DIVINE LOVE
gleaning the meaning of Divinity from Balthasar, Goizueta, and Christian apologetics since Christ’s death, resurrection, and ascension.
Divine Revelation itself is beautiful in its ardent Christology. Throughout history, Jesus Christ has not only been the way, truth, and life for his followers, but for anyone seeking to study Christianity objectively. Historically, Christ’s nature of being fully divine and fully human, as affirmed at the Council of Chalcedon, is fundamental to studying Divine Love in our parochial, pastoral, and personal practices. Balthasaar ignites a familiar flame in us in “Love Alone is Credible” as he discusses loving and being loved in a Christian sense, as well as meditations on faith, supernatural events, and even our lack of love. Goizueta, however, brings us further in to this idea of true love in his thought-provoking “Christ Our Companion: Toward a Theological Aesthetics of Liberation.”
Inclusivity (or liberation), in its most authentic sense, is what allows the heart to flourish. The broader the scope of our knowledge, the more expansive our heart is; so we must strive to love as God loves, in this way. Once again, this brings us to Christ and his Missionary Spirit. To embrace Popular Catholicism is to embrace root practices of the faith, but also to allow one’s heart to understand why Latino culture tends toward this Catholicism more plainly, as Goizueta also notes. Jesus is the most infamous person of the Trinity and most tangibly performs this Divine mission as a form of Divine revelation in the Gospels. God (the Trinity)’s heart can hold all people in its awareness. Shouldn’t we, then, at least be able to incorporate something new and uncomfortable to our faith practice — like a particular devotion that brings us out of our anglicized 90 degree sit-down lifestyles?
Should we not get lost in “another culture’s”—though they are are relatives in Christ—way of relating to the Divine—especially if they, as Goizueta notes, have had a unique glimpse of a life particularly aware of Christ’s mercy moment by moment?
In my experience, growing up in a French-Latino-Irish household, there were three different Catholicisms at play. My French heritage pulled me toward the divine as revealed aesthetically and sensually (in most cases, stripped of the suffering), whereas my Latino heritage pulled me ever closer to an austere yet whole body devotion to Our Savior as suffering God man and Our Lady as a foster mother, as well as the practice of asceticism (though the French did their fair share of fasting, too, funnily enough). My Irish Catholic background played out in a suburbanized, anglicized, and ultimately beige Catholicism in my youth which led me to years of gnosticism before a conversion in NYC. In this environment, I discovered the many different cultural forms of intense Catholicism in New York City among my brothers, mothers, fathers and sisters in Christ, and grew to appreciate all of them and revel in our moments of unity at the NYU Chapel. I learned about the Holy Family from the Dominican Friars and even felt that the community there had formed a Christian family.
Christ, in New York City, was very much upon the cross. At the chapel, the crucified Christ was life-size and made of wood, yet he still wore a crown. We were devoted to St. Michael, and St. Thomas (their icons on display), as well as Mary, who had her shrine in the corner. This is where I learned to genuflect and altar serve and read Augustine’s confessions. This multi-cultural religiosity, then, practiced in one Dominican led spiritual center, gave me the sense of a liberal aesthetic, a lack of judgement if I wanted to put my forehead on the marble floor for part of the mass. Anything, visceral or naturally directed to the crucified Jesus was allowed in the Chapel—not so in Hinsdale, Illinois. This is where my faith practice developed into a highly personal but incredibly communally influenced practice of physical piety.
Since then, I have embraced Divine Revelation as a truly Christological phenomenon. Now, my urban parish features African style, cubist stain glass of Christ the King and the stations of His cross line the wooden panels. A crucified, crowned Jesus is painted in a tribal style upon a suspended, wooden cross. All else is austere, angular, there is no steeple but a large square skylight above the suspended Christ. This is where I was confirmed this past year.
My encounter with Christ’s churches has been challenging, inspiring, and even startling, but, as Balthasaar writes, love must be perceived as “wholly other” (75). He writes this in the confidence that we have first understood both the Cosmological and Anthropological reduction of love as both origin, incarnation, and action. On page 45 of “Love Alone is Credible,” he writes: “Man…first comes to himself — in an encounter. When one man meets another face to face, truth comes to pass.” Who else could fulfill this longing for encounter than Jesus Christ by way of ultimate revelation (incarnation)? Who else could fulfill this longing for encounter after Jesus’ ascension than the Apostles and those they evangelized, the Church, and all the converted throughout history from all cultures, creeds, and races? What other corporate practice is more Christ-centered than the practice of truly embracing others in faith in a multi-cultural—and even multi-faith—community?
To accept others’ practices is not to denounce one’s own familiar practices or lose touch with God, but to grow closer to God’s infinity—within reason, of course. If another person wants you to break a commandment as a means to deeper devotion, than this is just the Devil at work, but, more often than not, acceptance and a seeking out of a diverse set of Catholic practices is essential to any practical Catholic. Without this, we remain closer to our human non-love rather than a true life-giving love that Balthasar so aptly mentions. Therefore, my conclusion is not only notoriously Christological, but a road-map for the practical Christian. One must first take Balthasar’s musings (and any right theological musings) on the Heart and put them to the test at the feet of a suffering Jesus, or our “God of the poor,” as Goizueta writes, to see if their doctrine withstands the nails.
For a Christianity without the cross is a false philosophy. God is far more than a vague idea indicated by two pieces of wood — He was concrete, he came down from Heaven in the form of a Son, died and was raised (as we profess every Sunday). Only upon this predication can we look with hope and joy at the cross and sing, “Alleluia!”
Until next time,
Charles
