The Opportunity of the Day (if not a lifetime) - Interpreting Wrath & Love in a Way that Opens Our Hearts to a Future of Hope

With the glorious resurrection and forgiveness of Easter upon us and with Pope Francis' exclamation of the meaning of God's Love in his Easter speech it seems a great time to throw out a challenge for the day (if not a lifetime). First let us soak up the Easter meaning in the words of Pope Francis:

What a joy it is for me to announce this message: Christ is risen! I would like it to go out to every house and every family, ...

Most of all, I would like it to enter every heart, for it is there that God wants to sow this Good News: Jesus is risen, there is hope for you, you are no longer in the power of sin, of evil! Love has triumphed, mercy has been victorious! The mercy of God always triumphs!

What does it mean that Jesus is risen? It means that the love of God is stronger than evil and death itself; it means that the love of God can transform our lives and let those desert places in our hearts bloom. The love God can do this!

This same love for which the Son of God became man and followed the way of humility and self-giving to the very end, down to hell – to the abyss of separation from God – this same merciful love has flooded with light the dead body of Jesus, has transfigured it, has made it pass into eternal life. Jesus did not return to his former life, to earthly life, but entered into the glorious life of God and he entered there with our humanity, opening us to a future of hope.

What a great way of describing the Transformative effect of the Risen Lord and how His Forgiveness is the way of opportunities, the way of "opening us to a future of hope." The idea of this opportunity to re-imagine God's Love comes after watching Evan Almighty, a warm & fuzzy modern day version of the story of the flood and Noah building the ARK.

So first let us get re-acclimated to the story - Gen 6:9-9:17  ...

Now "opening us to a future of hope," watch the clip from the movie where Al Mighty masterfully creates a safe space within the heart of downcast Joan Baxter so she has an opportunity to wrestle with a different version of love.

Al says, "...lot of people didn't get the point of the story. They think it is about God's wrath and anger... They love it when God gets angry... "

Joan asks, "Well, what is the story about, the ARK?"

Al Mighty responds, "... well, I think it is a love story, about believing in each other, ... everyone entered the ARK side-by-side." 

He then continues, "...sounds like an opportunity. Let me ask you something. If someone prays for patience, do you think that God gives them patience or does He give them the opportunity to be patient? If one prays for courage does God give them courage or the opportunity to be courageous? If someone prays for the family to be closer do you think God actually wants them to have warm fuzzy feelings or does He give them opportunities to love each other?" 

Now let us ponder the opportunity: If the story of the ARK is NOT about God's wrath and anger but rather it is a love story then could it be that wherever we interpret God's wrath in scripture that we are actually projecting our own violence in place of, or to avoid, God's Love?

As I understand Pope Francis' Easter message as saying that we first need to allow a safe space to be created in our hearts to bloom so that our eyes may be opened so as to witness just who it is we are wrestling with.  Instead of reading the flood story as representing God's wrath and anger; what if we read Gen 6:11-12:  "Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight and was full of violence," ... full of violence: the earth was flooded with OUR resentment, wrath & anger; OUR violence. ... Humm, so are we not like the disciples on the road to Emmaus as we reflect on Pope Francis' message? What does it mean that Jesus is risen? ... it means that the love of God can transform our lives and let those desert places in our hearts bloom!

The Emmaus Road Story sheds the light of Easter on a way of reading the texts of the Old Testament - Jesus as Interpreter. What we get from the disciples' encounter along the road to Emmaus is that the teaching of Christ is being passed from those who are being forgiven to those who are being forgiven. God so loved us that He give us an opportunity to approach the flood narrative in Genesis (and all of Scripture) through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus.

You know that just a few days ago on Good Friday, we have Jesus left alone yet still faithful to the God of life, not giving in to the flood of voices shouting, "Away with him! Away with him!" Are not these voices the desperate cries of those stuck in the abyss of separation from God, as Pope Francis referred to in his Easter message?

