In his Rule, St. Benedict writes: “Your way of acting should be different from the world’s way; the love of Christ must come before all else.”16
The challenge of this church father is that when we live and serve in and through the love of Christ our way of being and acting in the world will have qualities that should make us different from the dominant values of contemporary culture. Christ’s way disconnects us from what is, but reconnects us to the world as prophet and healer.
A number of things stand out as to what that may look like when we seek to go Christ’s way.
The first is that Jesus was not driven by a self-seeking agenda. He sought only to do the will of God. Second, Jesus was not driven by a
societal agenda but a reformist one. He sought to bring in the reign of God. Third, Jesus was not committed to the rule of law but the power of love. Restoration, healing, and the renewal of persons and communities was his great mission.
Finally, Jesus was willing to pay the price for the outworking of his vision and love. He gave himself to voluntary suffering. Clearly, if we seek to live Christ’s way in the world these are the challenges we also need to face.
Reflection
The way of Christ in the world is different than the way of religion. The latter has often sought to dominate, but Christ came to serve and renew.
1 Corinthians 13:13
January 17
The Power of Love
When compared with various forms of power—political, institutional, or ideological—love seems to be so weak. But love’s power lies in its ability to create a different way of being that leads to goodness and wholeness.
While some wish to contrast love and power—making love powerless and power powerful—love is a form of power. Love has an effect. Love does make an impact. Love does have the power to do, to achieve, to create, to move people forward. And while negative forms of power may also move people, but at a great cost in terms of goodness and well-being, love has its own way. It has its own unique form of power that moves others to well-being.
William of St. Thierry reminds us that: “The art of arts is the art of love.”17 Love, therefore, is the greatest creativity.
Put differently, the greatest wisdom one can achieve is the wisdom of love. The greatest skill one can develop is the ability to love well—that brings empowerment and wholeness to others. And the greatest quality one can have is to be a loving person.
While we may want to celebrate a person’s position, role, possessions, and popularity, these things are never the most important. Lacking in love, all that we are and do becomes hollow, and at the end of the day results in a descent into fruitlessness. Love, on the other hand, can move people to great well-being and to do the noblest acts and the greatest deeds.
Thought
Love fructifies. It brings life to desert places and hope to despair.
Isaiah 44:22
January 18
The Return
Much of our contemporary language in church and society is about moving forward. But the secret of life is also about
moving backward to the places of failure and need. The very places we seek to run away from may well be the places to which we need to return.
That humans want to move forward is a part of their existential longing for fullness and completion. This is an important dimension of human existence: reaching towards the future.
But there is more to the human story. We are also people in flight and as such we are moving away from where we ought to be and where we need to remain. This is so often true in our relationships, commitments, and priorities. It is also true in our relationship to God.
St. Anselm exhorts us: “Hope in him whom you fear, flee to him from whom you have fled.”18
Thus there is the call to return. And what a difficult call it is. We would rather forget and move on. To return often means to face the
difficult and neglected places.
Much grace is needed to return to the places of neglect, hurt, and disobedience. The return invites us to linger at these places in order to face them and to work things through in the journey of forgiveness, reconciliation, and healing.
The greatest return is not only to the places of pain, but also to the places of our willfulness, our disobedience, and our flight from the loving heart of God.
Thought
To return in order to receive much-needed reconciliation and healing makes us candidates for truly moving forward.
Acts 2:44–46
January 19
Christian Community
Throughout much of the history of the Christian church, Christians have sought to live their faith with a great level of intentionality. As such, they have created communities alongside of and in relation to the parish church.
The Didache, a first or second century early church teaching manual, states: “Do not turn your back on the needy, but share everything with your brother and call nothing your own. For if you have what is eternal in common, how much more should you have [in common] what is transient.”19
This articulation of a life of common sharing goes back to the
common purse community of Jesus and his disciples, the example of the Jerusalem church, and the emphasis in the Pauline house churches of the call to care for one another in practical ways.
This vision of a common life in Christ has been lived out throughout the ages and poses a particular challenge to the contemporary Western church with its consumer Christianity where little commitment is made to have and share a life together.
The church and intentional communities are to reflect the life of the Trinity and as such call Christians, not only into participating in
worship, teaching, and sacraments, but also in sharing time, resources, and possessions.
A shared common life in Christ is key to both our personal formation in the way of Christ and in our witness to the world. And such a life may well help us minimize our exploitation of the earth’s fragile resources.
Reflection
Community in and through Christ, which practices hospitality, can
become a window for others into the heart of the gospel.
Psalm 65:9–13
January 20
God the Sustainer
While we have made a dichotomy between the natural world, as the world of science, and the spiritual world of faith, our Christian forebears made no such distinctions. God is above, but also in all things.
Sadly, we moderns have become terribly reductionistic. Things of God and of faith have largely been relegated to the private sphere of life and to the sanctuary. All else has been relegated to the secular sphere of life.
Neither the biblical story nor our Christian foremothers and forefathers support such a view. In fact, the opposite is the case. God as the creator and sustainer of the universe and of our world is involved in all things. No sphere of life is outside of God’s love and concern.
St. Patrick, reflecting an Irish spirituality of God in the midst of all the daily activities of life, writes: “He inspires all things, he quickens all things, he is over all things, he supports all things.”20
This is a wonderful vision of life. God’s Spirit at work in nature. God’s Spirit renewing our inner life. God’s Spirit sustaining and empowering the church.