jesus

Thoughts on God as Pure Act of Being and Contemplation

Deacon Douglas McManaman

In my Thoughts on God as Pure Act of Being and Atheism, I pointed out that God cannot be reduced, by the mind, to a concept, because in God essence and existence are identical, that is, God is Ipsum Esse Subsistens, and the apprehension of being (esse) is not a conceptual apprehension (being cannot be reduced to a universal concept without emptying it of all content). And just as dealing with concepts or notions that the imagination cannot get a hold of (such as potency, act, prime matter, the particle and wave properties of an electron, etc) is initially very uncomfortable and for some, evidence that such notions are nothing but philosophical nonsense, so too the idea of the intelligibility of being or existence that is outside of and other than the intelligibility of essence (not an object of simple apprehension) can feel as if Being Itself is nothing at all. In other words, when being is identified with essence, form, or idea, then the very idea that there is something outside of that, something extra-essential, namely God, would seem to imply that God is outside of being, which implies that God is the great Nothing (Nirvana as Nothingness; Emptiness but fullness)–which is why the Buddhist notion of Nirvana as Nothingness is not all that problematic. [1] 

Moreover, when I am conscious of myself, I immediately apprehend my own contingency, my own lack of necessity–I am, but need not be. Included in that apprehension is my awareness that the whole of me–my very existence–depends upon something other than myself, an awareness that can be rather frightening. The awareness of my own contingency takes place against the background of a pre-conscious awareness of non-contingency, the Necessary Being (just as my perception of a piece of chalk is made possible by virtue of a non-white background). This preconscious awareness of the Necessary Being is also the reason you and I desire a happiness that is sufficient unto itself, complete, and final and is thus not a means to an end–for we cannot desire what we do not know, and nothing contingent answers to those properties.[2]

Contemplation must aim at becoming increasingly aware of this divine presence within our deepest interior, a presence that is intelligible but not conceptualizable. Moreover, close friendship depends upon a mutual, free and gratuitous offering of self to one another, and so although there is a natural and pre-conscious knowledge of God that is the condition for the possibility of the pursuit of science as well as the pursuit of happiness, God is free to offer each person, within that interior, a deeper and greater sharing in his nature, a deeper communion, which amounts to a communication, a spoken Word. This is what we mean by divine grace, which is a sharing in the divine nature. This interior communication is also not an object of the intellect, but remains a preconscious awareness.

The goal of contemplation is a deeper love, a greater purity of heart, which is accompanied by a loss of a sense of “I”. When we compare ourselves to others, perhaps feeling a kind of satisfaction in knowing we are better than another in some way (faster, smarter, more athletic, more talented, etc), there arises a definite felt sense of “I”. But think of when you are so wrapped up in a great film that you lose all sense of a “self” watching the movie. It’s as if you and the movie are one. That’s the place we need to get to in the spiritual life, if we are to be pure in heart. At that point, everything is seen in God and God is seen in everything; everything is loved in God, and God is loved in everything. The sense of “I” disappears (Fana). Rumi, the great Persian poet and Sufi, provides the following story that illustrates the importance of this loss:

One went to the door of the Beloved and knocked. A voice asked, “Who is there?”
He answered, “It is I.”
The voice said, “There is no room for Me and Thee.”
The door was shut.
After a year of solitude and deprivation he returned and knocked. A voice from within asked, “Who is there?”
The man said, “It is Thee.”
The door was opened for him”. (Jalal al-Din Rumi 1207-1273)

Along the same lines, Javad Nurbakhsh wrote: “I thought of You so often that I completely became You. Little by little You drew near and slowly but slowly I passed away” (The Path, Sufi Practices). Or, consider Husayn Ibn Mansur al-Hallaj, who writes: “Kill me, O my trustworthy friends, for in my being killed is my life.” [3]

Once again, that intelligible fullness of which I am aware within me is not an idea, not an object, but it is a presence. It is the presence of the primordial Silence. When you are alone in the forest, you are immersed in silence; however, there are spoken words (sounds) all around that carry the silence, for example, the wind that blows above, and in the distance crickets chirp, frogs croak, etc. These words carry and communicate the silence, as the Word reveals the first Person of the Trinity: “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father” (Jn 14, 9). We cannot make that silence the object of our thoughts any more than carrying a lamp around at night will allow us to see darkness,[4] but that silence is what we love, for that presence in silence is Love. Being Itself is the effusive principle and source of all that I can conceive and apprehend; creation is Silence burst into speech (Panikkar). 

Notes

1. Nirvana:  permanent, stable, imperishable, immovable, ageless, deathless, unborn, unbecome, power, bliss, happiness, secure refuge, shelter, the place of unassailable safety, the real truth, the supreme reality, the Good, the Supreme goal, one and only consummation of our lives, the eternal; hidden; and incomprehensible peace. 

2. Aquinas writes: “To know that God exists in a general and confused way is implanted in us by nature, inasmuch as God is man’s beatitude. For man naturally desires happiness, and what is naturally desired by man must be naturally known to him. This, however, is not to know absolutely that God exists; just as to know that someone is approaching is not the same as to know that Peter is approaching, even though it is Peter who is approaching; for many there are who imagine that man’s perfect good which is happiness, consists in riches, and others in pleasures, and others in something else”. S.T, I, Q2, a1, ad 3.

3. “The “life” he speaks of is not the biological life of the body, but the true, eternal life of the Spirit (Ruh), which is realized only when the false self is slain.” The Wisdom of Mansur Al-Hallaj: Divine Love, Ecstatic Truth, and the Cry of Ana al-Haqq. Sapientia Mundi Press, 2025.

4. “We can certainly speak about silence as we can speak about what happened to me yesterday, or about X, or any subject matter. But the silence about which we speak is not a real silence, for silence is not an object.(about which you can think, speak.). We cannot speak about real silence, just as we cannot search for darkness with a torch in our hands. Silence cannot be spoken of without being destroyed, since it is not on the same level as speech”. Raimon Panikkar, Invisible Harmony: Essays on Contemplation and Responsibility. Ed. Harry J. Cargas. Minneapolis, Fortress Press, 1995, p. 41.

Thoughts on the Influence of Old Prejudice

@Where Peter Is

Deacon Douglas McManaman

One day I was driving a fair distance to a York Regional Forest Trail to walk my dog and realized I’d forgotten my phone, so my only other option besides silence was to listen to AM talk radio. I tuned into a talk show about Vache Canadienne (Canadienne Cattle), and their guest was a French scientist from the University of Montreal, where I had studied theology. She spoke of a number of her French colleagues and all that they are involved in regarding the latest research on the Vache Canadienne, and of course she spoke with a strong Quebecoise accent. 