* Let us look deeper, isn't Jesus swept up in the flood of our violence? In fact, isn't he the victim of it? For three days, at least. But, no! The cross and tomb are really his ARK! Being sealed up in the tomb has really been his ARK of salvation. For in three days, Jesus emerges as the only one to truly survive the flood of violence. And this time God's act of salvation will be the one to finally change history - which is to say, Jesus' imitation of God's self-emptying Love, the empty tomb, opens us to a future of hope. This hope is not some 'me-and-Jesus' myth of pop-Christianity rather, Jesus Christ is risen to begin life, to begin creation, AGAIN! By this Gift of being forgiven, we are presented the opportunity to start anew. He does so as the One who can help us go beyond the floods of violence so we may reach the shore of forgiveness - a spaciousness in the heart, a place where there is no rivalry suggesting that the true purpose of forgiveness is the creation of a new WE - not just a new me, but a new us. Now THAT is an ARK of salvation.

Just as 'Al Mighty' called Evan Baxter (Noah) out of the rising tide of violence, so too with Jesus' help, we can survive the scandal and dictatorship of today's relativism that cause so many to be swept up into the abyss of separation from God. Increasingly, the scandal of relativism, like floods of violence, get people all worked up easily sweeping them into the abyss, but do not despair, there are the remnant who resist and stay faithful.

Going back to the opportunity laid out before us, pause and reflect on the rising conflict(s) in your own life - at home; at work; even now in our nation. Be aware how easy is it to get swept up with the chorus singing; Crucify him, crucify him.

At one point in the movie Evan was abandoned: just like Noah and just like Jesus, we too can expect that lonely feeling as we try to remain faithful when so many are caught up in the violence of our culture's relativism when God's Love is proclaimed.

This same love for which the Son of God became man and followed the way of humility and self-giving to the very end, down to hell – to the abyss of separation from God – this same merciful love has flooded with light the dead body of Jesus, has transfigured it, has made it pass into eternal life. Jesus did not return to his former life, to earthly life, but entered into the glorious life of God and he entered there with our humanity, opening us to a future of hope.

* See Pastor Paul J. Nuechterlein and his sermon on Surviving the Floods of Violence.

Pope Francis - His recent 2013 Lenten Letter

Pope Francis' (Cardinal Bergoglio) Lenten Letter, 2013

[Translation and emphases are those of Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam.]

And rend your hearts, and not your garments, and turn to the Lord your God: for he is gracious and merciful, patient and rich in mercy, and ready to repent of the evil. (Joel 2:13)

Little by little we become accustomed to hearing and seeing, through the mass media, the dark chronicle of contemporary society, presented with an almost perverse elation, and also we become [desensitized] to touching it and feeling it all around us [even] in our own flesh.  Drama plays out on the streets, in our neighborhoods, in our homes and -- why not? -- even in our own hearts.  We live alongside a violence that kills, that destroys families, that enlivens wars and conflicts in so many countries of the world.  We live with envy, hatred, slander, the mundane in our heart.

The suffering of the innocent and peaceable buffets us nonstop; the contempt for the rights of the most fragile of people and nations is not so distant from us; the tyrannical rule of money with its demonic effects, such as drugs, corruption, trafficking in people -- even children -- along with misery, both material and moral, are the coin of the realm [today].  The destruction of dignified work, painful emigrations and the lack of a future also join in this [tragic] symphony.  

Our errors and sins as Church are not beyond this analysis.  Rationalizing selfishnesses, does not diminish it, lack of ethical values within a society metastisizes in [our] families, in the environment of [our] neighborhoods, towns and cities, [this lack of ethical values] testifies to our limitations, to our weaknesses and to our incapacity to transform this innumerable list of destructive realities.

The trap of powerlessness makes us wonder:  Does it make sense to try to change all this?  Can we do anything against this?  Is it worthwhile to try, if the world continues its carnival merriment, disguising all [this tragedy] for a little while?  But, when the mask falls, the truth appears and, although to many it may sound anachronistic to say so, once again sin becomes apparent, sin that wounds our very flesh with all its destructive force, twisting the destinies of the world and of the history.  

