Word to the Wise
Thursday, April 24, 2008 - Thursday in the Fifth Week of Easter
[Acts 15:7-21 and John 15:9-11]As the Father loves me, so I also love you. Remain in my love. If you keep my commandments, you wil remain in my love,e just as I have kept my Father's commandments and remain in his love.
The fundamental meaning of all of the Farewell Discourse is given in the words just quoted! The Washing of the Feet and the image of the Vine and Branches are images of Christ's love for us, the same love that he has with his Father. That is a very powerful reality. I sense, however, that this reality is not paramount in the faith of many Catholics. Part of the reason lies in the history of catechesis in this country. Much of the early Catholic religious education in the 19th and 20th centuries was influenced by a heresy known as Jansenism (which was based on the teachings of Cornelius Jansen in the 16th and 17th centuries), which declared the human person too sinful to be worthy of salvation unless God gave the person individually a particular grace. This amounted to predestination and Jansenism was regarded as the Catholic equivalent of classic Calvinism. Although Jansenism was condemned by the church, it was very influential in France and through the French seminary system, the clergy was formed in Jansenistic attitudes. Thus the moral theology brought by clergy to this country, who were fleeing the French Revolution, was a "sin-based" system. One started not with the presumption of God's love but the presumption of human degradation. Since the first seminaries in this country were staffed by French clergy, the whole attitude spread to clergy, religious and laity alike. This pessimistic moral vision is still around and I have encountered it often in pastoral practice. The Gospel of John assures us that "God so loved the world that he sent his only begotten son...." Our faith in God must begin from the conviction that God loves us, and that we are part of the creation that God called good. Yes, we are capable, as was Adam and Eve and subsequent humanity, of making choices that deny God's love, but God does not stop loving us. We, however, are capable of stopping our own love of God! The capability is freedom, not degradation! The assurance of Christ's love is the most powerful gift that he can give us. Why are so many of us afraid to accept it? AMEN
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