I was raised on the West Island of Montreal and studied Theology at the University of Montreal, an all French university. I love Montreal and Quebecoise culture, not to mention the accent. But as a young boy raised on the Anglophone West Island, I was exposed to a rather pervasive anti-Quebecoise prejudice, and as an ignorant and impressionable  young boy I acquired a good dose of it myself: I saw the French as dumb and somewhat backward. By the time I was an adult, married for only a few years, I like to think I was completely over this, but my priest-friend from Washington D.C., on a few occasions, expressed a certain dismay at my rather cynical remarks about the French. So it took a bit more time for me to fully appreciate the irrationality of the prejudice that took root in my childhood. I like to think I have arrived, and I do believe so. However, during this radio talk show on the Vache Canadienne, I became aware of a layer buried deep within me, like an early layer of soil underneath multiple layers formed centuries later; this was an old layer of prejudice that, when allowed to speak without the censorship of a conscious and enlightened mind, quietly suggested that these people are not really scientists in the true sense of the word, but “pretend” scientists, at best secondary scientists, trying to emulate the English ones. Now, this is a completely irrational thought which has no place in my conscious assemblage of convictions, but I was intrigued to sit back in silence and watch it spontaneously rear its ugly head. I was amazed at how enduring are the childhood prejudices picked up from the adults in one’s young life. 

Perhaps that is why many people believe we are a rather long way away from the ordination of women to the diaconate–and centuries from ordination to the priesthood. In other words, perhaps it has everything to do with ancient prejudice and that the “Roman system” is fundamentally misogynistic. Many women feel they are viewed and treated as second class–after all, they are not permitted to read the gospel at Mass, they cannot preach a homily–but can in certain circumstances give a reflection, which must however be preceded by a short homily by the priest followed by an explanation that what follows is only a reflection. Women do ministry work, but they cannot receive the sacramental graces in order to carry out that ministry as effectively as they would had they received those graces through ordination–otherwise, what does ordination and sacramental grace really mean in the end? And we typically don’t see women on the sanctuary, and all this because those in question are female. 

The best arguments put forth to preserve the status quo can indeed sound more like theological rationalizations than sound theology rooted in Scripture. For example, the Marian vs. Petrine Principles employed to keep women from Holy Orders appear to some as a theological instance of the fallacy of begging the question (the Petrine principle represents the male hierarchical/governmental aspect while the Marian principle represents the Church’s spousal, maternal, and receptive nature). Mary, who is a person, somehow became a principle; so too Peter, a person, but somehow he becomes a principle employed to necessitate a certain conclusion. Is this principle anything other than a “construct”? One woman asked some interesting questions regarding the use of this principle to keep women out of Holy Orders: “If the concept of the Petrine is used to close off authority and governance to women, what does the Marian close off to men? …Is vonBalthasar and, through its use of his theology, the hierarchy, saying that men are excluded from love and receptivity? That they may not be receptive? Is that why the Church (being male/Petrine governed) is struggling with Synodality which seems to require receptivity?”  

This is a very interesting series of questions. I am inclined to wonder that if the Marian principle has a bearing on me (a male) –not to mention every other member of the Church, cleric or otherwise–, could not the Petrine principle have a bearing on women? 

Another puzzling anomaly is that a baby is baptized and anointed with sacred chrism, anointed priest, prophet and king, and gender is entirely irrelevant–we don’t just anoint male babies priest, prophet and king, but female babies as well. A baptized woman exercises a real priesthood (the royal priesthood of the faithful), and gender is clearly not a factor. Certainly Christ is the bridegroom, and the Church is bride and mother, and yet, in the evening prayer for Thursday within the octave of Easter, the Church prays: “Almighty God, ever-living mystery of unity and Trinity, you gave life to the new Israel by birth from water and the Spirit, and made it a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a people set apart as your eternal possession. May all those you have called to walk in the splendor of the new light render you fitting service and adoration.” The entire Church is a “chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, to proclaim the virtues of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light” (1 Pt 2, 9). 

Hence, the Church as a whole is a priestly people and at the same time bride and mother (female); for it is the entire congregation that offers gifts to be consecrated. The entire congregation is not simply a group of passive observers, but active agents, priests offering their gifts, their labors, their sufferings and toil, their bread and wine, placed at the foot of the altar; the ministerial priest offers it on behalf of the entire congregation, of which he too is a part. Christ receives those gifts and changes them into himself, and returns them to us as our food. The priest can be seen both as our own representative (representing the bride of Christ) and as Christ’s representative (representing the bridegroom). However, the priest may also represent Christ the mother who feeds us–providing food and drink is, in Scripture, woman’s work, and Yahweh takes on that role. As women fetch water for their families, i.e., Gn 21, 19; 24, 11; Ex 2, 16ff, etc., so too the Lord supplies water in the desert for the people, and Jesus offers us the living water (Jn 7, 37-39). Mothers feed their household, as we read in Proverbs 31, 14-15, or Genesis 18, 6; 27, 9; or 2 Sam 13, 7-10, so, Yahweh prepares manna and quail for the children of Israel,[1] and of course Jesus is the Bread of Life who feeds us.

Jesus is the new Moses (see Mt 5, 1ff), and yet Moses addresses a series of questions to the Lord: “Did I conceive all this people? Did I bring them forth, that you should say to me, “Carry them in your bosom, as a nurse carries the sucking child, to the land which you swore to give their fathers”? (Num 11, 12). The implications here are interesting. Yahweh was certainly a mother and nurse of the wandering children in the desert. Or consider Nehemiah 9, 21: “Forty years you sustained them in the desert, and they lacked nothing; their clothes did not wear out and their feet did not swell”. The Lord takes on the role of dressmaker, as we see also in Gn 3, 21. As a woman clothes her family (Proverbs 31, 21ff), so too the Lord clothes us.[2] Or consider Isaiah: “Now I will cry out like a woman in labor, I will gasp and pant”, or: “Can a mother forget her infant, be without tenderness for the child of her womb? Even should she forget, I will never forget you” (Is 49, 15). Or, “Shall I bring a mother to the point of birth, and yet not let her child be born? says the Lord. Or shall I who bring to birth yet close her womb? says your God” (Is, 66, 9). Or, “As one whom his mother comforts, so I will comfort you. (Is, 66, 13). Christ came for the lost sheep of the house of Israel (Mt 15, 24), and in Luke he is compared to a woman searching for her lost coin: “What woman having ten coins and losing one would not light a lamp and sweep the house, searching carefully until she finds it? And when she does find it, she calls together her friends and neighbors and says to them, ‘Rejoice with me because I have found the coin that I lost’” (Lk 15, 8-9). But for some historical reason, the ministerial priesthood, which is a sign of Christ, is reserved for males. 

