Compassion and Contemplation in Today’s World
By Victoria
Marie (2006, 2013)
Introduction
Some of the current theoretical
perspectives are seriously questioning “taken for granted” dichotomies and
dualisms such as: mind/body;
intellectual/emotional; and, public/private.
Many of us acknowledge that the dividing lines are getting blurry, if
not disappearing altogether. Yet when it
comes to spiritual/physical one of three things happen. The spiritual is severed from the physical,
denied existence, or wedded to religion.
Religion may be the way some of us choose to express our faith but
spirituality is where love and compassion reside. Love and compassion are not necessarily
concomitant with religion but they cannot be separated from spirituality. Someone once said, “religion is like a
monument; spirituality is like a river.”
Spirituality is alive, changing, flowing, joining.
…spirituality
concerns the experience of striving for self-transcendence, to be in
relationship with the Other, a quality
that goes beyond religious affiliation.
It is a striving for meaning, purpose, and knowledge of the Transcendent
that has personal, communal and public aspects (CHAC, 1996:13).
The way that we strive for meaning,
purpose and knowledge of the Transcendent is rooted in our theological
perspective. One’s theology, articulated
or not, influences the external expression of the interior spiritual self. What follows is an attempt to formulate a
constructive theology of contemplation and compassion for today’s world from
the perspective of my own cultural and religious community. To do so, certain preliminary issues must be
addressed. For example, some background
material is supplied to make clear the “standpoint” from which I speak. Further, Michael Blastic (1998), noted
Franciscan theologian, suggests a theology for today should explore the
following questions which I have used as a framework for exploring a theology of
contemplation and compassion:
- what does it mean to be human?
- what is the value and role of social institutions?
- and, how are we to deal with difference, with otherness?
What is expressed here is not meant to be
dogmatic or proselytize a particular faith or denominational point of
view. The purpose is to share a
Christian view of compassion and contemplation, which is influenced by Saint
Francis of Assisi. For example, in early Christian monastic
tradition, compassion and contemplation corresponded to the physical-spiritual
dichotomy with the corresponding hierarchical attribution of value or
virtue. Contemplation practiced as a
life of prayer away from the world was seen as a “holier” way to live than
compassion as practiced in good works in the world. According to Franciscan teaching, this too,
is another false dichotomy.
Contemplation provides us with the space for reflection and
self-reflection that awakens us to our connectedness to God, stirring in us the
compassion to act with others according to our transformed awareness.
The definitions of theology, compassion and contemplation, as used
here, must precede any further discussion.
For a definition of theology, I look to John Duns Scotus as interpreted
by Ingham (1994:227):
…theology is praxis and its goal is not simply a way
of doing, but rather a way of being human in the image of the divine
trinitarian mystery of personhood and communion. This way of being unites us with God and with
one another in a communion of love as an imitation of the love which Christ
embodied.
Compassion entails being willing to suffer with another person by
being there in whatever way possible, sharing the circumstances of the other’s
life as much as one can. Compassion
includes realizing that being there is the best we can do sometimes. Compassion means being there as a companion
to the person who suffers not as a “fixer” for the person who is suffering
(Palmer, 1990:84).
Contemplation, according to Palmer (1990:17), is understood as “any
way that we can unveil the illusion that masquerades as reality and reveal the
reality behind the masks.” The Reality
behind the masks is our longing for God, God’s love for us, and that we are
social beings meant to be in right relationship with God and each other.
Yet, no one approaches theology with a clean slate. We all bring our own perspectives formed by
our unique backgrounds and experiences that can affect us in at least two
ways. First, it is a life’s work to
overcome certain habitual ways of thinking that hinders us in love. Second, a few experiences give us an
understanding of some people or situations that allow us to follow Christ and
serve our neighbour in unique or special ways.
Hence, it is worthwhile to take inventory of ourselves so that we are
aware of those things about ourselves that with grace can be transformed and/or
enhanced so that we may fulfill the two commandments of Jesus.
You shall love the Lord
your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your
mind. This is the greatest and first
commandment. And a second is like
it: You shall love your neighbour as
yourself. On these two commandments hang
all the law and the prophets (Matthew 22:37-40 NRSV[1]).
Contemplation and compassion reside in those two commandments. One could view this paper as a blueprint for
how I am to do theology, given my background and experience.
I am a cradle Roman Catholic who attended a parochial grammar school
and Brooklyn’s diocesan high school. I come from a family in which one side was
Roman Catholic and interfaith on the other.
The pre-Vatican II years in which the church was not above the societal
“ism’s” of the day, including racism, were my formative years. At that time, most images of the sacred were
based on a eurocentric world view.
