Yesterday, Pope Francis issued his fourth encyclical, Dilexit Nos; He loved us.
Today’s Gospel (Luke 12:54-59) could perhaps shed some light on why this particular topic of the human and divine love of the heart of Jesus Christ is so timely. In this Gospel passage, Jesus tells the crowds:
When you see a cloud rising in the west you say immediately that it is going to rain – and so it does; and when you notice that the wind is blowing from the south you say that it is going to be hot – and so it is. You hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of the earth and the sky; why do you not know hot to interpret the present time?
Pope Francis is calling us to rediscover the love of God – to rediscover our own human hearts – that we might better navigate this present time. We need a wisdom to discover the presence of God in our world, in each other, so as to be able to read the ‘signs of the times’ in a way that helps us rediscover all that is good in the human person and live by Gospel values which means to live according to the interior (heart) order which is God-given and leads us to a properly ordered society rooted in peace and justice.
Numerous times during discussions at the synod this month we recognize this need for humanity to transcend itself. Basically what that means is for the human person to learn how to live a meaningful and fulfilling life which cannot be found in selfishness and greed. In our Christian tradition, the path of ‘transcendence’ is the relationship with Jesus Christ. “Our fulfillment as human beings is found in love.” (Dilexit Vos, #23)
Once we discover this unconditional love of God, made flesh in the Son of God, Jesus, we know ourself as loved and we begin to live life as a response of love to Love. As Pope Francis teaches: “We need once more to take up the word of God and to realize, in doing so, that our best response to the love of Christ’s heart is to love our brothers and sisters. There is no greater way for us to return love for love. (Dilexit Vos, #167)
I remember a story a Jesuit priest from India, Fr. Herbie Alphonso told in a spirituality class at the Gregorian University while I was a student in Rome. He often led other Jesuit priests on their annual 30 day, silent retreat. There was one older member of the community who was known for his rather ‘crusty’ personality.
Fr. Herbie told this priest at the beginning of the retreat that his sole focus for prayer would be to discover God’s love for him. The priest told Fr. Herbie: “I cannot do that.” To which, Fr. Herbie said: “Never-the-less, that is the sole grace that you are to seek in these days of prayer.” Eventually, the Lord answered this priest’s request to know God’s love in a deeply personal way. And the priest was overwhelmed!
Fr. Herbie recalled his visit with the priest after this foundational breakthrough. He came into my room and told me: “Fr. Herbie, God loves me!” So remarkable was his experience, Fr. Herbie shared that every time thereafter he encountered this priest, he would always greet him with the same enthusiasm: “Fr. Herbie, God loves me!”
One final thought: given my own theological focus on spirituality, my natural ‘lens’ of understanding synodality is the starting point, namely to know Jesus Christ in a deeply personal relationship. It is Christ who gives us the Holy Spirit. It is through our relationship with Christ and our sensitivity to the promptings of the Holy Spirit that we come to know God’s will, and by which we are given the grace to live it! This is what synodality requires, knowing the will of God for the Church and engaging more and more of the baptized in the mission of the Church.
A few times when I speak about this, someone has said: “But that has always been the case. How do we concretely implement synodality?” It struck me in prayer yesterday, that if people keep passing over this ‘first step – to know Christ and grow in sensitivity to the Holy Spirit’ we will never be capable of true discernment. To know Christ is indeed ‘practical’. In fact, for Christians, it is necessary!
This brings us back to Dilexit Nos; He Loved Us. Indeed, it is Providential that Pope Francis gives the Church this great teaching on the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the Human and Divine Love of Jesus at the precise moment we are ready to implement synodality after this years-long synod.
My prayer is that all may come to know what St. Paul in his Letter to the Ephesians said so well:
6For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that he may grant you in accord with the riches of his glory to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in the inner self, and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the holy ones what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
Ephesians 3:18-19
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