Scripture scholar Phyllis Trible writes: 

Although the Old Testament often pictures Yahweh as a man, it also uses gynomorphic language for the Deity. At the same time, Israel repudiated the idea of sexuality in God. Unlike fertility gods, Yahweh is neither male nor female; neither he nor she. Consequently, modern assertions that God is masculine, even when they are qualified, are misleading and detrimental, if not altogether inaccurate. Cultural and grammatical limitations (the use of masculine pronouns for God) need not limit theological understanding. As Creator and Lord, Yahweh embraces and transcends both sexes. To translate for our immediate concern: the nature of the God of Israel defies sexism. [3] 

And so I am compelled to wonder: Could it be that those in the Church who are not misogynists have made a special effort to rise above an ancient layer of prejudice that centuries of misogyny have established? And are they few and far between? 

Concluding Thoughts

I’d certainly be a hypocrite if I were to suddenly encourage others to sow seeds of dissent among the faithful in the congregation or in the classroom, for I continue to point out to my students that teachers who sow seeds of dissent among their students are engaging in a kind of false advertising–insofar as the school advertises itself as Catholic on the one hand, and on the other hand undermines a basic trust in the teaching office of the Church. Furthermore, one reason I began reading Where Peter Is is that I became very tired of writers of Catholic journals bellyaching about Pope Francis and the cognitive dissonance he caused in others who were far too doctrinaire in their approach to Catholicism as it is, as though the Church were not a living organism that continually develops her self-understanding in light of new information, insights, and the lived experiences of the faithful. As we read in Dei Verbum, 8: “This happens through the contemplation and study made by believers, who treasure these things in their hearts through a penetrating understanding of the spiritual realities which they experience, and through the preaching of those who have received through Episcopal succession the sure gift of truth. For as the centuries succeed one another, the Church constantly moves forward toward the fullness of divine truth until the words of God reach their complete fulfillment in her”. 

We do owe a “loyal submission of will and intellect”, even when it comes to common teaching. But common doctrine is not irreversible, unlike statements of faith,[4] and some great theologians have argued rather persuasively that this issue is not at all closed to discussion and debate.[5] Most importantly, students, the vast majority in fact, are less and less persuaded by the standard arguments that exclude women from Holy Orders, and our task as teachers is to welcome their doubts, questions and opposing arguments, to listen to them carefully, and acknowledge their brilliance when they are indeed brilliant–not to mention put forth by women who are clearly smarter than we are, such as Ruth Tiffany Barnhouse, Elizabeth Schussler-Fiorenza, Elisabeth Behr-Sigel, and others.[6] Perhaps the theological situation we are in with respect to the issue of the ordination of women is comparable to the basic theological argument found in Humanae Vitae, which was not strong enough to convince the average couple about to be married in the Church that closing the marital act to new life is to be avoided–thank goodness for thinkers like Germain Grisez, Joseph Boyle, John Finnis, and William May, who put forth a far more convincing and persuasive analysis of why doing so is morally problematic.[7] In other words, perhaps a much better series of arguments explaining the reasonableness for the non-ordination of women is just around the corner.

Or, perhaps not. Perhaps this is nothing more than a case of rationalizing the tolerance of a practice that is in the end indefensible, as was the Church’s centuries long tolerance of slavery and the death penalty. Regardless, a synodal Church is a listening Church, and listening to challenging objections from our students makes teaching all the more exciting–except for those brought up on an old and outdated pedagogical model that refuses to encourage critical insight, opposition, and push back.

Notes

1. Phyllis Trible. “Depatriarchalizing in Biblical Interpretation”, Journal of the American Academy of Religion, Mar., 1973, Vol. 41, No. 1, Mar., 1973, pp. 31-35. 

2. Ibid.

3. Ibid., p. 34

4. See “The Hope of Salvation for Infants Who Die Without Being Baptised”. International Theological Commission. Section 34. 2007. <https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/cti_documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20070419_un-baptised-infants_en.html#*&gt;

5. Richard Gaillardetz writes: “It is my contention that appeals to the infallibility of the ordinary universal magisterium are ill-suited for resolving controversial matters related to the Christian faith precisely because of the inevitable ambiguities involved in verifying the fulfillment of the conditions for the exercise of the ordinary universal magisterium as outlined in Lumen gentium # 25.2. Given these ambiguities, it should not be surprising that even after the publication of the CDF Responsum questions linger regarding both the assertion that this teaching belongs to the deposit of faith (particularly in the light of the study of the Pontifical Biblical Commission) and the assertion that it has been infallibly taught as such in the unanimous teaching of the college of bishops. Given the gravity of the matter (the determination that this teaching is a dogma of faith) theologians would appear to be within their bounds to look for a clear substantiation of these assertions. It may be appropriate at this point to recall the canonical principle cited at the beginning of this article: “no doctrine is understood to be infallibly defined unless it is clearly established as such.” I infer from this canon that the burden lies with the ecclesiastical magisterium, not only to assert that the church’s teaching on the exclusion of women from the priesthood has been taught infallibly by the ordinary universal magisterium but to “clearly establish” that fact. The questions which I have raised in this article suggest that the claims of the CDF, at this date, have not been “clearly established.” Richard R. Gaillardetz, “Infallibility and the Ordination of Women”. Louvain Studies 21 (1996): 3-24.

6. See Ruth Tiffany Barnhouse. “Patriarchy and the Ordination of Women”. Towards a New Theology of Ordination: Essays on the Ordination of Women, ed. by Marianne H. Micks and Charles P. Price, Virginia Theological Seminary, Greeno, Hadden &Company Ltd. Somerville, Mass., 1976, pp.71-89. <https://womenpriests.org/articles-books/barnhou2-patriarchy-and-the-ordination-of-women/>. See also Ruth Tiffany Barnhouse, “Is Patriarchy Obsolete?” in Male and Female: Christian Approaches to Sexuality, New York: Seabury Press, pp. 223-235, and her article entitled, “On the Difference Between Men and Women”, Ibid., pp. 3-13. 

7. See Germain Grisez, Joseph Boyle, John Finnis, William E. May. “Every Marital Act Ought to be Open to New Life”: Toward a Clearer Understanding. The Thomist: The Catholic University of America Press. Volume 52, Number 3, July 1988, pp. 365-426.