It is hard not to view the world through the lens of marginalization
in a society and a church that does not deal equitably with its female
members. My education tends to make me
suspect among non-dominant groups, while the colour of my skin and my gender
often set me on the margins of the dominant group. Yet, instead of making me bitter, I see the
benefit for service of having one foot on either side of the bridge. I have been graced with the ability to
understand the language of the mainstream and that of the marginal groups to
which I “belong” or have been assigned.
I was a member of a Franciscan ecumenical order
founded in 1996 after 10 years of birthing.
We live a vowed life, including the vow of poverty which for us includes
owning no real estate, individually or in common, and living in solidarity with
the poor. As a pastoral assistant for three inner-city
parishes, I wore a variety of hats, including coordinator of adult religious
education, pastoral care and numerous other duties. I am a founding member
and resident of the Vancouver Catholic Worker House, a place of hospitality for
people with nowhere else to stay, which opened in June 1998. Currently, as a Pastor, the time spent in paid and voluntary
ministry, explorations of contemplation and compassion are not only a scholastic
exercise but a reflective necessity for me.
The preceding is a snapshot of what formed the lens through which I
view the world and through which I reflect on the questions that follow. It influences the material chosen and the way
it is interpreted. Most of all it helps
and sometimes hinders my honest desire to achieve that union with God of which
Blastic spoke when he stated that, “Union with God comes from the intersection
of desire for God and compassion for others (Blastic, 1998)[2].
What Does It Mean To Be Human?
Pope John Paul II has called our modern culture, a “culture of
death”[3]
for understanding human potential exclusively in terms of a person’s ability to
produce and to purchase goods and services.
Our Franciscan theological tradition offers an alternative
interpretation of what it means to be human.
To be human is to be made in the image
and likeness of God; to be a part of the universe, not master of it. Suffering, limitation, vulnerability and
weakness are also part of being human.
Being human means being created as a result of the infinite love of
God. Francis tells us that it is in
embracing our humanity, our suffering, limitation, vulnerability and weakness,
we follow in the footsteps of Christ. In
Christian tradition, God is the Trinity.
According to Stravinskas (1991:942-3):
The
central mystery of the Christian Faith is that the one God is Father, Son and
Holy Spirit, Three Persons sharing one nature.
Although the term “Trinity” does not appear in Scripture, the reality of
the Triune God is unmistakably present in Christ’s references to the Father and
the Spirit. For example, Christ
says: “When the Counselor comes, who I
shall send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the
Father, he will bar witness to me” (John 15:26). The central conviction of historic mainstream
Christianity ̶ hammered out over the course of three
centuries of doctrinal controversy … ̶ is that
Christ is describing not merely the external relations of God but the very
inner life of the Triune God.
The procession of the Word [Son] from the Father (called
“generation) and the procession of the Spirit from the Father and the Son
(“spiration”) are eternal and immanent.
The only distinctions in the otherwise perfectly undifferentiated Divine
Nature are those that arise by reason of the two processions. If the processions are real, then the
relations to which they give rise must be real.
However, since whatever is real in God is identical with the Divine
Nature, the relations, though distinct from each other, are not distinct from
God. The Three Persons of the Trinity
are subsistent relations, each fully divine, each consubstantial with the
other.
Thus, the inner
life of the Triune God is a life of pure mutual interrelation in knowledge and
love. The astonishing destiny of every
created being (human and angelic) is to share in this union both through love
of other persons and consummately in the Trinitarian life itself. This is mystery in the strictest sense,
knowable only through the revelation of the Triune God.
The second Person of the Trinity, Jesus
Christ who is God, so loved us that he took on our human condition so that we
might come to know God. John Duns Scotus
delves deeper into this Mystery and posits that Jesus Christ would have donned
our human form even if our first parents had not broken their covenant with the
Creator. He suggests that the
Incarnation was always part of the Divine plan.
Because of God’s love for us his creatures, Jesus was always destined to
be the mediator between the Creator and the creature. Ingham (1994) describes the relatedness
between God and humanity as “mutuality” because it depends upon a free choice
among persons, in this case God and humanity, to enter into relationship.
Mutuality between
God and human persons is a freely chosen act initiated by God, foreseen from
all eternity, begun in the Incarnation, and fully realized in the future when
Christ will bring all things together and God will be “all in all.” The summit of creation is the communion of
all persons with one another and with God.
This is made possible by the union of divinity and humanity in Jesus
Christ. . . . He [Christ] embodies the covenant between God and humans (Ingham,
1994:222).
