “Ideas about love from old, dead Church Fathers? Umm, no! It has no connection to the real world…violence and hatred run amuck, not to mention a few other issues. Nope!”

I’ve recently had the opportunity, however, to become familiar with the social teachings as explained in the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church. The Papal documents and Church Fathers’ writings lay out concepts summarized in words and phrases such as solidarity, subsidiarity, common good and dignity of the human being. These ideas inspire action aimed at improving justice for all, ensuring human rights and meeting basic needs. But is doing more the same thing as loving more?

I was shocked and happily overwhelmed by the writing within the Compendium: half-thought intuitions I did not have enough words to think out completely, were expressed and accessible. Did I learn about love from Church doctrine? I learned I was asking the wrong question! Or perhaps, I simply started in the wrong place.

I was exposed to insights pertaining to the nature of the Lord. If I seek to learn more about love, I must learn more about the Lord’s love. Greater understanding of the Creator’s love for humanity, and for each and every being is the foundation for all other insights about love. It is the preamble, proposal, and prequel to human life and love.

The following quotations from the Compendium taught me much of what I’ve been writing about here:

A human being is called by grace to a covenant with the Creator, to offer Him a response of faith and love that no other creature can give in his/her stead (108).
The whole of a person’s life is a quest and a search for God. The human being is a personal being created by God to be in relationship with Him (109).
Each person is unrepeatable and inviolably unique (131): created in the image of God.
Christ, by His incarnation, has united himself in some fashion with every person (105).

Writing Exercise:
If we suspend our enjoyment of playing the ‘devil’s advocate’ for a minute and accept the above quotations as true, we can then simply ask ourselves, “What experiences of mine reveal and manifest these Truths to me?”

30th Sunday 2017

Psalm 18, Matthew 22:34-40

Impending doom is about to befall our psalm-singer, David: cords of death wrap around him, torrents of perdition dismay him, cords of Sheol encircle him, traps of death are sprung. The language he uses to describe the freedom the Lord initiates for him is centered on the word yasha. Various commentaries make the following statements about the word:

To be in distress is to be in a tight spot (4).
The words for salvation and distress here include notions of the spaciousness and narrowness (4).
The phrase “brought me forward into a broad place” is based on the root meaning make wide which is also the Hebrew word for save (5, 2).

Like David, after the Lord rescues and saves us from traps and tight spots, we are brought into a broad place. The word yasha, (which includes variant names such as Joshua, Yeshua, Jesus) involves the activities of saving and widening.

When Jesus is asked which law is the most important, He refers to Deuteronomy 6:5 which exhorts us to love the Lord with all our heart, all our soul and all our strength. The Catechism of the Catholic Church suggests loving the Lord is wired into our being; so while it may be unintentional or unconscious, loving God is instinctual and compelling. Jesus follows this commandment with a reference to loving our neighbor as ourself. Jesus’ words in this gospel moment may seem a bit fluffy and easy; we like to be loved and to be loving towards others.

Whether or not He’s contemplating this psalm in particular, Jesus knows the rich meaning of His name. He is aware He will rescue us from snares and distress, but He also recognizes this is only Part 1. The Lord understands this action of rescue on His part will involve bringing us into a ‘broad place.’ Not everyone wants to be brought out to a ‘broad place.’

This Part 2 is an essential element of the gospel exhortation to love; it is an invitation to allow the Lord to consistently and constantly widened our hearts and minds.

Journal Questions:

What traps and ensnares me; gender, my job, locale, family, finances? What limits me?
How does the nuance of Jesus’ name, suggesting not only saving, but broadening resonate with me?
Have I responded to this gospel invitation with all my heart, all my soul and all my strength? In other words, how have I RSVP-ed?

References: Refer to blog post entitled Resources

24th Sunday 2017

Psalm 103: Matthew 18:21-25

We all have a running conversation in our heads. Sometimes we are imagining an impending conversation, or an earlier one. While lines and ideas from movies, music, social media, writing crowd into our brains, we also have commentary on all we see and hear bobbing along. In pop psychology, this sort of inner world dialogue is called ‘self-talk.’ The self-talk of the ancient Israelites and those of Jesus’ time would have been radically different; I imagine they talked more to and with the Lord, and less with self. Early Church Father, Cassiodoros, pointed to the psalms as an example of Jesus’ inner world: their formulas and structures would have been His natural thought process. Psalms 103 opens with self-talk.

Christian translations typically begin today’s psalm, “Bless the Lord, O my soul,” Commentaries point out the word soul in this context refers to his whole self (2). Robert Alter’s translation begins, “Bless, O my being, the Lord” (5). This makes it clear that the psalm-singer is calling on every fiber of his being to partake in the praise. He is holding nothing back, despite recent illness.

The Psalmist quotes Exodus directly, pulling those hearing him back to Egypt and the desert. He begins with personal praise for an individual experience of God’s saving forgiveness and healing; he concludes with the same phrases, but now invites the divine council, the army of heaven and all of creation to join him.

In today’s gospel, a servant with a huge debt begs the king for mercy and is generously forgiven for the entire debt. He then, however, with grand amnesia, precedes to extort a much smaller amount from a lower servant. This passage instructs us: interdependence, accountability to the community and patience are requirements of discipleship.

The servant owed a debt of gratitude, but in willful blindness, remained fixated on money. When we forget what we have been forgiven of, we turn a deaf ear to the call to forgive others. “(The servant) has shamed the king by not imitating him” (1). The opportunity to forgive another, to imitate the Lord, is a great gift. “Followers of Jesus are to give as they have received (10:8), love as they have been loved (John 13:34), and forgive as they have been forgiven (Matthew 18:35, Ephesians 4:32)” (2).

Psalm 103 can illuminate another angle of this parable. Said servant did not offer the sort of thanksgiving and praise exemplified by our psalmist, he forgot. Perhaps, the conclusion of forgiveness is not forgiveness, but the opportunity to express of gratitude to and praise for the Lord.

Journal Questions:

What is the character of our self-talk? Do we talk to God or self; are praise and thanksgiving a component of our interior world?
Are we familiar enough with scriptures such as the psalms that lines, ideas, beliefs contained therein that they too reside in our interior landscapes?
Do words of praise, blessing and gratitude dot our internal landscape?

References: Refer to blog post entitled Resources