Poor in Spirit and Pure in Heart

Poor in Spirit @Lifeissues.net

Deacon Douglas McManaman

As we all know, Jesus commanded us to love our neighbor as we love ourselves (Mk 12, 31). That’s not easy to do, because we tend to love ourselves a great deal more than our neighbor. In fact, if we require some visible evidence of the extent of our self-love, just take a look at the property values of the homes of some of the richest celebrities. I know of one, whom I won’t mention by name, who has a 165-million-dollar estate. But that’s not all. He also has three others in Florida, all three totaling 230 million. He has another property in Hawaii at 78 million, another in Washington for 23 million, and a collection of apartments in New York City for 80 million. That’s a total of 576 million in total properties. 

Now, I’m not about to whine about people having more than they need or the sin of greed, etc., and I don’t mean to suggest that this person neglects giving to charity. My point is that we can see that loving another person, as we love ourselves, is rather difficult, because the ratio between our self-love and our love of neighbor is far greater than we realize. The wealth that I call attention to is merely a visible image of what happens when all the conditions are in place that permit a person to provide himself with everything that corresponds to the degree of that self-love. Is it possible that my real estate portfolio could look something like that, if billions of dollars were to suddenly fall on my lap? Of course it is possible, but I hope not, and if not, it will only be by the grace of God. But whenever we see this kind of luxury, it is really a manifestation of what happens when all the conditions are in place that permit a person to look after himself in a way that measures up to the degree of his own self-love. We want the best for ourselves and we probably don’t realize just how great that love is because of our circumstances. These celebrities help us get a glimpse of it. 

And it is a strange phenomenon that the more wealth a person acquires, the greater is his desire for more. One would think that greater wealth would be accompanied by a corresponding decrease in desire, that one is gradually reaching the point at which one no longer feels the need for more wealth–after all, I have everything I need and more. But it seems the opposite happens; the more wealth is acquired, the desire for more continues to increase. 

The first beatitude in today’s gospel is the most fundamental: “Blessed are the poor in spirit; the kingdom of heaven is theirs”. Those who are poor know it. They feel their poverty, their lack of life’s basic necessities; they struggle to make ends meet. Those who are poor in spirit, however, are poor not necessarily in material things, but “in spirit”, and they too know it, they are aware of their spiritual destitution, that is, aware of their utter need for God. The poor in spirit know that independence and control are basically illusions. We are, all of us, one freak accident away from ending up in a hospital bed, dependent upon the care of others, or worse, on the streets with a serious mental incapacity to take care of ourselves. 

A person poor in spirit is open to God, desires God, will go in search of God–and of course, anyone who seeks God finds him. In fact, anyone who is actively seeking God has already been found by God. The difficulty is getting to that place where one actually begins to feel one’s own radical need for God. That is much rarer than we tend to think. Most of us, it seems, have to “hit rock bottom” before it begins to dawn on us that we really do need God. I believe this is one reason God allows suffering in our lives.

And so, poverty of spirit, the experience of a deep interior need for God, is really the greatest gift that a person can receive, for it is in fact the gift of faith, because faith begins with precisely that openness to God and readiness to surrender to him. And the blessing that goes with poverty of spirit is the kingdom of God, which Jesus compares to a treasure hidden in a field that someone finds and who goes off and sells everything he owns in order to buy that field. In other words, having the kingdom of God, living within it, having Christ reign over one’s life, is far more valuable than a collection of properties that add up to about 600 million dollars. To have found that interior treasure is to have become aware of that, which is the fruit of true poverty of spirit. 

The ones whom I have met in my life as a Deacon who are truly poor in spirit have been those who suffer from mental illness, in particular clinical depression. In my experience, these have had the deepest sense of their utter need for God. It was precisely the experience of their darkness that made them call out to God. It seems counterintuitive to imply that clinical depression can be one of God’s greatest gifts, but there is some truth to this. Friendships are typically based on common qualities and interests, which is why mental sufferers really do have something in common with Christ, namely, their life of suffering, a life that amounts to accompanying Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, keeping him company in the mental anguish he experienced on Holy Thursday night. That vocation imparts a much greater dignity and identity than does owning a multi-million-dollar estate and a private jet. As they say, we bring none of our wealth with us to the grave, only what we have in our souls, that is, our spiritual and moral identity. And the more like Christ that identity is, the more beautiful it is, and that is a beauty we will possess for eternity. 

The other beatitude that I would like to address is purity of heart, because according to the Desert Fathers and Mothers, that is the very purpose of the spiritual life. The pure in heart shall see God. “Pure” (katharoi) means clean or unmixed (as in pure maple syrup, which is unmixed with any artificial additives). A pure heart is one that loves God with an undivided love, a love not mixed with a competing love of self. 

Purity in heart involves a loss of a sense of “I”. In many ways, it is a return to the innocence of childhood, the innocence of the first parents in the Garden. When we compare ourselves to others, perhaps feeling a kind of satisfaction in knowing we are better than another in some way, there is a definite felt sense of “I”. But consider the times when you are watching a great film; you lose all sense of a “self” watching the movie. It’s as if you and the movie are one. That’s the place we need to get to in the spiritual life, if we are to be pure in heart. At that point, everything is seen in God and God is seen in everything; everything is loved in God, and God is loved in everything, and that sense of “I” disappears, at least for the most part.

The only regret we will have at the end of our lives is that we did not achieve this level of purity. In other words, we loved ourselves too much and did not love others enough. The real joy in human existence, however, is loving others as another self. St. Teresa of Calcutta often employed the expression “the joy of loving”. Think of the self as a kind of prison cell. The more we love others as we love ourselves, the more we go outside of ourselves, outside of the prison walls. That’s true freedom, and the result is that we bring so much more light and life to others who are living in darkness. 

Thoughts on the Church

Deacon Douglas McManaman

Recently I introduced a homily I was asked to give by calling attention to the exorbitant wealth of a certain celebrity, who owns a 165 million dollar estate, not to mention three others in Florida totalling 230 million, another in Hawaii at 78 million, one in Washington for 23 million, and a number of apartments in New York City for 80 million. My purpose was not to call attention to human greed or whine about having more than one needs. The point I wanted to reflect upon was that loving our neighbour as we love ourselves, is very difficult to achieve, because our self-love is far greater than we realize. The wealth that I call attention to is merely a visible image of what happens when all the conditions are in place that permit a person to provide himself with everything that corresponds to the degree of that self-love. If I have no concept of the degree of self-love that exists in me, then it is quite possible that if billions of dollars were to suddenly fall on my lap, my real estate portfolio might very well look like the above, at least after a few years. To love one’s neighbour as one loves oneself is a lifetime task to be achieved.

