35. Covenant and conception

It took centuries and centuries for the believing people to welcome in a collective experience, human as well as spiritual, an image of God which would no longer be that of childish caricatures such as the "Gott mit uns", that warrior god whose chief attribute was power, or the god who threatened and made one feel guilty. It took centuries and centuries for community experience through wars and reconciliation, for the Covenant between the Jewish people and the living God to assume an attitude of deep and strong love, where each of the parties was won over to a fidelity as strong as death. It took centuries and centuries of meditative rumination, in the noise of battle or in the silence of the desert, during the night of the exile, or at the dawn of the great homecoming. It took centuries and centuries of slow conception, in the bosom of the believing people, before - at the heart of humanity - the living God could open a breach for His presence in truth.

"Conception", I like the word, just as we might talk of drawing up plans for an aircraft, or a project, or even a theological treatise with its chapters, ideas and concepts... just as we also say that the Virgin Mary conceived by the Holy Spirit...

Covenant and conception, I use these words even though I am celibate, but no..., not "but": "because"! Because I am celibate. I make a vow of chastity "because" I place my affections, my passions, my power of loving into this gigantic frame which embraces history and humanity. A love the dimensions of which are space and time, the dimensions of creation itself; a love whose measure is to love without measure!

If marriage is a sacrament, the sacrament of the covenant - the Covenant between Christ and His Church - the covenant of God and humanity - if marriage is both mystery and sacrament and signifies the love which inspires the Incarnation, in the context of a limited family with the daily rhythm of work and the education of children... Religious profession is not a sacrament. It does not signify anything else, for it is already directly and mysteriously that other reality. Mysteriously, because it is poorer, a human reality frustrated, incomplete, premature: suddenly in blossom by the anticipated irruption of the already realised Resurrection, but in the "not yet" of its manifestation. The preacher's engagement corresponds to the charism of prophecy, to the gift of living directly the pathos of God in His desire to communicate. "Having the world for cell, and the ocean for cloister", our wingspan extends to all of humanity loved by God. We do not live outside time, far from it! We are contemporaries of each moment of history, since, "dead to ourselves, we live by Jesus Christ, risen from the dead for us," in that victorious love which sustains time.

If then it required centuries and centuries before, from among the chosen people, a young girl from Nazareth would conceive the inconceivable and give flesh to the Word of God... it also requires of the one who sets out on this road, perhaps not centuries, but a long period of time, to allow the word to mature in his whole being, body and mind, in the depths of his emotions, in his gestures and even in his accent... in those areas too of which he is not always master, a word which will be truly his but at the same time is not wholly his, and whose force will carry him beyond himself and even at times beyond his understanding. A word of life, which will at times surprise him in its power to heal and to bring comfort; a word of forgiveness which affords radical healing, a word of tenderness carrying with it joy, plenitude, a happiness not of this world. A word which one-dimensional man of our times has not the faintest idea, for it is unknown to the supermarkets.The young apostle must stir up the desire, cultivate a thirst, and like those before him, be patient in his turn for years on end.

The difficulty is that man the sinner, has to speak this word against what is frequently a very old-fashioned background. The task is to announce the Good News "with words that are alive and into hearts that are alive"...the Good News unceasingly renewed... Tradition it is true, can weigh heavily, but it carries with it a dynamism, a value system, a memory and above all a passion.

A few decades ago, many Religious, with very noble ideas of austerity, chose to insert themselves into current reference systems, by adopting the then prevailing culture. Their motive: so that what was essential might not clash with the form in which it was being expressed, thus forming a barrier. As the Jews would say: they were "assimilated" ...and they disappeared in the crowd, incognito, unperceived. For some, it was at times leaven in the dough, for others, salt without savour.

Others on the contrary, disturbed by the aggiornamento and changes in the wake of Vatican II, clung tenaciously to traditions, cloistering themselves behind walls, and regarding this as their sanctuary...not even a living museum...they solidified in a dead shell without the vital inspiration which gave life to the whole undertaking. Is it necessary to wipe out memory and force oneself to make the same mistakes of yesterday? Must we repeat identically as do marionettes or parrots? How can we receive the living sap of tradition and allow it to bear new fruit? This subject would merit a long discussion.

"Confieso que he vivido", wrote Neruda. "I can say that I lived a lot!" The Church is already two millenia old! The Order of Preachers can also boast that it has lived! references are not lacking from St. Dominic to Pierre Claverie, the bishop of Oran assassinated in Algeria, without omitting St. Thomas Aquinas, Las Casas, and some other less famous persons such as Torquemada and his companions whom we must not forget. When the mayor of Montpellier teased me on the subject of the Inquisition, I told him that a repentant sinner was worth more than a young unconscious villain! What we announce is the very experience of the message.

Besides, Jesus had no option but to assume His genealogy. Rahab was a prostitute, she who welcomed the Jews in the town of Jericho. Thamar was threatened with death for having conceived a child in her widowhood, but it was Juda the father-in-law who had to lay claim to paternity. Ruth, the wife of Booz, the sleeping one, dear to Victor Hugo, was a foreigner, one of those idolators whom it was absolutely forbidden to frequent, a sworn enemy! Finally, there was Bethsabee, the mother of Solomon. She is not mentioned by name, but by him who was her husband, Uriah, the faithful foreigner whom David had executed. Adultery plus a husband's murder! The standards of the Gospel are certainly different from ours, and nothing is hidden. Forgiveness is not forgetfulness.

The apostles who wrote the Gospel are not "unconscious villains". "That which is not assumed, wrote St. Ireneus, is not saved", but Christ assumed everything of our humanity. "How can this be done? - nothing is impossible with God!" Jesus takes on a troubled genealogy. The message cuts across all of our humanity, all our inheritance, and expresses God's fidelity and His patience. We echo this by with our commitment. Having assumed our humanity, Jesus asks us for a reciprocal sharing of His own vocation.

"As the Father loved me, I also have loved you"

"As the Father has sent me, I also send you."

There is here such a parallelism, that it is almost like a repetition and a logical conclusion: as the Father has loved and sent me, I also have loved and sent you!. Or, as the Father has loved me and has sent me, I also have loved you and therefore sent you! The greatest gift that God can give us, the gift above all gifts, is God Himself, the Holy Spirit. And the Holy Spirit is the Breath, the Communication, the gift of gifts, that is the Gift of self-giving: the dynamism of God who makes Himself known. What Christ reserves then for His friends, is to share in His own particular mission, His own passion, the same mission which He received from His Father. Thus we are completely associated with Him, and that permits us to know Him intimately.

For that, there is no better initiation than to be plunged directly into a human community, one which celebrates the marvels of God and shares intensively God's word. The members put it into practice by sharing what they have, and by the democratic manner in which they arrive at decisions, aiming at consensus, with respect for those who happen to be minors, so that discussion may be the means of mutual enrichment and not of quarrelling or division. Certainly there are the black spots! I ought to know: there are abusive superiors - or worse still, irresponsible or non-existent ones!! But there is a limit to their mandate, and we are part of those silly ones who elected them! Our vow of obedience corresponds to our willingness to live a common life, to share what we have, to reflect together in fraternal exchanges and in agreed decisions. The Word which we proclaim matures in this cell of fraternal living, sometimes a bit too hot and explosive, at other times tepid or even icy! But it is a shared word, verified in common.