Radical
Two millennia ago, a poor Jew who espoused a philosophy of loving enemies, elevating the lowly, and suffering with the oppressed could not be tolerated by the political authority of his day. He was put to death by Roman officials because of his worldview, but rather than extinguishing a flame, Jesus’ momentous act of solidarity forever lit the world on fire. This paschal mystery was a symbol, not of martyred pride, but humble prostration to assume the sins of humanity. The Christian faith in centuries to follow lost this guiding principle, eschewing its status as a church of the poor in favor of power and prestige. However, a recent shift in Christian thought has revived and renewed the founding purposes. Works such as “Compassion” by Fr. Henri Nouwen, “The Jesuit University in a Broken World” by Fr. Dean Brackley, SJ, “The Political Dimension of the Faith” by …show more content…
Martin Luther King, Jr., and “On Social Concern” by St. Pope John Paul II, have synergized the practical and the theological, elucidating the Church’s vocation. To live the paschal mystery in the modern world is to become aware of reality through cognitive liberation, to move into compassion and solidarity with the oppressed, and to work for justice. Cognitive liberation, the first step to living the paschal mystery, is a two-pronged process of the intellectual and the experiential. One must be willing to mentally and physically remove themselves from current environments in order to perceive the locus of existence as that of compassion. This is necessarily the first step because in the western world, “compassion is neither our central concern nor our primary stance in life” (Nouwen). The method we go about living must not be competition as it is now, as it is inherently destructive to one’s humanity, and the “greatest ideal” cannot be a “maximum of satisfaction with a minimum of pain”
Two millennia ago, a poor Jew who espoused a philosophy of loving enemies, elevating the lowly, and suffering with the oppressed could not be tolerated by the political authority of his day. He was put to death by Roman officials because of his worldview, but rather than extinguishing a flame, Jesus’ momentous act of solidarity forever lit the world on fire. This paschal mystery was a symbol, not of martyred pride, but humble prostration to assume the sins of humanity. The Christian faith in centuries to follow lost this guiding principle, eschewing its status as a church of the poor in favor of power and prestige. However, a recent shift in Christian thought has revived and renewed the founding purposes. Works such as “Compassion” by Fr. Henri Nouwen, “The Jesuit University in a Broken World” by Fr. Dean Brackley, SJ, “The Political Dimension of the Faith” by …show more content…
Martin Luther King, Jr., and “On Social Concern” by St. Pope John Paul II, have synergized the practical and the theological, elucidating the Church’s vocation. To live the paschal mystery in the modern world is to become aware of reality through cognitive liberation, to move into compassion and solidarity with the oppressed, and to work for justice. Cognitive liberation, the first step to living the paschal mystery, is a two-pronged process of the intellectual and the experiential. One must be willing to mentally and physically remove themselves from current environments in order to perceive the locus of existence as that of compassion. This is necessarily the first step because in the western world, “compassion is neither our central concern nor our primary stance in life” (Nouwen). The method we go about living must not be competition as it is now, as it is inherently destructive to one’s humanity, and the “greatest ideal” cannot be a “maximum of satisfaction with a minimum of pain”