The Church, like the world, is made up of individuals who love themselves inordinately, so inordinately that we really have no concept. We don’t know until circumstances allow that monster to rear its ugly head. Is it any wonder, then, that the more a person gets to know the inner machinations of the institutional Church, the more discouraged, despondent, frustrated, angry, disappointed, disillusioned, disheartened one becomes? There are saints among us, and it is always wonderful to find them. These are the faithful who really do love others to the degree that they love themselves, as another self, as it were. And we do expect them to be in the majority in the Church–certaintly the majority of clergy. But this is not so, and it is always painful to discover this. It’s the pain of disillusionment at the very least.

Most people are not able to withstand the force of discouraging winds that an awareness of the current ecclesial state of affairs has on a person, which is why most people are kept in the dark, by the design of divine providence. I shake my head very often at the naivete of a good number of parishioners who seem to be utterly clueless, oblivious, to what is going on under their very noses, but I have to remind myself that they don’t see what I see, because they don’t have the inside angle that I have. And it is a darn good thing that they don’t, because they’d leave and we’d never see them again. I am very happy that I did not have that vantage point early on in my life, because I would not have had the spiritual muscle mass to withstand the major and minor scandals, and I would have moved on. One has to be ready for them, and God is merciful and does not allow us to be tempted beyond our ability to withstand it. We think life in the Church should be void of such trials and struggles, a safe haven from the world in which trials, struggles, darkness, conflict, sin and stupidity are the norm. Life in the kingdom of God is void of this, but not life in the institutional Church. The kingdom of God is within you, as Jesus said in Luke, and it is among us too because among us are those who belong to that kingdom to one degree or another. It is the grace of that kingdom that allows us to continue to commit to this institution, because some goods can only be distributed and shared when institutionalized, such as schools, hospitals, universities, military, etc. Institutions are made up, however, of human beings whose fundamental battle in this life is against the enormous ratio that exists between one’s love of self and one’s love of neighbour. Most people are not actively engaged in that battle, and that includes clergy at all levels.

Embracing Ambivalence

Article @ Where Peter Is

Deacon Douglas P. McManaman

It has been reported to me that there are quarrels among you. What I mean is that each of you says, “I belong to Paul”, or “I belong to Apollos”, or “I belong to Cephas” (1 Cor 1, 12).

It seems to me that things have not changed a great deal in 2000 years. The New Testament reading for today reveals the divisions that faced the early church. Over the years, divisions remained. In the Middle Ages, there was rivalry between the Franciscans and the Dominicans – perhaps not all that adversarial: “I belong to Bonaventure” or “I belong to Aquinas.” The Church is still divided in many ways. In the past fifteen years or so we have seen similar divisions, with some Catholics saying, “I belong to Benedict XVI”, or “I’m a JPII priest,” or “I’m with Pope Francis.” Others, clergy included, openly speak out and write against Pope Francis on a regular basis. Some even reject Vatican II and the Novus Ordo.

The problem with this is that the Holy Spirit is a Spirit of unity, not division. There is great diversity in the Church, but it should be diversity in unity. Sin divides. The devil polarizes, excludes, and sows seeds of suspicion among the faithful, which is why Jesus said a kingdom divided against itself cannot stand (Mt 12, 25).

I believe the root of the problem is both psychological and philosophical. What so many people today fail to understand is that knowledge is very hard to achieve. Most of what is in our heads, most of what we claim to know, is not knowledge at all but belief – I don’t mean religious belief necessarily, but any belief that falls short of reasonable certainty. For example, I believe I voted for the right person, but I don’t know that for certain. Similarly, I don’t know whether this or that person is trustworthy, I might be deceived. I don’t know for certain whether this medication is going to heal me or kill me – I believe my doctor. “That person’s a saint.” “Well, you don’t know that. It might all be a facade”. We do tend to conflate our beliefs with knowledge, which is why we hold these convictions with a much greater confidence level than is warranted.

When we were young adolescents, most of us thought our parents were utterly “out to lunch,” until we became parents ourselves. Most young teachers think their administration is blind and incompetent, until they become administrators themselves and realize things are far more complicated than they initially thought. I have a friend in medical research who said that he used to attribute sinister motives to Ottawa with respect to certain decisions made around public health. Then he was made the Surgeon General himself, with all the relevant information at his disposal, and found himself making the same decisions that he used to condemn in his ignorance. A very good priest friend, who has since retired, looks back and has many regrets about his approach as a young priest – including the way he sometimes preached.

The problem with being young is that we have very little experience of being wrong. In fact, when we are young, we tend to block out those times when we were wrong only to remember the times we were right–it’s much more flattering to the ego. But that gets harder to do the older we get – unless we are ridiculously close minded and have stopped learning. When we are young, we tend to believe that our worldview, our current conceptual frame of mind or the epistemic model through which we see the world, is all encompassing and far more comprehensive than it actually is. In fact, it is really a very small circle outside of which we quickly lose our way.

Human knowledge is profoundly limited. When we come face to face with the vast complexity of reality, we get a sense of those limits and that can cause great anxiety. If we cannot accept ambiguity, if we are not at ease with uncertainty, we will be tempted to latch onto a single ideological faction or limited school of thought. We can begin to see others outside that faction as a bunch of deluded morons. I’m convinced that this is how fundamentalism develops, both religious and political fundamentalism.

Fundamentalists typically limit their thinking to one source: the Koran alone, or the Bible alone, or St. Augustine alone, or St. Thomas Aquinas alone, etc. The problem with the Bible alone mentality is that we need others to teach us, to provide historical context, to help us avoid pitfalls that trapped others in the past. To know the bible well, or any classic author for that matter, requires a much larger community that is constantly developing.

Fundamentalism is essentially rooted in a fear of a reality that is much larger and much more complex than our current worldview is able to contain. It involves an inability to be at ease with ambivalence. In fact, psychiatrist Leopold Bellak proposed a dozen ‘ego strengths’ for people to aspire toward. One of these had to do with ‘contentment with ambivalence’. This is one strength that fundamentalists always seem to lack.

Life feels much simpler when a person convinces himself that all truth can be compacted into a single source and that “I have all the answers”. Of course, we will never have all the answers. Physicist Richard Feynman once said that science is an ever-expanding frontier of ignorance. This means the more we discover, the more we learn how much more there is to know and how much we don’t know but thought we knew. As our knowledge grows, our ignorance expands exponentially at the same time.

