Tuesday, 01 July 2008
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I often quote Merton, but in this case, I'll paraphrase. In "No Man is An Island," Merton speaks of two types of charity: loving God in men and loving men in God. It is the former which concerns me, as an active layperson. The latter is contemplative love, and I am not a contemplative, as of yet. Now, why the distinction? Loving God in men is essentially loving each and every individual you come into contact with as a person in whom the Holy Image is pressed. Even moreso, in our Christian family, can we love one another as tabernacles of the Holy God. As Merton puts it, this love seeks to expand its roots in all directions, loving and truly accepting every individual based not upon their loveable or unloveable behavior, but upon their state as a child of God.
I read this as I was walking down the road to a reading group focused on "St. Thomas Aquinas," by G.K. Chesterton. During the group, I marvelled seeing God in each of the individuals -- through them ran wisdom, concern, love, hope, culture -- and deeply, at that. I basked in the holiness of my peers, hearing their wisdom, their insights, their ideas. Through the grace of God, I was given a glimpse into their collective holiness. By their own words, Christ reminded me (as he seems to always need to do) of my own call to holiness. Not to the holiness of St. Francis, nor of St. Thomas, nor of St. Andrew Fournet, nor of Blessed Teresa of Calcutta. I don't partake in their holiness as much as, with the aid of their intercession, I participate in that which makes them holy. I am not meant to be a Francis, Peter, Paul, Mary, and so forth. I am meant to be first a man, and then a saint.
Essentially, there is some truth which I am meant to exaggerate, to exemplify, through my life (as Chesterton points out); this is the call of every saint: to bear witness. For St. Andrew Fournet, it was radical parish work in the temptestuous time of the French Revolution, i.e. the truth of privation and the Church. For St. Felix and his fellow Christians, it was destruction of government idols, i.e. the truth that Adonai echad. For St. Francis and Br. Juniper, it was radical humility in poverty, i.e. the truth of the beatitudes. And the list extends on and on. But each of these individuals bore the truth in a particular way for a particular time. What is our truth in our time? We began to discuss this last night, with some excellent suggestions being the truth of simplicity, family, and Truth itself. This will require further discernment and sacrifice on our parts.
This discernment will require us extending our little hands into the deep soil of the Church -- it's hagiographal history. Merton describes Mary as the window through which Christ came into the world. And yet, as the first of the saints, Mary has illustrated that this, in fact, is the benefit of all hagiography, of all intercession, of all veneration: to see the saints, and even our own brothers and sisters, as windows. To see God in them, not because they, as windows, have any light of their own, but because like unique stained-glass creations, they each reflect God in a singular and holy way. Through recognizing the holiness, id est the God in one another, and through recognition of our generational antidotes given to us by our particular saints, perhaps we will turn this ol' society of ours around yet. Perhaps we'll find our saint, and even though we might persecute him (as prophets always are), we may grow to love them in time (as we often do).
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