THE CONGREGATION
IN THE LIFE OF THE CHURCH
Carlos Alberto da Costa Silva, scj
The wish of the General Conference in Recife, Brazil (16-26 May, 2000) was not only to present decisions of a practical nature to the Congregation; behind the reflection that had been made both before and after the Conference there was a spirituality which is explicit for us S.C.J. religious, in our community life and in our vow of poverty.
Certainly we must change the world and its relationships, but there must also be a change, a conversion, in us.
A. The Ideal of Our Christian and Religious Life
Jesus, according to Mt 5:48, proposes: “So be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect”.
What is the perfection of God which must be imitated? The perfection of God is love-given freely, love-communion, love-solidarity.
1. Love-Communion in the Bosom of the Trinity
In the Old Testament, God revealed Himself as the God of the Covenant with humanity, that is, He wanted to affiliate all human beings to Himself (Cf. Gn 9:1-17). The covenant with the patriarch Abram (Cf. Gn 12:1-3) was destined to create a sign among the peoples: they were also called to be the people of God (Cf. Rv 21:3). The covenant with all the people of Israel (Cf. Ex 19 and 24) was an anticipation and a symbol of what God wants to do with all the peoples of the world; the twelve tribes and the twelve Apostles of the New Testament have a symbolic significance: the reunion of the dispersed peoples - to serve God and to thus become the people of God - into one redeemed humanity, living as a messianic community. This communion which God wishes to accomplish with humanity, expressed by the image of the covenant, is internalized in the heart of every person (cf. Jer 31:33, Ez 37:26, Heb 10:16). Communion seeks out the intimacy and the freedom of the human heart and not only its social and political expression.
In the New Testament it is St. Paul, St. John and the Acts of the Apostles which best express God-communion. Today communion acquires a concrete historical essence in reality-Jesus and in the communication of the Spirit. To be in Christ and in the Spirit, to live with Christ and with the Spirit is what constitutes the great communion with the Father (Cf. 1 Jn 1:3).
In St. Paul the ways of communion are two: faith and the eucharistic meal. By means of faith we unite ourselves with the resurrected Lord: one lives with Him, one dies with Him, one is delivered with Him, one sits in glory with Him (Cf. Rom 6:6-8, 2 Cor 7:8, Gal 2:19, Col 2:12; 3:1, Eph 2:6, 2 Tm 2:12); with adhesion to Christ there begins a community of life and destiny with Him, even in suffering (Cf. Phil 3:10).
This communion becomes deeper through the eucharistic meal. Eating the body of the Lord, the community becomes the body of Christ (Cf. 1 Cor 10:16-18, Rom 12:5). Communion with Christ also means communion with the Spirit of Christ (Cf. 2 Cor 13:13).
St. John meditated on the communion with the Father, to which Christ had introduced us so that we may all be one (Cf. Jn 17:21). He expresses it also with the terms being in and remaining in (Cf. Jn 14:20, 15:4).
Communion with the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit is expressed in fraternal communion (Cf. 1 Jn 1:1-3). This takes concrete shape when all goods are put in common (Acts 2:42, 4:32) and when there is an intense concern for the poor of other communities; for them collections were made as an expression of communion (2 Cor 9:13, Rom 15:26). The Letter to the Hebrews reminds us also that this mutual aid (communion) is the sacrifice which God finds pleasing (Cf. Heb 13:16). With faith, with the celebration of the Eucharist, with adhesion to the message of Jesus, with making all goods common property one achieves utopia in a community: “The community of believers was of one heart and mind” (Acts 4:32). (...)
(Thus) we can better understand what it means to affirm that God is communion. He is communion precisely because He is a Trinity of Persons. There are three Persons and a single communion, and a single trinitarian community. That is the most correct formula for representing the Christian God. In speaking of God we must always infer/offer to the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, each one present within the other in total reciprocity, in an immediacy of loving relationship; each one being for the other, through the other, in the other and with the other. No divine Person exists only for itself. They are always and eternally Persons existing in relation to each other.
