«I’M COMING, LORD » CONTEMPLATIVES IN RELATION José Ignacio González Faus 1. CHRISTIAN CONTEMPLATION AND “RELIGIOUS CONTEMPLATION ” ................... 3 2. INITIATION INTO CONTEMPLATION AND MYSTERY .............................. ............... 9 3. PRACTICAL ORIENTATIONS ......................................................................................... 15 CONCLUSION ....................................................................................................................... 29 NOTES .................................................................................................................................. 31 The companions of Ignatius Loyola used to say that he was a «contemplative in action ». This doesn’t ignore the fact that the saint spent hours in prayer. Rather it indicates the flow of contemplation: from pure inactivity to human action. And the main arena of human action is precisely relations . Being busy with things and nature, with study and art, may require attention; but for a contemplative soul such activities easily open up windows onto the mystery of the “beyond”. By con - trast, interperso nal relations make such an opening much more difficult: not only because of selfishness –our own and that of others– but because of the mystery, the complexity, and differences we find in human beings. Also because of the fast paced, casual nature of many of our relations. The following considerations make an earnest attempt to extend the Ignatian motto (contemplatives in action) toward the further summit of being “contemplatives in relation”, so that there we may hope to find the greatest treasures of a life shaped by faith and the following of Jesus Christ. José I. González Faus, s.j. is in charge of the Theological Department of Cristianisme i Justícia . CRISTIANISME I JUSTÍCIA Edition, Roger de Llúria, 13 - 08010 Barcelona Tel. 93 317 23 38 - Fax: 93 317 10 94 - [email protected] - www.cristianismeijusticia.net Printed by: Edicions Rondas S.L. - Dipòsit Legal: B-4.229-2012 - ISBN: 978-84-9730-288-3 ISSN: 2014-6566 - ISSN (virtual edition): 2014-6574 - June 2012 Translated by Joseph Owens - Cover illustration: Roger Torres Printed on ecological paper and recycled cardboard The Fundació Lluís Espinal lets it be known that its data are registered in a file under the name BDGACIJ, legal title of the Fundació Lluís Espinal. These are used only for providing the services we render you and for keeping you informed of our activities. You may exercise your rights of access, rectification, cancelation or opposition by writing to the Fundació in Barcelona, c/Roger de Llúria, 13. 1. CHRISTIAN CONTEMPLATION AND “RELIGIOUS CONTEMPLATION” Putting contemplation at the heart of interpersonal relations is some - thing very particular to Christianity. This is too often forgotten we make wholehearted attempts to reconcile Christian faith with the general human tendency to be religious and to make our faith emerge from that. The fact that something is very particularly Christian certainly doesn’t mean that it is any less human. Rather, the reverse is true: it is what is most profoundly human (and therefore observable also from outside Christianity). But it does have the meaning that Dietrich Bonhoeffer often repeated in his letters from prison: «the God who reveals himself in Jesus Christ turns upside down everything that “religious” people might expect of God ». 1.1. Theological foundation little about God and a great deal about God’s Reign and that he did not talk For that very reason, our statement about «seeking God first» but about regarding the particularity of Christian «seeking first the Reign of God and his contemplation requires that we demon- justice». Jesus did not urge people to be strate this from the Christian texts converted to God, but rather told them themselves, and so we will begin with to prepare themselves to enter the them. Let us take note, then, of the fol- Kingdom of God (or to be converted so lowing characteristics, all pointing in as to be able to enter it). These aspects the same direction. of Jesus’ preaching are nowadays un- a) Myriad modern theologians have questioned and could be developed fur - repeated endlessly that Jesus spoke very ther. 3 b) The truth is that Jesus does not for this is that, while natural beauty can give lessons in theology or spirituality. suggest God, only history manifests the He does not reveal the attributes of will of God. And history is the weaving God’s being (calling God Abba does together of all our human relations. not reveal a divine attribute but a way This teaching of the Nazarene is of relating to God). Plain and simply, made magnificently explicit after his Jesus announces God’s incredible love Resurrection, which the scriptures see for human beings, so that Luke (chapter as the recapitulation of the whole uni - 15) even compares it with what money verse (Ephesians 1,14). Let us look at is for human beings: God truly rejoices some examples of that. when “a single