THEOLOGY AND SPIRITUALITY
Preface
The 20th general chapter has taken a relevant decision in choosing this theme for the forthcoming general conference. It deals not with a merely academic subject. Know how is very important in this matter. The chapter’s intention was mainly “to come to apostolic choices as the logical consequence of the social dimension of the SCJ- charism”.
Even with this pragmatic aim it remains a heavy object, in lifting of which one could strain oneself. In a sense this general conference starts already when and where communities engage themselves in communitarian talks about this subject. It may be useful to have some material at hand in order not to get stuck in mere slogans. To supply some informations for the necessary reflection the following modest contribution could be helpful.
Besides I want to show how this theme constitutes an integral part of our Dehonian Mission in the past and now.
Our congregation may consider herself called to be a society at the service of the Kingdom of God. The subject of the general conference is therefore dehonian. Already the fourth general conference at Brusque took on the social dimension of the reparation. This was not a totally new way. The aim was, in line with the Rule of Life, to give a more concrete filling in to the reparation , according to Fr. Dehon, in our times. In his own life he translated his experience of faith also in the social apostolate as it came to expression in the title of his periodical: “Le Règne du Coeur de Jésus dans les âmes et dans les Sociétés”.
“The own character of the society” of our congregation of the oblates, as originally he called them, lies in the “ecce venio” and “ecce ancilla” of Jesus and Mary, in their oblation or self-donation to God and to the welfare of the people (Cst nr. 6). The “ecce venio” of Christ is related to the Kingdom of God, that in our Rule of Life is strikingly frequent mentioned (4; 10; 11; 13; 29; 37; 38; 41; 48; 60) ,while this perspective in other places is defined “Eager for the Lord’s intimacy” (Cst nr. 28). Fr. Dehon gives his congregation some “apostolic orientations”: eucharistic adoration, ministry to the lowly and the humble, the workers and the poor, and in connection with these the formation of priests and missionary activity (Cst nrs. 30 and 31). So we collaborate towards the given fulfilment of the Kingdom of God, with the recapitulation of all persons and things in Christ (Cst nr. 20). His: “ecce venio”, the founder lives in the perspective of the Kingdom of God. The open side is the outstanding sign of it (Cst nr. 21). Fr. Dehon points explicitly for us to Holy Scripture.
I. Jesus and the Kingdom of God
The preaching of the Kingdom of God forms such a height in the Bible, that it seems to mark the beginning of a new period in the history of salvation. “The Law and the Prophets were in force until John; since that time the gospel of the Kingdom of God is preached” (Lk 16,16 ).
“He said: the time is fulfilled and the Kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe the gospel” (Mk 1,15). It is the echo of his “ecce venio” when he entered the world, in his oblation to the Father and to the world.
The coming of the Kingdom is attended by wholesome signs. “He taught in their synagogues and preached the gospel of the Kingdom and healed all manner of sickness” (Mt 4,23). His messianic-royal word sounds in the synagogue: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because He has anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor and He sent me to heal the broken-hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord” (Lk 4,18-19).
“And He said to them: I must preach the Kingdom of God to other cities also, for therefore am I sent (Lk 4,43). Also the heathen are called to the wedding (Mt 22,1-14), great multitudes followed him (Mt 8,1). The scribe too, not a disciple of Jesus, but familiar with the greatest of the precepts, is not far from the Kingdom of God (Mk 12,34).
He prays and teaches us to pray: “Thy Kingdom come” (Mt 6,10). And the signs of it are manifold (Mt 11,4; Lk 11,20). It starts small, as the mustard seed (Lk 13,19). It grows, while the farmer sleeps (Mk 4,26).
His Kingdom is not of this world (Jo 18,36). It is a gift and asks acceptance and conversion, in good works, in basic attitudes, described in the beatitudes (Mt 5,3-8). The Kingdom of God is not to be looked for far away , not above, not down below. It is near. “The Kingdom of God is within you” (Lk 17,21). Jesus partakes in the mystical intimacy of God’s nearness and rejoices, because it is revealed unto babes, to all that labour and are heavy laden , who learn from Him, meek and humble of heart (Mt 11,25-30).
The works of mercy are signs of oblation to the Kingdom of God: Jesus, as Emmanuel, hides in the hungry, in the sick, in the captives (Mt 25,40). The collaboration of the disciples happens in relations, although they do not coincide with the fullness of the Kingdom of God. It breaks also through, when He casts out devils (Lk 11,20). He accuses the so called religious, who do not meet the demands of love and justice (Mk 7,9-12; 23,23).