And this is the case in theology as well – perhaps especially in theology – because the object of theology is the unutterable mystery of God and the Church has always taught that God is infinitely knowable and incomprehensible, even in the Beatific Vision. We will see God directly, but God will always be infinitely more than what we know about Him at any one point. And we believe Jesus is everything that the Father can say about Himself, because Jesus is the Logos, the eternal Word of the Father. So, Jesus is infinitely knowable, which is why theology constantly develops.

Christ is the only one we are to belong to. Everyone else must be listened to and heard, because everyone is able to provide a unique angle on things. I cannot see the world from your vantage point; you know things that I don’t and so I must listen to and learn from you and from everyone else and vice versa. This is why it is fitting that the Church, under Pope Francis and Pope Leo XIV, continues to emphasize dialogue and synodality. The dialogue they propose is not just between bishops but also involves bishops in dialogue with the laity from around the world; for the laity knows so much of this world in ways that we do not.

And so, we don’t belong to Paul, or to Apollos, or Cephas, or Benedict XVI, or John Paul II, or Cardinal Burke, etc. But we do belong to Christ and since we are his Mystical body, we belong to one another. As Paul says in his letter to the Romans: “…so we, though many, are one body in Christ and individually parts of one another.” (12:5) That is an interesting line. What it means is that we are not just all parts of the one body of Christ; rather, we are also parts of one another. I am part of you and you are part of me and if you are diminished, I am diminished. Just as I need healthy parts to flourish, I need to learn from everyone in order to flourish because I am a part of everyone and everyone is a part of me.

Reply to an Objection re: Jesus’ Imperfection

Deacon Douglas P. McManaman

__________________________________________________________

Doug, 

The “imperfection” of the Finding in the Temple (if any) was with Mary and Joseph – their imperfect understanding of Christ’s mission – certainly not with Christ. He was doing and revealing the will of the Father (not behaving like a child who takes a chocolate bar from a store without appreciating the wrongfulness of his action). If we take your “Christ-was-imperfect-just-like-us” to the next stage then even His public ministry, His crucifixion, His 7 last words, were imperfect. I think you misunderstand what is meant by “Christ was like us in all things but sin”. Yes He was fully man, but he was also God. He did not carry His divinity around like a wallet and pull it out from time to time as needed. He was a man without original sin – without any sin – hypostatically united to the divinity. Although “like man”, he was also unlike any man before or since. He was the perfection of man, if you will. So it is misleading to speak of Christ as imperfect.

___________________________________________________________

Dear _________:  It is certainly true that Mary and Joseph had an imperfect understanding of Christ’s mission. But Jesus too had an imperfect understanding of his mission at certain points in his early life–of course, I’m jumping from the frying pan into the fire here, so it’s better to stick with a simpler explanation. But Luke says it: he grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man. That’s it. If he was “perfect” from the get go, he did not grow in wisdom and stature, in favor with God and man. The exact text is:

Jesus “progressed (proekopten) to wisdom (sofia) and to prime stature (hlikia) and to grace/favor (cariti) beside (para) God (theo) and man (anthropois)”. 

What is perfect does not require progress. Perfect means “made through”, the end has been achieved. Jesus was the perfect man, but what does it mean to be a perfect man? One cannot be a material organism without imperfection, and one cannot be a human being without imperfection, so a perfect human being will include imperfections. That sounds counterintuitive, but it really isn’t a contradiction. 

What struck me is that when I read the WPI finished version of my article, I felt that it read much better, much smoother than my original. Now, I edited that article many times and sent in my best version of it. Still, the editor was able to see more that needed to be done, she was able to see what I was unable to see, and thus she continued to edit the piece. That’s human existence. To be a person is to have a radical need for others. The human person only discovers himself via an exit-of-self in the other, or in others. A person is an ekstasis. Let me quote John D. Zizioulas here: “…personhood implies the “openness of being,” and even more than that, the ek-stasis of being, that is, a movement towards communion which leads to a transcendence of the boundaries of the “self” and thus to freedom. (The Meaning of Being Human (pp. 14-15). (Function). Kindle Edition). 

God is an eternal community of Persons, and the human person exists in the image and likeness of God, who is a Trinity of Persons. Man is a per sona, a “through sound”, that is, a communicator, a being who becomes what he is by entering into community, who can only become what he is meant to become in and through community (to communicate is to enter into community). We are conceived within a human person and born into a family, a community, and we depend in every way on that first community, but most of all our own personality development depends upon those relations. Outside of a healthy community, our personality does not develop properly. Every human being undergoes personality development, and that development depends on the specifics of personal relationships, on how much the person is loved by others and how much he or she learns to love, to exit himself or herself towards the other. All this Jesus went through. The hypostatic union is the union of the two natures in one Person, the Person of the Son, who is a subsistent Relation. He is the Second Adam. He is more than a role model, but that he is nevertheless–not merely an external role model, like the saints, but an internal one; for we are to become him. But our role model cannot be one who it is impossible to model ourselves after. Imperfection is my lot and your lot, not the imperfection of sin or moral imperfection, because that imperfection is self-destructive, but the imperfection that belongs to human material existence. At the temple, Jesus was not behaving like a toddler taking a chocolate bar off of a store shelf, rather, he was behaving like a 12 year old adolescent–with a single minded focus, without proper consideration of how his lack of communication might impact others. It wasn’t a sin, but it was an imperfection that is typical of adolescence, and he went through adolescence. He did not skip that stage of human development. Again, perfect things don’t develop. Jesus needed the guidance of Mary and Joseph. If he did not need their guidance, if he did not in any way benefit from the wisdom of his parents, then you are right, he is not like us in all things. But he is like us in all things, in every aspect of human nature: intelligence, will, emotions, human ignorance and the need to learn from experience, and above all the need to learn from others. You mentioned in an earlier exchange that he did not have a human personality. He certainly did have a human personality. He’s not a human being if he does not have a human personality. The hypostatic union means the two natures (divine and human) were united in the One Person of the Son; so he is not two persons, a human person and a divine Person, but One Person, the divine Person of the Son. Everything Jesus said and did and underwent was said and done and undergone by the Person of the Son. But he certainly had a human personality that developed (person is not the same as personality). His personality was the human personality of God the Son–personality is a complex phenomenon that includes human intellect, will, emotions, their interactions, human self-consciousness, etc. 

