Prologue

After the midday meal, I usually allow myself fifteen minutes siesta as is the custom in southern countries. Strangely enough, this short period of rest is a fertile one for the imagination, furnishing intuitions which appear to run counter to evidence: periods of reawakened dreams, freedom from conscious control, criss crossing of images, a more poetic though no less valid approach to truth. These mental epiphanies serve as material for my homilies, and in this book, I have chosen some of them, while attempting to link them together in a somewhat coherent manner. Discussion is not my objective here. What I have to say, addresses itself to the reader's intuition. It invites him or her into an unknown land, a land of surprises, in short, into contemplation.

In this work, truth is to be found by allusion, in symbol, through the heart, so it is an expression of personal witness emanating from a lived experience. The one subject which underlies the ensemble, is the question of Relation: relationship to the other, relationship to God, relationship in God.

Each chapter has its unique message and its unique meaning. The same musical theme is played on different instruments, as is the Good News itself, each section saying everything and inviting the reader to resonate accordingly.

By way of introduction, here is an outline of the themes treated.

Relationship presupposes the spoken word together with respect for that word given. Chapter I thus sets out the framework: liberty and fidelity. The relationship however is perverted once the other is perceived primarily as a rival. The question then is how to arrive at confidence in reciprocity? This seeking leads to the Paschal Mystery. We discover that sin is not so much an act as bad theology, a mask covering the Face of God. When the basic relationship breaks down, then everything becomes degraded and eventually is destroyed. But a turning round is effected when we discover in opposition to our perceptions, the God whom Jesus revealed: a God who is vulnerable, respectful and discreet.

But where does human desire come from, and what is it aiming at? In what direction and towards whom does it lean? Can it be satisfied? And supposing God's promise went ahead of and perhaps beyond that desire? To "proof by the absurd" might there be a proof "exceeding reason's calculations"? Likewise in the affectivity domain, by "proof of desire's suprasatisfaction", it becomes clear that the promise is not the result of auto suggestion. True, desire is frequently thwarted, it meets with obstacles: suffering and ultimately with death. What about the creature's relationship to God when suffering and death come upon him and what about that same creature after death?

Death marks a limit which has repercussions on one's entire life. What could a superman hope to be? What kind of absolute is humanity aiming at? Christ has transfigured the human condition, not by abolishing its limitations, but because he began by accepting these limitations in a relationship with his Father in perfect reciprocity: He received and He gave. In receiving himself from his Father, he assumed himself. Finally, He lives, risen from the dead!

God's wisdom then, is at the antipodes of our ways of thinking. It is so new, young and surpising, that it appears nonsensical. Everything is turned upside down, an invitation to allow oneself likewise to do a somersault! Human life is then transfigured! Pentecost takes hold of the nations and breathes its Spirit through the world's civilisation. That in turn brings us on to envisage the end of the entire universe and to pose the question of human history and of its accomplishment.

How can one be a disciple and live this contagious dynamic? There is the first experience, that of the Resurrection which Mary Magdalen lived in her very flesh because of her love for Jesus. We must be reborn, pass from darkness to light, open our eyes and meet Christ, and so undergo a personal experience which will present itself as a way of initiation. For Jesus' teaching is an invitation to experience, in order to love in a relationship that is vulnerable.

The apostles were forewarned of the trials that awaited them, the price of their credibility in the eyes of others, and for themselves a means of verification. Their followers will live out their baptism either in Religious Life or in marriage, two extreme modes of relationship. They will perhaps experience failure, but this is henceforth shot through with something different. As to forgiveness, it is reserved to God, and that is the reason why we are invited to practise it constantly, in order to live by Him... and finally the book, in which we recognise the author, comes to an end!