Thinking Anew: ATTENDING a Christian Brothers school in Dublin I was often confused by certain ambivalence about what our relationship with the goods of the world should be. On the one hand, we were told that God had a particular affinity with the poor and the marginalised. But on the other hand, the good Brothers were proud to tell us about past pupils who had become "famous" and "important" people in Irish society. The term role model had not been invented, but we knew that these were people we should emulate.
That is a conundrum, maybe even a contradiction, that cuts right through Christian theology. On the one hand, Christians proclaim that they do not set their sights on this world, while at the same time Christian churches hold vast property and financial portfolios.
It is difficult to try to explain away the wealth and power of the churches. It’s there. It is a reality. We happen to live in the world – it’s the only reality we know – and it makes no sense at all to dismiss the world and everything about it as bad and evil. But nevertheless church leaders ought never talk out of both sides of their mouths – something that is so easily done.
Indeed, church leaders have a grave responsibility to preach and live a justice which demands that resources and wealth are distributed in fair and equitable terms. The church can never be aligned with powerful and wealthy elites.
In tomorrow’s Gospel Jesus tells his followers; “If anyone wants to be a follower of mine, let him renounce himself and take up his cross every day and follow me. For anyone who wants to save his life will lose it; but anyone who loses his life for my sake, that man will save it.” (Luke 9: 23-24). That is clear and unambiguous. However, if you search long enough in any holy book, you are likely to find something that appears to justify your way of thinking. And maybe the more fanatical and fundamentalist a person is, the more likely they can find the most absurd and outrageous dictates. But reasonable people will always be tempered by the exigencies of the world about them.
Far too often we underestimate the virtue of prudence. St Thomas Aquinas knew the importance of prudence and points out that no one is self-sufficient when it comes to matters of prudence.
He stresses the need to take advice from other people. For Thomas, prudence is community-based and ultimately open to the Spirit.
Good and honest Christians, who keep their sights on the eternal verities, know they have to live in this world. They have to provide in the best way they can for themselves and their families. And most of us also know when we become consumed by the goods of the world.
Most of us know when we get greedy, when we push aside everything to get our own way and satisfy our own needs with little regard for those around us.
Surely tomorrow’s Gospel is a gentle instruction to all of us not simply to set our sights on our own needs and desires, but instead to think beyond ourselves, to think of others and ultimately to begin to think about what God wants from us. In other words, that we should always allow ourselves to be challenged by what is right and proper.
Thus from time to time we will find ourselves out of kilter with popular opinion. At the same time there is something in the human psyche that tends ultimately to do what is right and proper. Fanaticism, in all its various hues, whether left or right, never seems to add to the general good of humanity.
The Christian message cannot simply be written out on a template. It is an exciting message that continually challenges us. Anything that is alive and active involves conundrums and contradictions. The words of those Christian Brothers might well have been far more nuanced than we students appreciated.
MC