On the rock of Peter He builds his church, which does not fall together with the Kingdom of God, but of which he did receive the keys (Mt 16,18-19). To the group of apostles is it given to know the mysteries of the Kingdom (Lk 8,10). During the Last Supper He puts the sign of the New Testament in the perspective of the coming of the Kingdom of God, to keep alive the remembrance of his passion, his death and resurrection (Lk 22,15-21). So He will be with them always as the Risen Lord, who sends them to all nations (28,18-20).
The theme of the forthcoming general conference asks of us a deeper biblical reflection than is permitted to us within the scope of this article. Fr. Dehon underlined the prayer of Jesus: “Thy Kingdom come” (Mt 6,1), a prayer that becomes real through our co-operation, in deeds of justice, of mercy, of prayer and social activity, because so we follow the Lord in his ecce venio towards the Father and the human world.
II. Meaning of the human dedication to the Kingdom of God
It is perhaps by chance that the congregation explicitly puts forward the theme: the Kingdom of God in the year 2000. And for sure not in the trail of the millennium-symptom that occurred regularly at the turn of the century in the whole history of time and which was accompanied by extravagant signs of preaching and action, that disarranged people.
It is another motivation that earns ours attention when we occupy ourselves with this subject of the general conference. First of all I want to point to the question of the theology of history whether the human effort in the field of social, political, cultural, scientific or economic affairs has any influence on the coming of the Kingdom of God.
It stretches out over various fields of tension. On the one hand we profess the personal character of God’s acting for the salvation of mankind. On the other hand are we as Christians convinced of the calling to create, together with others, a socially just order.
As believers we strive for the coming of the Kingdom of God , but always within the view that the intention of God never can be realised solely by our effort. But we have no reason to excuse ourselves. Marx, Lenin, Berdiajev accuse Christians of making people accept their misery by preaching the Kingdom of God. The accusation of the opium ! Scientist and labourers left the church in great numbers because their effort for welfare and wellbeing did not seem compatible with the usual prayer for the Kingdom of God.
In order to live and develop our spirituality of the “ecce venio” it is necessary that we, in the dehonian way of following Christ, have a balanced view on the relation between our oblation to the Kingdom of God, that has been given to us, and the oblation of our Christian witness by word and work in this world, so that all receive air of the Kingdom and breathe more freely.
Theologians put the accent on different places (cf. O. Cullman; J. Daniélou s.j.; Y. Congar, o.p.; G. Thils; S. Lyonnet s.j.; C. Teilhard de Chardin s.j.; H. Cox a.o.)
A. Those who appeal to the eschatological character of the Kingdom are more impressed by the human weakness. To them there exists a contrast between the Kingdom of God and the human capacities. The Kingdom is absolutely transcendent; neither church nor world can produce it. They have a mainly pessimistic and distrustful attitude towards the present civilisation, technology, social and cultural shifts. The human labour ends in death and destruction. The breakthrough of the Kingdom of God at the Parousia takes place on the ruins of history. The divine seed and the human weeds grow together , but the last shall wither. In the trail of it they warn against a new modernism and the New Age-movement. Human effort should even not be mentioned as a preparation to the Kingdom of God.
B. Others put more emphasis on the mystery of Christ’s incarnation and the consequence of it for the creation. They search for a new determination of the place of the church in the world by putting some continuity between the human activity and the eschatological Kingdom of God. According to them there cannot be an unbridgeable gap between the Kingdom of God and the world.
The grace of the incarnation is more abundant than the sin: by conversion and baptism, through the eucharist of the risen Lord man will be purified and uplifted. His Spirit will gradually manifest itself in man and society. Faith in God and faith in the world are not only reconcilable, there exists even a positive convergence between the two in the direction of the Kingdom of God. There cannot be a place neither for a platonic and manicheistic pessimism nor for a contradistinction between the profane and the sacral, for those who in solidarity cooperate with the radiation of the Kingdom of God and make possible and produce the fruits of the spirit.
C. According to the theologians in the line of Congar a synthesis is possible between the so called monastic flight and the hopeful engagement. The created reality is nevertheless ambivalent. The Kingdom of God is not the result of human effort and progress. We ought to be accessible for the gift of God. Man co-operates so far to the coming of the Kingdom by creating favourable conditions. God’s intervention is gratuitous, in the way a teacher resolves a difficult sum in arithmetic. But the diligent pupil is able to contribute in solving the sum and knows the sum.
In the life of the Christians sacrifice and the cross keep their sense to surmount the ambivalence of the reality and of the human labour ,and not to be obsessed by property or effort. In the relation between the creation and the Kingdom of God exists therefore a cohesion as much as a discontinuity. Meant is here the discontinuity of sin, which leads to the cross and the discontinuity of the resurrection which leads to fulfilment.