I don’t see how all this implies that his death on the cross or his 7 last words were imperfect. His passion and death were the perfect act of love, the perfect act of religion. The perfection of Jesus does not cancel or override the imperfection that is part and parcel of human experience. His was a moral and religious perfection. He sanctified material existence. He sanctified the imperfection that belongs to living human organisms, the imperfection that is part and parcel of our day to day human existence. He actually said: “Who touched me?” in the scene involving the woman with a hemorrhage. He said “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” He experienced human desolation, darkness, despair, poverty and deprivation. He experienced frustration with his disciples: “How long must I put up with you?” That sounds like learning to me. In other words, his expectations were one thing, but the reality of the disciples’ sluggishness was another thing. 

I’m not sure what you mean by “He did not carry His divinity around like a wallet and pull it out from time to time as needed”.  Yes, all of Jesus was God the Son. Christ’s human nature was hypostatically united to God the Son, so everything he said, did, and underwent was said, done, and undergone by God the Son. From that hypostatic union, a number of paradoxes follow quite naturally: God died on a Cross; God suffered; Life Itself tasted death; God became a slave (Phil 2, 1ff); God progressed in wisdom and stature; God wept for John the Baptist; God was hungry and thirsty in the desert; and Mary is the Mother of God (Theotokos).  

Perfectionism vs Perfection

Reflection for the 2nd Sunday in Ordinary Time
https://www.lifeissues.net/writers/mcm/mcm_440perfectionismvsperfection.html

https://wherepeteris.com/perfectionism-vs-perfection/
Deacon Douglas McManaman

It is too small a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the survivors of Israel; I will give you as a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.

This is an interesting line from the first reading: “It is too small a thing that you should be my servant…” Is it too small a thing that Israel should be “my servant”? Or is it too small a thing “to raise up the tribes of Jacob”? Perhaps both. I say this because our God intends to raise us up to be his equals, so to speak, and since friendship is based on a kind of equality, God intends to raise us up to the level of friendship. We read in the gospel of John: “I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know what his master is doing. I have called you friends, because I have told you everything I have heard from my Father” (Jn 15, 15).

What raises us up to that level of equality (friendship) is divine grace, which is a sharing in the divine life. It was St. Athanasius who said that “God became man in order that man might become God”. He became man so that divine grace may run through the veins of humanity, as it were, so that humanity may become the temple of the Holy Spirit, the dwelling place of the Lord. Grace is that which “makes holy”. But holiness, unfortunately, is often confused with sanctimony, and sanctimony tends to get mixed in with perfectionism, which in turn is usually a means of shaming others–children in particular. But holiness is not perfectionism. Holiness is love; holiness is charity. 

We read: “I will give you as a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth” (Is 49, 6). But how can we become a light to the nations? God is Light, not us. We can be a light only by reflecting light, as a mirror does. But a mirror must be clean in order to receive the divine light and reflect it. However, in order to see the dirt and grime to be cleaned, one needs light, because one can’t see anything in the dark. But the dirt and grime prevent the mirror from receiving the light that is to be reflected, and so only the light can clean the mirror. In other words, we cannot clean ourselves in order to make ourselves receptacles of the divine light. If we take it upon ourselves to clean the mirror of our souls, we only end up becoming perfectionists, and perfectionism is not holiness. 

It sometimes happens that a person who has a late conversion in life will go to religious extremes. I believe that in such cases, since they will have spent a good part of their lives not at all concerned with the will and worship of God, they will have acquired certain vices along the way, such as a disposition to anger, or envy, the need to be “one up” on others, or the need to control others, or the need to be approved by authority figures, etc. The problem is that bad habits are hard to break and virtues take time to acquire, so what can happen is that these late converts can bring those habits into their new “religious life”, and this can cause a person to look for ways to continue in these behaviors, but under a religious guise. This is where sanctimony becomes confused with holiness, and there is a danger of becoming finger wagging perfectionists who will often find ways to stand out from others. 

I was part of a discussion recently in which a number of us were wondering whether or not everything Christ did was done perfectly. We all agreed that Jesus did not sin, but one person insisted that when Jesus the carpenter was sawing wood, for example, he would have made mistakes, perhaps cut the wood too short, or perhaps the table he made was not perfect in every way. Others took issue with this, insisting that Jesus was God, so he would have done everything perfectly. But we have to ask ourselves: Wasn’t he like us in all things but sin (Heb 4, 15)? If Jesus were to play baseball, would he have hit a home run every time or struck out every batter? Or, if he were in the Olympics, would he have won a gold medal in every event? Consider when Mary found Jesus in the temple: “Son, why have you done this to us? Your father and I have been looking for you with great anxiety.” Jesus was a 12-year-old boy, and like a typical adolescent male was almost exclusively focused on one thing. Our purview starts out very narrow but gradually widens as we grow in experience and we begin to consider things that we would not have considered in your youth. To deny Jesus that development is completely unwarranted. Life is a learning process, and to be part of that learning process is to experience normal human imperfection–not moral imperfection, not folly, but the need for growth. I believe we can make the case that he experienced the imperfection that belongs to material existence, and because he is the God-man, he sanctified human imperfection. Hence, there is indeed a kind of beauty in imperfection (Conrad Hall).

The only thing he cannot sanctify is sin. Imperfection, on the other hand, is nothing to be ashamed of. In fact, there would be far less misery in this world if more people would come to accept their own limitations and imperfections and give up the need to achieve perfection.

Jesus did say “Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect”. What he was referring to, according to St. Augustine, was perfect charity. We see this from the context: “Love your enemies, pray for those who persecute you, for God makes his sun shine on the wicked and the good” etc. Holiness is love, and God’s love was made visible in the Person of Christ, who descended, who emptied himself and took the form of a slave, and entered into our death in order to inject it with his divine life. And so, we become like him by descending, not by ascending. The way to ascend to God is to descend with him and love what he loved, and he had table fellowship with social rejects. Christ was not a temple priest. He was out in the world, mixing it up with the sick, the suffering, the lost and forsaken.

The spiritual life is a gradual letting go of all that blocks the divine light; it is about allowing the divine light to burn within us all disordered love of self, which is what keeps us from genuinely loving others. God is a consuming fire (Heb 12, 29), a refiner’s fire (Mal 3, 2). A blacksmith puts the iron in the fire to soften it, to make it more malleable, and then he hammers it into the shape he envisions for it. Outside of that fire, the iron remains hard, rigid, and unbending, but when placed in the fire, it begins to radiate with the color of the flame.