The Father is Father because He has a Son. The Son is Son only in relation to the Father. The Spirit is Spirit because of the love with which the Father generates the Son and which the Son gives back to the Father. In pronouncing the Word (the Son) the Father sends forth the breath which is the Holy Spirit. Fruit of love, the Spirit loves the Father and the Son as He is loved by Them, in a play of reciprocal gift and communion which comes from eternity and goes towards eternity.
The Persons exist as Persons because of the eternal relationship of each of them with the others. The trinitarian unity is made up of these relationships; it is a unity which is of the essence of the Holy Trinity, a tri-unity. It is this unity to which St. John refers when he presents Jesus as saying: “So that they may all be one, as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us... so that they may be one... that they may be brought to perfection as one” (Jn 17:21-23).
The social unity which exists in the Trinity is the foundation of human unity; the former is inserted in the latter. The persons involved are not annulled but strengthened. The unity is constituted starting from veritable persons, both in the Trinity and in humanity, in so far as the persons are essentially in relation with each other. The union which governs human relationships and the human community as a whole is an image of the union which exists in the Trinity. In spite of all fractures, the Trinity intends to be seen as being represented in history in the measure in which persons put everything in common, establish equalitarian and just relationships between everyone, and share being and having.
It was Richard of St. Victor (d. 1173) who, in the theological tradition, with mastery, went deeply into this communitarian perspective of the most Holy Trinity and its impact on human life. For him, God is essentially love which communicates itself and establishes communion. Love of the Father makes the Son, to which He consigns the whole of His being, burst out like fire from His loins. The Son, in His turn, restores to the Father all the love received. It is an absolute and eternal meeting. But it is not the love of lovers who close themselves up together in solitude; it expands. Father and Son make a common gift of Themselves: that is the Holy Spirit. Thus the Christian God is a process of effusion, of meeting, of communion between distinct beings, bound by life and by love.
Christian theology has coined a word to express this life and this communion, ... pericóresi (in Greek), circuminsessio or circumincessio (in Latin)1.
Therefore, the founding experience of the human person is that of loving and of being loved. The people of God of the Old Testament and the community of the redeemed of the New Testament also had this experience, and it is this experience of love which has been transmitted to us by the Holy Scriptures. As John says:
“Not that we have loved God, but that he loved us” (1 Jn 4:10).
Leafing through the Scriptures we find these signs of God’s love expressed in many ways. Fruits of the love of God are creation itself, the call of Abram and the choice of the Jewish people, the prophetic and apostolic vocations and, the culminating moment, the incarnation of the Word of God, Jesus of Nazareth, and the risen Christ, grandiose sign of divine love.
2) The Person of Jesus
The dimension of action and the dimension of the Word are interwoven in the Person of Jesus, one completes the other, one explains the other. The two are complimentary to each other.
2.1) Jesus’ Attitude of Solidarity2
A reflection concerning terms - such as compassion (splangcnon) and feeling with, trembling (having spasmodic contractions of the viscera), to be moved to one’s viscera (splangcnon) - in the New Testament shows us how God’s solidarity of love for us in Jesus Christ comes about.
In the New Testament only Luke, in his Gospel (1:78), uses the noun: compassion (mercy); at the same time, in the Synoptic Gospels, the verb “pity” is often used, always referring to the comportment of Jesus (on one occasion, in the Shepherd of ERMA, we find it referring to God), thus being exclusive to divine action.
There are three parables which have this term:
- Mt 18:26,27: when the servant said “be patient with me” the master complies - “moved with compassion the master of that servant let him go”. We should note here that later the master is angered by the ungrateful servant.
- Also in the Parable of the Lost Son, or better, of the Merciful Father, in Lk 15:11-32 - “his father caught sight of him, and was filled with compassion. He ran to his son”, but the elder brother became angry. The characters are involved in this dimension of human feelings - compassion and anger - in order to demonstrate a specific action of God.
- In the Parable of the Good Samaritan, in Lk 10:29-37, the traveler - “was moved with compassion at the sight”. This indicates the perfect attitude of one who loves God in loving their neighbor.
