Part V: GOD? NEVER WITHOUT YOU

40. Gospel and violence

One of the loveliest titles given to Jesus is that of Prince of Peace. And here we have the Prince of Peace disguising himself today as a war chief. Prince of Peace? No! rather prince of the sword or of the dagger. He does not bring unity but division. "Division", a negative term, "diabolic" is the term he uses to speak of himself. "Do you think I have come to bring peace to the world? No, I say to you, not peace but division!" He does not bring peace to families in conflict, but on the contrary, adds fuel to the fire! He is not a fireman but an arsonist: he brings fire!

And all this is supposed to be Good News! Not that I am an anarchist, or that I make my own the famous cry: "Families, I hate you!" It is good news quite simply, because without being accomplished psychologists, we know that our human groupings, especially our families, are quite often in reality, wasps nests, closed-in dens, black holes where reign death, suffocation and even madness. Ash pans, rather than families! A mortal curfew decreed by nobody, reigns there, and no one knows when a leaden cope-stone from goodness knows where, will arrive as a sort of fatality...oh the peace of cemeteries!

Good News! Jesus did not come to establish this false peace. He is not afraid of provoking a crisis. He pierces the gold-beater's skin. He pierces the abscess. It is better to be alive, even when that life is lived in a conflict situation! When tensions are revealed, the need for discussion becomes evident and calls for explanations.

The word of Jesus is sharpened like a two-edged sword. It penetrates the joints and the inmost recesses of the heart. It distinguishes between false and authentic peace, between true and false unions.

Among these false unions, are all those unhealthy associations, groups turned in on themselves, who sooner or later experience a salutary break-up. Relationships of dependence which one day or other will be reversed... fawning affections, which reduce the other to the status of object. How could the Gospel of life respect these sad associations, exclusive clubs, collective ego trips?

And then there are those "sacred unions". These too are unhealthy because they are violent and entirely pervaded with the logic of exclusion. They are nourished by hatred: rejection of the other, of the one who is different, of anyone who is not "family", of the tribe, or the clan; hatred of the Jew, of the Palestinian...

For if we examine it well, the problem is not confined solely to families, but extends to the majority of human groupings: their union is cemented by opposition. This is manifest in rivalry between businesses, between sport teams, between convents, provinces, congregations, between different confessions, different religions, and the union among nations is forged in opposition to a common enemy. There is thus in humanity a kind of permanent lynching.

This is why the word of life acts like a fire. The fire which purifies, and calls us to live and to love in truth. To improve our loving! To live in true solidarity which is open to others, to all peoples. The Gospel calls us to be reborn into a family which knows no frontiers.

The family, like all that is natural, has to die. It must die in order to rise as a universal family, that of the sons and daughters of God. "Who is my mother, who are my sisters and my brothers?" asks Jesus. Those who put God's Word into practice. Mary keeps nothing for herself, not even her maternity. Everything is shared.

On the Cross, Jesus points out the disciple he loved, that is to say the model disciple, the archetype, the disciple who has no name, for his name is yours: "Woman, behold thy son, son, behold thy mother!"