Lent is presented us as a shout of truth and certain hope that comes us to say "Yes, it is possible to not slap on makeup, and not draw plastic smiles as if nothing happened."  Yes, it is possible that all is made new and different because God remains "rich in kindness and mercy, always willing to forgive" and He encourages us to begin anew time and again.  Today, again, we are invited to undertake a Paschal road toward Life, a path that includes the cross and resignation; a path that will be uncomfortable but not fruitless.  We are invited to admit that something inside us is not going well, (in society or in the Church) to change, to turn around, to be converted.

Today, the words of the prophet Joel are strong and challenging: Rend your heart, not your clothing: be converted to the Lord, your God.  These [words] are an invitation to all people, nobody is excluded.
  
Rend your heart, not the clothing of artificial penance without [an eternal] future.  
Rend your heart, not the clothing of technical fasting of compliance that [only serves to keep us] satisfied.  
Rend your heart, not the clothing of egotistical and superficial prayer that does not reach the inmost part of [your] life to allow it to be touched by God.  

Rend your heart, that we may say with the Psalmist:  "We have sinned."  

"The wound of the soul is sin: Oh, poor wounded one, recognize your Doctor!  Show him the wounds of your faults.  And, since from Him our most secret thoughts cannot hide themselves, make the cry of your heart felt [to Him].  Move him to compassion with your tears, with your insistence ¡beg him!  Let Him hear your sighs, that your pain reaches Him so that, at the end, He can tell you:  The Lord has forgiven your sins."  (St. Gregory the Great) 

This is the reality of our human condition.  This is the truth that approaches authentic reconciliation between God and men.  This is not a matter of discrediting [one's] self-worth but of penetrating, to its fullest depth, our heart and to take charge of the mystery of suffering and pain that had tied us down for centuries, for thousands of years, [in fact,] forever.  

Rend your hearts so that through this opening we can truly see.  

Rend your hearts, open your hearts, because only with [such a] heart can we allow the entry of the merciful love of the Father, who loves us and heals us.  

Rend your hearts the prophet says, and Paul asks us -- almost on his knees -- "be reconciled with God."  Changing our way of living is both a sign and fruit of a torn heart, reconciled by a love that overwhelms us.
  
This is [God's] invitation, juxtaposed against so many injuries that wound us and can tempt us temptation to be hardened:  Rend your hearts to experience, in serene and silent prayer, the gentle tenderness of God.

Rend your hearts to hear the echo of so many torn lives, that indifference [to suffering] does not paralyze us.  

Rend your hearts to be able to love with the love with which we are beloved, to console with the consolation with which we are consoled and to share what we have received.  

The liturgical time the Church starts today is not only for us, but also for the transformation of our family, of our community, of our Church, of our Country, of the whole world.  They are forty days so that we may convert to the same holiness as God's; that we become collaborators who receive the grace and the potential to reconstruct human life so that everyone may experience the salvation which Christ won for us by His death and resurrection.  

Next to prayer and penitence, as a sign of our faith in the force of an all-transforming Easter, we also begin, as in previous years a "Lenten Gesture of Solidarity."  As Church in Buenos Aires, marching towards Easter and believing the Kingdom of God is possible we need that, in our hearts torn by the desire of conversion and by love, grace may blossom.  [We need] effective gestures to alleviate the pain of so many of our brothers who walk alongside.  "No act of virtue can be large if it does not also benefit another...  Therefore, no matter how you spend the day fasting, no matter how you may sleep on a hard floor, and how you may eat ashes and sigh continuously, if do not do good to others, you do not accomplish anything great."  (St. John Chrysostom)

This year of faith we are traversing is also an opportunity God gives us to grow and to mature in an encounter with the Lord made visible in the suffering face of so many children without a future, in the trembling hands of the elders who have been forgotten and in the trembling knees of so many families who continue to face life without finding anyone who will assist them.  

I wish you a holy Lent, a penitential and fruitful Lent and, please, I ask you all that you pray for me.  

May Jesus bless you and may the Blessed Virgin care for you.  

Paternally,
Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio S.J.