Pope John Paul II says many good things in his encyclical Laborem Exercens. He says the best name today for agape love, for perfect Christian love, is solidarity. We thought solidarity was being nice and affirming, but ultimately it's to stay in there with brokenness and let it lead you where it will, and to be willing to pay the price. It led Jesus to the cross.
I think solidarity with pain, with weakness, even with the signs of death in society might be the best name for love in the world today, especially for masculine love, a side of love expressed by both men and women. None of us would choose to be nailed to the cross, or freely take the side of the victims in society. Circumstances will unwittingly trap us there, and finally there will be no noble way out.
We're not converted willingly; we're converted in spite of ourselves. Step by step, God seduces and draws us into solidarity.
Richard Rohr, from A Man's Approach to God
This could stand as a codicil to my post the other day. God's mercy is nothing like we expect it to be, and Jesus draws us closer to him by ways we would never choose for ourselves. Sometimes of course he seems to do this to spare our courage being tested beyond its breaking point; at other times I think he does it so that we cannot take credit for our own "heroic acts of faith" as we would like to term them... "The heart is devious above all else..." (Jeremiah 17.9) - well, mine is, anyway!
2 comments:
So true: "We're not converted willingly; we're converted in spite of ourselves. Step by step, God seduces and draws us into solidarity."
True for me, and I hope and pray I am seeing this in my oldest daughter who vigorously and angrily argues against God. I believe she's being stirred up by God, but she resists.
I pray your daughter is being stirred up, Jan - certainly both ours are being stirred in their very different ways! Christ's mercy is stranger and more indefatigable than we ever give him credit for, I think...
Post a Comment