Mark uses the term 4 times to indicate the messianic behavior of Jesus. In 6:34, in telling of the miracle of the multiplication of the loaves, he says that when Jesus “disembarked and saw the vast crowd, his heart was moved with pity for them”, and the same thing is said in the telling of the second multiplication of the loaves in 8:2.
Also in Mk 1:41 and 9:22, texts traditionally only to be found in Mark, the term reoccurs in the accounts describing the curing of a leper and of an epileptic. Concerning these texts, J. Behm writes: “One would certainly belittle the importance of the term to have compassion, in these two secondary texts, if we considered it only as a narrative effect. It is, instead, a theological characterization of Jesus as Messiah, in whom divine mercy is present”3.
Matthew, in 14:14 and 15:32, uses the term when he speaks of the multiplication of the loaves and it is repeated by Mark, in 6:34, when he introduces the mission of the Twelve: He “saw the vast crowd, his heart was moved with pity for them, for they were like sheep without a shepherd”. In addition to this, Matthew, in 20:34, uses the verb when speaking of the healing of the two blind men, in Jesus’ response to them when they cried out “Lord, Son of David, have pity on us!”
These passages from Matthew, like those from Mark, “characterize the messianic figure of Jesus and show the tendency of the tradition to describe ever more amply the figure of Jesus by using messianic attributes”4.
The same thing applies to the passage in Lk 7:13, which describes the resurrection of the son of the widow of Nain: “When the Lord saw her, he was moved with pity for her” and He performed the miracle.
There is a conclusion which we cannot let pass unobserved. The Samaritan, like Jesus, “had compassion” and he moved in a concrete way, expressing his solidarity with the man who had been attacked, not only affectively but effectively5. At this point we should remember what John Paul II said in his encyclical Sollicitudo Rei Socialis, n. 38: Solidarity “is not a feeling of vague compassion or shallow distress at the misfortunes of so many people, both near and far. On the
contrary, it is a firm and persevering determination to commit oneself to the common good”.
This was the example given by our Lord Jesus, who not only had compassion, but followed compassion with action in favor of the multitudes or of individual persons. It is the taking of a stance, a concrete action, an act of solidarity.
This passage of the New Testament - the Parable of the Good Samaritan - shows us an example of the behavior of effective solidarity which Jesus proposed for us regarding other people; and Jesus, being the Christ, expresses, in His messianic person, the love of the Father towards mankind, and bears in Himself the “proposal of love” as a way for mankind to be towards each other and for mankind to be towards God.
Again in the Gospels there is the passage, quoted above from Lk 1:78 translated in the Jerusalem Bible as “because of the merciful heart of our God”, or perhaps also for the “visceral mercy of God”. The escatological character of the passage appears evident and “the escatological and revealing work of God is seen as a flowing out of His affectionate mercy”6. Here we find ourselves dealing with a language which is very close to our Dehonian spirituality, where the Heart of God is presented as the source of love and mercy.
God, who for love created us, has called the patriarchs and sent the prophets. He even, in the fullness of time, sent His own Son, born of a woman, who loved us and spoke to us and humbled Himself and gave Himself for us until death on the Cross. Here is how Paul expresses it in Phil 2:5-8: “Have among yourselves the same attitude that is also yours in Christ Jesus, Who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God something to be grasped. Rather he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, coming in human likeness; and found human in appearance, he humbled himself, becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross”.
And John recalls the source of the relationship between men (1 Jn 3:1): “See what love the Father has bestowed on us that we may be called the children of God. Yet so we are!” And he draws the conclusion: “Whoever is without love does not know God, for God is love. In this way the love of God was revealed to us; God sent his only Son into the world so that we might have life through him. In this is love; not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as expiation for our sins” (1 Jn 4:8-10).
Therefore the love in communion and in solidarity present in Jesus is a reflection of the love of God the Father who is incarnate in Him. In His actions we have a proposal and an example.
2.2 The Proclamation of the Kingdom of God
The proclamation of the Kingdom, in a few words, is the proclamation of that love of God towards men and women which demands love between His sons and daughters. Concrete love, like the welcoming of the Kingdom, is a love which asks us to manifest new behaviors, a new way of living.