We do have a tendency to regard suffering, trials, difficulties as anomalies, as signs that something is terribly wrong, that we are in some way being punished by God. This is a serious misconception. In this gospel, John says: “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world”. This is Christ’s fundamental identity, the Lamb of God who has come into the world to be sacrificed. The most significant moment in the New Testament took place in the Garden of Gethsemane: “Lord, let this cup pass me by; but not my will, but your will be done”. He felt the size and weight of this obstacle, but these words were his victory, and we get to share in that victory all throughout our lives each time we are confronted with difficult and fearful choices. Our task is to allow ourselves to be molded by his hands, to allow him to make us like himself. 

But what is he like? We just have to look at a crucifix. That’s what he is like. It is rather easy to live a kind of religious life that amounts to a continuous evasion of the cross. We see this, for example, in those who, while they love liturgy, vestments, incense and candles, processions and liturgical drama, will demean others, look down upon them, make their authority felt and use religion to oppress others, especially women. The Church is a strange mixture of the divine and the human, holiness and sin, a mystery that can only really be understood from the inside. We see the results of this tragic mixture all throughout the history of the Church, alongside those who are genuinely saintly, like Don Bosco who devoted his life to poor youth on the streets during the time of the Industrial Revolution, or Vincent de Paul, Mother Teresa of Calcutta, Benedict Joseph Labre, Padre Pio, John Neumann who dedicated his life to the immigrants of Philadelphia, learning 8 languages in order to hear their confessions and who died on the street at 48 years of age while running some errands. And when I look back at my own life, I have encountered both those who have been a negative influence, who have done harm and have driven people away from the Church by their misogyny, legalism, and abuse of authority and who made their priesthood principally about them, alongside great men and women who had a tremendous influence on me, such as a very humble Salesian priest, an unpretentious and joyful diocesan priest from Washington D.C., who was violently murdered during a robbery, and countless women who were hidden vessels of divine patience, carriers of the divine light and love.

O Mavros Christos (The Black Christ)

Deacon Doug McManaman

I was inspired to write this Icon (O Mavros Christos/The Black Christ) while reading James Cone’s The Cross and the Lynching Tree. It was Rev. David McClearly who, soon after we met at Southlake hospital in Newmarket, ON, suggested I read this book. At the same time I recommended that he read G. Studdert Kennedy, Episcopalian chaplain to the British Army during WWI—specifically his book The Hardest Part. One of Studdert Kennedy’s great poems is entitled Indifference:

When Jesus came to Golgotha, they hanged Him on a tree,
They drove great nails through hands and feet, and made a Calvary;
They crowned Him with a crown of thorns, red were His wounds and deep,
For those were crude and cruel days, and human flesh was cheap.
When Jesus came to Birmingham, they simply passed Him by.
They would not hurt a hair of Him, they only let Him die;
For men had grown more tender, and they would not give Him pain,
They only just passed down the street, and left Him in the rain.
Still Jesus cried, “Forgive them, for they know not what they do,”
And still it rained the winter rain that drenched Him through and through;
The crowds went home and left the streets without a soul to see,
And Jesus crouched against a wall, and cried for Calvary.

This poem prepared me for the impact that James Cone’s book was going to have on me. It was one of the most deeply moving books in theology that I had read up to this point in my life. It left me speechless on a number of occasions. He writes:  

The lynching tree is a metaphor for white America’s crucifixion of black people. It is the window that best reveals the religious meaning of the cross in our land. In this sense, black people are Christ figures, not because they wanted to suffer but because they had no choice. Just as Jesus had no choice in his journey to Calvary, so black people had no choice about being lynched. The evil forces of the Roman state and of white supremacy in America willed it. Yet, God took the evil of the cross and the lynching tree and transformed them both into the triumphant beauty of the divine. If America has the courage to confront the great sin and ongoing legacy of white supremacy with repentance and reparation, there is hope “beyond tragedy”. 

I’ve studied iconography for many years now, and I knew that I wanted to “write” an icon of a black Christ–after all, Jesus was not white. But most importantly, the fundamental reason I have for this idea is that the moral and spiritual life of a believer is about becoming the unique Christ, which Christ can be in you individually, in me individually. When you are the person Christ intends you to be, when it is no longer you who live, but Christ who lives in you (Gal 2, 20), then Christ appears in this world uniquely, through you. No one can be that unique Christ except you. And when you are that, you have a beauty that no one else can possess. There is a beauty that only you can bring the world. And so there is a “black Christ”, an Asian Christ, an Indigenous Christ, a Caucasian Christ, etc. I also knew I wanted a Christ with dreads. The symbolism of dreadlocks is rich and broad. It symbolizes connection to the divine, resistance against oppression; it is a symbol of African heritage and identity, and it became an emblem of resistance against colonial oppression. Of course, dreadlocks are an ancient symbol of wisdom and spiritual insight. Also, I wanted to make sure to include a “lynching tree” in the background. I cannot explain this better than Cone himself who writes:

As I see it, the lynching tree frees the cross from the false pieties of well-meaning Christians. When we see the crucifixion as a first-century lynching, we are confronted by the reenactment of Christ’s suffering in the blood-soaked history of African Americans. Thus, the lynching tree reveals the true religious meaning of the cross for American Christians today. The cross needs the lynching tree to remind Americans of the reality of suffering–to keep the cross from becoming a symbol of abstract, sentimental piety. …Yet the lynching tree also needs the cross, without which it becomes simply an abomination. It is the cross that points in the direction of hope, the confidence that there is a dimension to life beyond the reach of the oppressor. “Do not fear those who kill the body, and after that can do nothing more (Lk 12, 4). 

I would like to emphasize, however, that the tragedy of Good Friday was transformed into the beauty of the divine light, and thus the same is true of the lynching tree. Cone writes: 

Though the pain of Jesus’ cross was real, there was also joy and beauty in his cross. This is the great theological paradox that makes the cross impossible to embrace unless one is standing in solidarity with those who are powerless. God’s loving solidarity can transform ugliness–whether Jesus on the cross or a lynched black victim–into beauty, into God’s liberating presence. Through the powerful imagination of faith, we can discover the “terrible beauty” of the cross and the “tragic beauty” of the lynching tree. 

The following are pictures of the stages of development that this icon went through. The first stage of the writing of an icon is the preparation of the sketch and transferring it onto the gessoed surface of a poplar wood board. The gold leaf is then applied to the clay surface. 

The first layer in the painting process is roskrysh, which is followed by first lines, and then the first highlight. After the first highlight, one applies the first float, which dampens the brightness of the highlight. After the first float, we apply a second highlight, followed by a second float, a third highlight followed by a third float, and finally the second lines. The icon then sits for two weeks to dry before olipha (applying linseed oil). 

Notes for the icon Lynching treeDownload