Benedict turns to John

I am not impressed with Father Hezekiah’s “healing Masses” at one of our wealthiest Parish Churches — the Church of the Assumption. To tell you the truth, I am irritated at this conversion of the Eucharist into a spectacle. I am impressed by the Dominican Sisters who, now decades ago, came to a country they knew little of, to an off-shore island at the time serviced by a cranky twice-a-week boat. Those sisters lived at Chacachacare and nursed the country’s many lepers. If I am impressed it is because that defies our logic. We would find it difficult to nurse the leper sores of someone we loved. Those sisters chose to nurse the sores of strangers in a foreign land. It is this which is found in no other religion. It is this tangible expression of the union of God’s love to which Benedict calls us.

Gnosticism returns

I voted for Joseph Ratzinger in the Papal election with that silent vote that all Catholics have. The Rothweiller, they called him: this man who had held the most difficult of the Church’s tasks. It was he who had to ensure that the Faith passed on in our generation was the Faith of the Apostles which had been handed down to us over two thousand years ago. He was doing this at a period that was particularly difficult for the Church. Einstein’s theory of relativity becomes the relativity of values, morals, faithfulness, history and the ending of fact or truth. It is within this that there is a return to Gnosticism, that heresy which has haunted us since the beginning of the Church. We are fascinated by “secrets” hence the Da Vinci code. Fascinated when evil becomes good, hence the interest in the Gnostic text called the Gospel of Judas. In emotions we can attain our own secret knowledge. It is the end of Eternal Wisdom and the consecration of the “Me”.

Secular Gnosticism

This secular Gnosticism is no longer within small seats scattered across the middle-East as in the time of the Apostles. Modern media, the ease of travel, has spread it around the world as, not only acceptable, but modern. It is this and its consequences, even within the Church of our Lord, that Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger had to oppose — but what of Benedict XVI?

No mere talk

In his Encyclical God is love, Benedict takes the first letter of John. It takes little to recognise that Benedict XVI has not only read that letter of John — he has meditated on it, played with it, so to speak, lived in it. This is hardly by chance. It is known that John opposed early Gnosticism. It is in John’s letter to an early church that we find the title of Benedict’s Encyclical:

“My dear people, let us love one another

Since love comes from God

And everyone who loves is begotten by God,

Anyone who fails to love can never have known God

Because God is love (1 Jn 3.8)

John clarifies what he means by love:

“It cannot be mere talk but something real and active” (Jn 3.18).

John tells why he writes the letter — union; it is so that his readers would be in union with the Apostles just as they (the Apostles) are in union with God. Since God is love, that union is one in love. Those who have read my former articles can see the trends of love and of union as Benedict traces them in Biblical Israel and in the early Church. I note his quotations from that theologian of transition — St Augustine. Hannah Arendt, a German Jewish philosopher, who had escaped Germany, was also fascinated by Augustine.

The Good Samaritan

In my last article, I wrote of what Benedict considered love that was not “mere words” within the “Family of God” ie no one should suffer for something they need. Some variant of this is repeated three times in the text — marking its importance. But what of those who are not of the Family of God? Benedict reminds us that in Biblical Israel, your neighbour was one within its boundaries. In the parable of the Good Samaritan Jesus changes this.

Your neighbour is now anyone in need. In the last Judgement, that summary that Our Lord makes of his teaching in Matthew 25: It is those who have fed the hungry, given water to the thirsty, sheltered the homeless, have welcomed the stranger, visited the sick or gone to the help of the prisoner, who have done it to Him. It is they who are welcomed into Heaven.

Become we

Benedict quotes St Augustine “You see the Trinity when you see Charity.” This is not a senseless statement. It is love which makes of Father, Son and Spirit, one unique God. At the end of his Encyclical, Benedict speaks of the “We” which is the final achievement of love. At the beginning of the Encyclical, the I of the eros of “falling in love,” matures with patience and self sacrifice which turns “falling in love” into the Agape of “one flesh,” or if you like the I which becomes We. It is hardly surprising that Benedict declares that charity is also a way to God. There is another important reason for love beyond the Christian Community. Universality. The “we” becomes a world where God is “all in all” to quote Paul. Now this is quite different to the Me that we cultivate. It is quite different to the closing in of my own group and quite different from my national or economic interests dictating my foreign relationships.

Charity and justice

Is this charity necessary today? Benedict replies that charity, fundamental to the Christian, is not only the hand of love needed in the most developed countries. Modern progress makes it possible for us to extend our love quickly and efficiently wherever it is needed. But why the question? Benedict goes back to a debate of the nineteenth century. Then some claimed that the great works of charity were just a method of the rich to avoid justice, to keep the poor, poor and their conscience in peace. If there was justice, went the argument, there would be no need for charity. Rather than by works of charity, contributing to keeping the existing order in place, it is better to struggle for a just society. Benedict admits that there is some truth in this but also much error. Benedict agrees with the demand for a just society in which each person gets a fair share of the resources. It is the only reason for government. A government which does not divide the resources of a country justly is only a band of robbers. He underlines that this has always been the doctrine of the Church with regard to the state and society. The truth is that the Church misunderstood the period. Benedict agrees that she did not realise the profound nature of the changes which had taken place. Old associations had been dissolved. A small number of people had become extremely wealthy while the majority was impoverished and their rights taken from them. In this situation revolt became necessary.

Christianised in the 19th century

Benedict’s explanation is of particular importance to us. Unlike Europe, Asia or Latin America, our effective period of Christianisation is the 19th century, the oldest of our Catholic congregations came in the 19th century and three of the major ones: Holy Ghost, St Joseph of Cleary and Holy Faith were founded in the 19th century — Anglicans, Methodists, Moravians, Presbyterians all came here in the 19th Century.

Rightless

This Christianisation was happening at the same time that the society we know today was being formed. If the Church misunderstood the changes in Europe, these were intensified in Caribbean colonies where the old order had never existed. If in Europe the peasantry and workers lost their rights, in Caribbean society there were no rights to lose. They were rightless.

Mitigating suffering

This is not to say that there were not those who attempted to mitigate the suffering in Europe or here. Benedict mentions the number of new congregations which sprung up in order to serve the poor. If Dominican Sisters served the lepers here, St Joseph of Cluny Sisters served the slave and ex-slave lepers in Cayenne — Holy Ghost Fathers were founded in order to educate ex-slaves. Curiously they arrive here at the invitation of Count de Verteuil in order to educate the children of former Catholic slave owners. They nevertheless do expand on this and lest we forget it, produce a Cipriani. Holy Faith and Presentation Brothers were founded to teach poor Catholics in Ireland.

A just society

That a just society in which everyone gets a fair share of the nation’s wealth is, and has always been the doctrine of the Catholic Church, will come as a surprise to most Trinis and above all, to most Catholic Trinis — clergy and laity alike.

A major problem is our lack of knowledge of church history or for that matter, our own. But another is our refusal to take Papal Encyclicals or Vatican documents seriously. Partly I suspect, because they disturb us. How many Catholics know of Leo XIII’s Encyclical Rerum Novarum? Written in 1891, it was considered ahead of its age. Since then we have had Encyclicals from Pius XI, Blessed John XXIII, Paul VI, (encyclical and an apostolic letter), John Paul II has left us three Encyclicals. All of these deal with social issues and a just order.

And where are we on politics? That, and the last of this series, next week.