2.2.1 The Capacity of Sharing
The proclamation of the Kingdom of God is demanding. Think of the words Jesus spoke to the rich young man: “If you wish to be perfect, go sell what you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me” (Mt 19:21).
The text recalls Jesus’ invitation to His disciples “You will then be perfect as the Father is perfect”. It seems clear that sharing is a way of imitating the perfection of the Father.
The community of the first disciples understood this invitation very well, which explains the attitude of many of them, including Barnabas: “Thus Joseph, also named by the apostles Barnabas (which is translated ‘son of encouragement’, a Levi, a Cypriot by birth, sold a piece of property that he owned, then brought the money and put it at the feet of the apostles” (Acts 4:36.37).
Sharing, however, always remains a free act, a free response; and this justifies Peter’s reproof of Ananias: “But Peter said, ‘Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart so that you lied to the holy spirit and retained part of the price of the land? While it remained unsold, did it not remain yours? and when it was sold, was it not still under your control? Why did you contrive this deed? You have lied not to human beings, but to God’” (Acts 5:3,4). Ananias was pretending to follow the Lord closely.
Another example of this behavior is the collection promised by Paul for the poor, in accordance with the recommendation of the Apostles: “...and when they recognized the grace bestowed upon me, James and Kephas and John, who were reputed to be pillars, gave me and Barnabas their right hands in partnership, that we should go to the Gentiles and they to the circumcised. Only we were to be mindful of the poor, which is the very thing I was eager to do” (Gal 2:9,10).
Thus Paul’s collections for the poor of Jerusalem respond to an apostolic duty: “remember the poor”, provoke sharing among the believers. And on this point Paul is explicit: “Now in regard to the collection for the holy ones, you also should do as I ordered the churches of Galatia. On the first day of the week each of you should set aside and save whatever he can afford so that collections will not be going on when I come. And when I arrive, I shall send those whom you have approved with letters of recommendation to take your gracious gift to Jerusalem” (1 Cor 16:1-3).
And again: “Now, however, I am going to Jerusalem to minister to the holy ones. For Macedonia and Achaia have decided to make some contribution for the poor among the holy ones in Jerusalem; they decided to do it, and in fact they are indebted to them, for if the Gentiles have come to share in their spiritual blessings, they ought also to serve them in material blessings. So when I have completed this and safely handed over this contribution to them, I shall set out by way of you to Spain” (Rom 15:25-28).
It is worth emphasizing the phrase: “they are indebted to them...they ought also to serve them in material blessings”. According to Paul, sharing is a way “to serve”.
2.2.2. Living the Justice
This is a mandatory condition. Zacchaeus lived the justice which had already been preached in the Old Testament: “give back to the rightful owner that which has been taken from him”, and with that he welcomed Jesus and the Kingdom He proclaimed: “But Zacchaeus stood there and said to the Lord, ‘Behold, half of my possessions, Lord, I shall give to the poor, and if I have extorted anything from anyone I shall repay it four times over’ And Jesus said to him, ‘Today salvation has come to this house...’” (Lk 19:8,9).
But perhaps the passage where the need for justice and sharing appears more clearly is Lk 16:19-31: The Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus. Let us look at it in this synoptic frame:.
- The Rich Man and Lazarus: Lk 16:19-31.
There was a rich man who
dressed in purple garments and fine linen and dined
sumptuously each day. And lying at his door was
a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, who would
gladly have eaten his fill of the scraps that fell from the
rich man’s table. Dogs even used to come and lick his
sores.
The rich man also died
and was buried and from the netherworld, where he was in
torment. When the poor man died,
he was carried away by angels to the bosom of
Abraham.
He raised his eyes and
saw...* And he cried out, ‘Father Abraham, have pity on
me. Send...* *…and cool my tongue, for I am suffering
torment in these flames. *...Abraham far off and
Lazarus at his side *…Lazarus to dip the tip of his
finger in water…
Abraham replied:
‘My child, remember
you received what was good during your lifetime...* whereas
you are tormented. *... while Lazarus
likewise received what was bad; but now he is comforted
here…
He said, “Then I beg
you, father, send him to my father’s house, for I have
five brothers, so that he may warn them, lest they too come
to this place of torment”. But Abraham replied,
“They have Moses and the prophets. Let them listen to
them”. He said, “ Oh no, father Abraham,
but if someone from the dead goes to them they will
repent”. Then Abraham said, “If they will not
listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be
persuaded if someone should rise from the
dead”.