one” of the lost sheep is d) Chapter three of the letter to the found again (just as the rich man feels Ephesians contains a song expressing greater joy about recovering the million the author’s total amazement. The song he lost than he does about the nine mil- seems to reflect the profound personal lion that were never in danger). Accord- experience of Paul, 2 who is astonished ingly, Jesus is positively thrilled when by the revelation that that all human he sees that those who are despised by being are children of one great family: human societies understand the mys- all without exception. He realizes that teries of God better than the wise and this is simply the consequence of the powerful do. Mystery that has been revealed, the Mys- c) Jesus marvels at nature: he points tery that sustains everything and sur - to the beauty of the lilies and the free - passes everything, the Mystery that is dom of the birds, he knows about the active in all creation and constitutes tender care required by a grape vine or “the most exalted wisdom”, namely, a fig tree, and he is amazed by the vital the love of God made visible in Jesus power which makes a seed grow by Christ. With that revelation, all human itself while the laborer sleeps. Still, relations are transformed: they are when inviting us to pray, Jesus does not “Christified”, divinized. Since that tell us to give thanks or to become transformation necessarily affects our absorbed in the mystery of the universe way of viewing relations, our call to be (although this, of course, may also be «contemplatives in relation» runs paral- the case). The prayer Jesus teaches us lel to our «understanding of the mys- invites us to ask for the coming of tery of Christ» (Eph 3,4). God’s Reign, which means the triumph e) For the same reason, the first of what is fully human: sufficient food Christian communities created the for all and reconciliation among those formula “in Christ” or “in the Lord”, estranged. In a word, justice and peace. which served to characterize all human Like Jesus, Augustine was highly relations (couples, relatives, master/ sensitive to the beauty of nature but slave, etc.). All human relations are when he sought God in the glories of inserted into a sort of new atmosphere nature he heard a voice telling him: that transforms them: «there are broth- «Seek what is above us» 1. The reason ers, sisters, sons, daughters, inspectors, 4 and friends in the Lord; there are gree - reader should understand that what we tings, well-wishes, exhortations … in are saying is not “reductionist” (unless the Lord, and the mutual belonging of we want to accuse the Master himself man and woman is in the Lord» 3. That of being a reductionist); rather, it is a way of living or being “in Christ” is much more difficult path than the more what grounds our contemplation on common religious one. One might sus - human relations. pect that the accusation of reductionism f) We can therefore understand is an excuse fabricated by those who better the anecdote recounted in early are trying to escape the approach to Christian tradition about the apostle God through what Jesus called «the John: when he was almost a hundred narrow gate». They seem not to have years old, the last living witness of the grasped the profound “theologal” trans - earthly Jesus, John did little more than formation of human relations in repeat: love one another, love one an- Christianity, as we explained it in the other… When people complained that previous section. he kept saying the same thing and We can understand, then, this diary asked him to tell them something new, entries of Egide van Broeckhoven (a the apostle John replied: « It’s all there , Belgian Jesuit worker priest who died and that’s enough». This is a great truth, in a workplace accident at age 34): for there we find faith-hope-charity; «There’s a false contemplative prayer, there we find God, Christ, the Church, which happens on the edges of life, and and the best of what is human. there’s a true contemplative prayer which dominates life»; «God is found when everything is given up for the 1.2. Consequences sake of this world »4. All these considerations, then, indicate Such “Christian transformation” a different way of conceiving our faith should affect our way of focusing on commitment (our relation to God). We human relations, precisely because it is are talking about something different a revelation which clashes with the most from a general religious practice or elemental experience we have: the ar- from a type of Christianity which fol- duous, very difficult task of relating lows Jesus because he is believed to be humanly to one another. Well known is the Revelation of God. Our approach the kind comment of John of the Cross, also indicates that Christianity differs upon his return to Castilla from Jaén, basically from other forms of religion when he was gathering chickpeas in the in the way it conceives of prayer and field: «Handling these dead creatures is contemplation.