Adam was called to cultivate the Garden of Eden but he became disobedient. In the trail of the second Adam is it the point to repair the damaged garden and to supply her with higher potencies and quality. When human labour helps the creation forward, then it can mean something to the Kingdom of God, here and now.
The 2nd Vatican Council states: “... the Christians, en route to the heavenly city, ought to seek and savour the things from above; it does not diminish, indeed it increases their important duty to work together with all the people for the building of a more human world” (Gaudium et Spes, nr. 57).
More than a hundred years ago the young curate Leo Dehon declaimed in his Christmas-sermons and his passion-meditations against the employers and the social abuses he emphasised the social side of the Christian faith, the rights of the labourers, the unity of the nations. Social peace he considered as a sign of the social Kingdom of Jesus Christ.
Our constitutions see the life of the founder marked as: “intimately united to the heart of Christ and establishing his Reign in individuals and in society” (Cst nr. 4 ). Spirituality and deacony are the reverse sides of one and the same medal. The Reign is described in it as “this new world, which through groping human efforts is already springing up and which will find its fulfilment . Human efforts can only arrive at the fullness of the Kingdom of God, if it is constantly purified and transfigured by the cross and resurrection of Christ (nr. 29). With that our Rule of Life underlines in a balanced manner the present conciliar and theological thinking on the sense of human labour with regard to the Kingdom. The dehonian oblation is as well incarnational as eschatological.
The following affirmation too is plain and clear: “Following the founder, we want, in accordance with the signs of the times and in communion with the life of the church, to contribute to establish: the reign of justice and Christian charity in the world” (nr. 32). The intensive struggle of our contemporaries for liberation from all that harms the dignity of people and threatens the realisation of their most profound aspiration: truth, justice, love, freedom, we connect with the coming of the Reign (cf. nrs. 36-37). As religious we are in solidarity with them by participating in constructing the earthly city and building up the Body of Christ. We should be an effective sign that it is the Kingdom of God and his justice what should be sought above all and in all (nr. 38). At the same time our life in community and our profession of the evangelical counsels announce the coming Reign of God (nr. 60).
With the above given short consideration in view, it seems legitimate and desirable to look with a critical eye at aspects of the human effort in the field of the economy in relation to the salvation-bringing economy of the Kingdom of God.
III. Economy
The “reign of the economy” is rightly on the agenda of the Congregation of Fr. Dehon. Our founder and first superior general knew exemplary well what it was all about, when he amongst other things, between 1893 and 1903, spoke of and wrote about the social-economical situation in France and Europe. That is why the problem of our time asks for our serious study and reflection in order that from our specific mission we undertake concrete action and in doing so not fall into simplifications. Stupidity disqualifies piety and leads to negative consequences in apostolate and pastoral work.
The next reflection too has to be rather short and invites to a further study and re-reading of what others already have said before (cf. Dehoniana 1998-3).
Since the collapse of the communistic system the world is for a great deal ruled by the capitalistic free-market economy. One of the “fathers “ of it is Adam Smith, who presented in 1776 his book “The Wealth of Nations”. The central idea of it lies in the conviction that each citizen, who in a totally free economy pursues his own interest, is guided by an “invisible hand” so that he contributes to a purpose he did not think of , namely a positive development of the society.
This optimistic thesis leads in fact to the triumph of the liberal ideology of the unlimited free -market, the system of the uncontrollable “laissez-faire”. It considers the general interest as the addition sum of the numberless decisions of individual consuments in a totally free-market economy. In such a situation the free strong one competes with the unfree weak one.
Pope John Paul II leaves - besides many other documents - a truly social-ethical patrimonies, that earns our interest. “Preach my encyclical letters” Pope Leo XIII said to Fr. Dehon... (1981: Laborem Exercens; 1987: Solicitudo rei socialis; 1991: Centesimus Annus, a.s.o.).
The church raises her voice strongly, often by the mouth of the pope and bishops, against the extreme liberal-economical model of the business community, which causes growing tensions between the rich who become richer and the poor who become poorer. If everybody with force persues his own interest, the general interest cannot be served. Private initiative and economic egoism show “sinful structures” which have their roots in personal sins (Solicitudo Rei Socialis, nr. 36,2). If self interest reigns, the risk is life-sized that the market becomes subject of idolatry (idem, nr. 40). Then it stops not with globalising and technological developments, then marginalising of persons and whole nations expands, then exploitation, environmental pollution and weapon-trade get all chances. A transnational concern could without punishment let people relapse into misery by arbitrary moves of capital, while he who steals a bike gets fined immediately.