The chasm between them was created during their life. Death had only made the former chasm a definitive reality. To overcome the social-economic chasm it is necessary that there be sharing as an act of justice, the justice of the Kingdom.
B - Do you want to be perfect?
We are religious, we have chosen the Dehonian religious life as a path towards this perfection. We have taken our vows, among which is the vow of poverty. Therefore, how can one live the vow of poverty in the context of the global economy which denies the values of the Kingdom - sharing and justice - and does not favor love in communion and solidarity among men?
In the social-political-economic situation in which we are living there are positive aspects, but there are also many negative aspects: the incessant search for profit (without being ingenious, because there is no capitalistic economy without profit), the desire to earn as much as possible, the manipulation of propaganda, speculation on the stock market, virtual capital, well-being as the ultimate objective, the exclusion of the masses from economic, political, social and cultural life (“the masses that are the leftovers”, like Lazarus who waited for the scraps7).
In this context our vows can be seen as a protest, a contestation of today’s dominant ideology:
- for the maximization of the evangelical values of sharing, of justice and of solidarity;
- in order to live the basic principle of Christian Theological Anthropology: the centrality of the human person8 who must always be understood in relationship with the Trinity:
* Man was created in the image and the likeness of God,
* Redeemed by the blood of Christ,
* He is the temple of the Holy Spirit;
- and for the defense of the basic principles of the Social Doctrine of the Catholic Church:
* The dignity of the human person (Biblical Theology),
+ The universal destiny of goods (Patrology),
+ The common good (Scholasticism),
+ Subsidiary support,
+ Solidarity.
Conclusion: A Tentative S.C.J. Answer
Our General Conference was an attempt to bring up to date that response which we Dehonians must give9. Certainly it is neither a complete nor exhaustive answer, but a way has been indicated to us and we must follow it.
The important thing is that we are convinced that behind our social activity there is not a nondescript ideology or a decision for opportunism, but a spirituality based on the most genuine traditions of the Judeo-Christian faith.
1 . Cf. Boff, Leonardo, Trinità e Società (Trinity and Society) pp. 167-171, “Dio è un comunicare infinito” (God is an Infinite Communication).
2 . Cf. Carlos Alberto da Costa Silva, Cristo Solidário com seus irm_os e irm_s (Jesus Christ’s Solidarity With His Brothers and His Sisters), Dehoniana 94 (1997/3).
3 . J Behm, Grande Lessico del Nuovo Testamento (Great Lexicon of the New Testament). col. 921-922.
5 . This is a case in which a word of sociological origin - solidarity - became part of theology, and of the Social Doctrine of the Church, and was given a very precise meaning, one which is already currently in use.
6 . J. Behm, work cited, col. 928.
7 . We need only to think of all the people in Brazil, in the Philippines, and in other places, who live on the refuse of the big cities and who survive on the municipal garbage dumps.
8 . Centesimus Annus, n. 53: “During the last hundred years the Church has repeatedly expressed her thinking, while closely following the continuing development of the social question. She has certainly not done this in order to recover former privileges or to impose her own vision. Her sole purpose has been care and responsibility for the human person, who has been entrusted to her by Christ Himself: for this person, whom, as the Second Vatican Council recalls, is the only creature on earth which God willed for its own sake, and for which God has His plan, that is, a share in eternal salvation. We are not dealing here with humanity in the “abstract,” but with the real, “concrete”, “historical” person. We are dealing with each individual, since each one is included in the mystery of Redemption, and through this mystery Christ has united Himself with each one forever. It follows that the Church cannot abandon humanity, and that “this human person is the primary route that the Church must travel in fulfilling her mission...the way traced out by Christ Himself, the way that leads invariably through the mystery of the Incarnation and the Redemption”.
9 . At this point one must necessarily reread the message sent by the General Conference of Recife to the whole Dehonian Family. Document XVIII, p. 289ff.