Part II: THE HUMAN CONDITION

8. Desire and Repression?

We can say it in one word or in a hundred words, with flowers or with rapturous expressions, just as we can say it with reserve and restraint. We can speak it directly or allow images, allegories or songs express it for us. Yet, when love is authentic, but frustrated by the absence of the loved one; when love is strong and true it has to declare itself and paradoxically, it expresses itself negatively: "You are so far away. When will I see you? I miss you! Don't delay. Hurry up and come!"

"Do you know what it feels like to wait for a friend, and to experience his lack of punctuality? Do you know what it is like to feel anxiety about something that might or might not happen? To await an important event that makes your heart beat every time the topic is mentioned and which comes into your mind the moment you open your eyes? Do you know what it is like to have a far-distant friend, to wait for news of him and to wonder every day how he is and what he is doing now? Do you know what it is like to live for someone close to you to the point where your eyes follow his, where you can read his mind, where you are aware of every facial change, foresee his desires, laugh with his laughter and weep when he is sad, fretful when he is upset and rejoice when he is successful? Waiting for Christ's return approximates to something like this." JR. Newman

Belief alone then, is not sufficient. It is not enough to know that Christ will come again on some hypothetical day. We must love Him. We must love Him enough that the suffering we endure through His absence, makes us long for His return, and this, so that we can fully participate in the carrying out of His great plan. We must be passionate, ecstatic, consumed with the fire of hope and the fire of impatience.

Christian hope then, has nothing to do with static religion, be it Greek or philosophical; the religion of the here and now, that of seeking happiness in adaptation and in harmony, the religion of interiority, of God ever present, eternal and unchanging, so that all one needs to do is to situate oneself in an atmosphere of silence and of calm, without movement and beyond the existential, and all this by means of an appropriate technique of concentration.

In the parable of the virgins waiting for the Bridegroom to arrive, his absence and late arrival are a cause of suffering. The feast has not yet begun. The atmosphere is still one of emptiness, of cold, of something missing; they are anxious and frustrated. It is night time. Instead of seeking within themselves, these young bridesmaids go out into the night to look for the one who is coming - not in silence, but with the clamour and cries of a triumphal procession. That faith is a faith that does not cling to the self, but one that is generous, that goes ahead in spite of the risks involved. It is an extroverted attitude which despises comforts and security, consumed as it is by the flame of a fire, the fire of hope and of desire.

Man is sustained and urged on by what he lacks, by his desire: happy are those who hunger and thirst. In a world tormented by a suffering phobia, a world which fears nothing so much as failure and frustration, where everything is organised in a frantic cult of satisfaction and instant comfort, it has to be said and said over again: man cannot live nor breathe but by emptiness, by the hollow part of his lungs. He cannot without dying, suppress his desires; and he would be a "useless passion", a breath, a cry of despair, if hope that sets him on his way, had no meaning, no real and consistent goal; if we could not recognise in him, coming from the infinite and going towards the infinite, a gigantic movement which draws him along and sustains him.

So then, if it is a good thing to get out of the office or the kitchen or the shop, to breathe some fresh air outside; or in the evening to go out of the house, to leave behind the deafening babble of discussion, and to fill one's heart instead with the music of the stars, it is not just to merge oneself romantically with the night; rather is it to get away from useless din and agitation, to catch one's breath and discover the meaning of the universe by opening one's eyes to the enormous backcloth which is about to be brightened by the dawn of His presence: all nature, says St. Paul, sighs and groans in the pains of childbirth.

It is good during the week to stand back from things and to relax with friends by discussing fundamental questions, without which, man is but an animal or a machine. It is not to find an answer to every problem, but to challenge them by remaining conscious, free and wide awake. It is really a question of keeping one's distance from a society that seeks to muffle its ears and throw itself frantically into work, in order to prove the extent of its capabilities, and thus trample on every longing which independently it can never fulfil.

If through a keen sense of justice and a conscientious urge to effect something, I join humanitarian or social organisations; if I share the hope of generous people, and respect totally the absolute dedication of some in fighting for a cause, there is always within me a surfeit of hope which these too short-sighted ideologies cannot embrace, and which at times earns me the name of being a demobiliser. But in fact, it is the critical spirit, piercing through and illuminating these ideologies, urging me to see beyond them, and to denounce the pitfalls that are in reality simplistic, and lead to the line of least resistance.

For when reality resists, when ideologies crumble and hope turns to despair in face of the inadequate results of aimed at goals, in face of those who back out, or betray not to speak of the more or less generalised corruption, the unconscious ignorance of the illiterate disorganised masses- then the question has to be asked about the reality or the illusion of every concrete hope. My own particular question is: whether for some, the Resurrection can be reduced to a mobilising myth, or for others to a rhythm of life like that of Winter or Spring, or again if a new world is being constructed in the end, through the dramatic events, the spasms and the death of the world that was. A world that would be peopled by volunteers, and volunteers who had been tested, having passed through many experiences and many trials and had been found not wanting. The question has to be asked if one has also to pass through Baptism, and through that ultimate abandonment, namely, death. It is a question of the future, that is, of what is awaiting us.

But is the future waiting for us? Is it not rather we who should tend towards it? It is each one's business to determine his own proper goals at the heart of the present. Woe to those who sit back smugly, secure in a 'top job bent on pursuing their goal in a career which will eventually end in death. Strangers to discovery of all kinds, they will be rejected! Seeing that the feast has to be prepared in spite of their sloth, in spite of their resistance, in short, in spite of them, it will be celebrated without them! We know them only too well; their hope is frozen, for they have spent their lives securing it in the ice box.

My hope and my desire are based on a reality: Jesus has risen! That is a reality: He has risen in His Body, an unexpected and longed for reality. It is a "suspended" reality, for the Resurrection of the Crucified One has not yet achieved its full manifestation,, its full flowering. The Spirit fractures as it were, present time, by introducing a fault, a restlessness, which prevents us from settling down. He causes a certain nostalgia, a torment, an opening not yet fulfilled, to the future of God. He causes thirst, and provides an "aperitif." Everything speaks of Him yet nothing can replace Him. 'The Resurrection of Jesus is an extraordinary event, an event which is "present" in the sense of a "permanent" gift and whose energy enlarges history like a ripening fruit! Jesus' Resurrection is an event charged with promise!

Remark was

I once heard someone say we should "tame" our desire. The fact that the remark in his case was a conscious one, demonstrates the fact that he might well have deliberately deadened desire in a sort of euthanasia of Hope, by reducing it to domestic dimensions. On the contrary, nothing could be as great or as wonderful nothing could ever approximate to what is in store for us. The taming of desire means being unaware that from every aspect, the reality is far greater is capable of utterly fulfilling us beyond all our hopes. The taming of desire, the putting it in order, is spiritual suicide, for it means we are afraid. The risk we take then, is to find that the door is closed!

It is true that it is difficult for us to admit, that in the final reckoning, Christ will not come at the conclusion of our efforts, a result as it were, of our achievements. He will comw freely, at the hour He chooses, too soon for everybody to be ready, or so late that no one waits for Him anymore. But after all, if the coming of Jesus was a marginalised event at the heart of the Roman Empire, why should His return depend on our laboratories or on the European Parliament? No one knows! Whether it is tomorrow or at a distant date, or even this evening, the main thing is to be ready! His promise cannot deceive us, and that is why I love that verse of Tristan Cabral, a Nimes poet:

"I wait for the great wave that will open my eyes!"

I wait to see that Face which will shine on us "when we will become like Him, and we shall see Him as He is!"