In the name of social justice a critical investigation should be made into the consequences of the market-mechanism in order to make the necessary corrections. Indeed, it is since long evident that the unbalanced structure of international free-trade-traffic is in need of change.
The exaggerated centrally guided communistic economies led in those countries to failure, due to dictatorship, expulsion of all private initiative, inefficiency and wastage. The church recognises that the working of the market can be an efficient mechanism to gear in a developed society supply to demand and to foster general welfare.
Condition thereto is that the personal responsibility is recognised, the working of the market is regulated, wrapped in a democratic structure, in which the public authorities can mediate between the occasionally clashing demands of the market-economy and general welfare. Social-ethical codes of conduct should be given to the greater industries and the multinationals, which are anchored in juridical guidelines, so that the hidden concentrations of power no longer can escape from every political and social control.
In the line of Fr. Dehon we will in a concrete way pray and work, in the spirit of the “ecce venio” for a “civilisation of love”, for social justice on the domain of world-economy. So reconciliation may come about, when the poor, the blind, the captives, the oppressed (cf. Lk 4,18) are promoted to co-workers to establish signs of the Kingdom. This apostolate has a positive conditioning effect for the Kingdom of God which will be given to us.
IV. What have we to do?
It is risky to give now- before the general conference on “Economy and the Kingdom of God even has started - general consequences for our religious community-life, apostolate and pastoral work. Even more so, because the 20th general chapter has given as theme to the submitted plan “We the congregation in service of our mission: “act on local level, think world-wide”. Local acting in our Congregation will be varied, in accordance with the social-cultural context, in which our communities “see, judge and act”.
“What shall we do then?” (Lk 3,10) is the classic question, wherever the Kingdom of God is preached. What is more : it concerns the finding of new forms of expression for our being present and giving witness to the world (cf. Cst 104-144).
1. Our world-wide thinking on e.g.” economy and the Kingdom of God “ shall allover the congregation be fed by Holy Scripture, our Rule of Life, the social teachings of the church, the assistance and experience of fellow-members on the level of the Congregation. It is worthwhile to check which spirit your and my newspaper, review and audiovisuals media imbue re e.g. economy and justice.
2. Furthermore is it worth to consider the possibility to organise meetings with confreres from the wider surrounding, for a liturgical celebration, an introduction and exchange of thoughts on the theme of the general conference. On the whole the general and provincial councils can be of service with continued formation so that we better know what we are talking about e.g. neo-liberalism, social gap between rich and poor, globalising, marginalising, children’s labour, environment pollution, the burden of debts, 24 hours economy and Sunday rest a.s.o.
3. A supply of prayers and reflections round the theme: “Economy and the Kingdom of God” can help us to integrate our social action in our prayer : “Thy Kingdom come”.
4. Can the poor and marginalised feel themselves addressed in our way of speech and prayer, preaching, catechesis, liturgy and e.g. our parish bulletins? Can we in our parish, deanery or diocese promote the making of a “social chart” in which we give expression of material, spiritual and social needs, so that social-pastoral policy and action can act upon these needs?
5. Vision, study and deliberation remain important! Even more important is that after that we follow Christ authentically and prudently as person and as society, concrete and contemporary, by giving liberating signs of his Kingdom. Exchange of experience is often instructive.
6. Let us discuss the social context, in which the practice of the three vows can be experienced as relevant. Which are the positive and negative developments, when it concerns power, possession and sexuality in our own circles? (cf. Jo 2,15-17; Cst nrs. 40-59).
What are the implications of our profession on the evangelical counsels for our community - life and social apostolate ?
a. poverty: From the economical point of view we live in a liberal-capitalist system; the North-South rift goes right through our Congregation. Is our community-budget discussible ? Our funds and project-policy ?
b. obedience: The actual relations of power are in the civil society for the greater part determined by the economy, often bedded in an ideology and worked out by politics. The exercise of power is sometimes accompanied by exploitation , arbitrariness and damage to the environment. Do the marginalised in our pastoral conduct have any chances and shared responsibility?
c. celibacy: Can our witness have any influence in a society in which money, achievement and utility predominate? Where do values like devotion, service, joy and friendship run the risk of being forgotten? Violence and terror are often accompanied by unbalanced living of the sexuality.
Can religious and married people in this field in our pastoral work mean something to each other? a.s.o, a.s.o.
Finally a Chinese saying: if you can’t do what you want, you must will what you can!
(Translated by M. Holland, scj)