God’s love for us
goes beyond the generality that God loves humanity. God loves each of us specifically and in
particular. The Hebrew Scripture says:
I have called you by
name, you are mine. . . . you are
precious in my sight, and honored, and I love you (Isaiah 43:1, 4a).
We cannot separate reason from feeling in our response to what it
means to be human. To be compassionate
is to feel what the other feels. To
share the other’s suffering, one must be compassionate. Our reason should tell us that we are not
able to “fix” every situation and that “being with” a person in a time of need
is sometimes more mutually healthy than “doing for” the person. It is through contemplation that our
understanding, our hearts and our eyes become open to compassion. Through contemplation, we become open to God’s
love for us and to the knowledge that we show our love for God through loving
our neighbour. The Trinity, a communion
of love, is the model for human interaction and human community/society.
The exemplar of
[T]rinitarian communion and divine initiative reveal divine love as agape, or other-centered. The very act of creation is a sign of divine
perfection, and to view the created order as a freely chosen divine act endows
all nature with heightened dignity. The
outpouring of love beyond the three persons of the Trinity into the covenant
with Israel
and the Incarnation reveals the inclusivity of the divine dynamic of love. God does not desire to be the private
possession of any one person or group, but to extend the reality of love to all
persons (Ingham, 1994:228).
Francis knew that being human also meant being in relationship or
community with others. He knew that his
way of following in the footprints of Jesus could be shared not just with his
brothers but with everyone. He makes
this impassioned plea in the Earlier Rule,
And all of us lesser
brothers, useless servants, humbly ask and beg all those who wish to serve the
Lord God … all the small and the great, all peoples, races, tribes, and
tongues, all nations and all peoples everywhere on earth who are and who will
be¾that all of us may persevere in the true faith and in penance, for
otherwise no one will be saved (Armstrong and Brady, 1983:132).
Francis is saying we are all in this together, and we must strive to
become, who we are called by God to be, regardless of our marital and
professional status. In our time, the
church is no longer one, catholic, and apostolic but many, each claiming to
have The Truth. On the secular level
people no longer think of the village, the community, or even the state as a
rallying point. Concern for profit seems
to have replaced concern for people.
Even less concern is shown for our non-human brothers and sisters,
including our planet, the earth on which we live, the air we breath and our
waters. Hence, we seem to have lost
faith in our institutions both secular and religious.
What is the value and role of social institutions?
Palmer (1990) describes what he calls the “scarcity assumption” and
posits that the quality of our lives depends on whether we act from the
assumption of a world of scarcity or a world of abundance (Palmer,
1990:124). The scarcity assumption
consists of assuming that basic needs like food and shelter as well as the
intangibles like love, a sense of competence, and power are in short supply. It assumes not only the survival of the
fittest but of the fastest and the strongest.
Each of us is an incarnation of the holy, posits Palmer. Hence, each of us can live a life that evokes
the power inherent in the community we have with each other and with God. Further, each life lived out of holiness can
evoke the power of corporate abundance that lies behind the illusion of
scarcity (Palmer, 1990:136). “Corporate”
as used here means communal. Therefore,
corporate abundance is the natural outcome of shared resources. The reality of corporate abundance could
replace institutional structures founded on the assumption of scarcity, such as
hierarchies which,
are always rooted in the
belief that power itself is or ought to be, a scarce commodity, rooted in the
belief that few people are qualified to hold power, or that few should be
allowed to hold it, lest the threatening abundance of power known as
“democracy” come to pass (Palmer, 1990:126).
Rohr and Feister (1996) describe the outcome of our participation in
the assumption of scarcity at the institutional level. They state that it is money which drives our
governmental, social policy and other institutions. Rohr and Feister (1996) state,
Some people say politics is the driving
institution, but people often are naïve politically, ignorant of the power and
reality of politics.
The
dominant institution in our society is the system of production and
consumption. The central value of our
culture is buying and selling. It
pervades everything. . . .Commercialism is invading everything because the
entire system is built on the commandments, “Thou shalt produce” and “Thou
shalt consume” (Rohr and Feister, 1996:68).
The deception of the scarcity of resources and power are dependent
on a religion of the captive God.
Brueggemann posits this is a religion in which all opposition is
dissipated and the status quo is at ease in the presence of God. When the tension concerning God’s freedom is
eliminated, especially God’s freedom to be the court of appeal for the
marginalized, religion becomes one more dimension for the maintenance of order
in society, no matter the cost (Brueggemann, 1978:36).
Our Franciscan tradition and Palmer teach us that if we convert from
buying and competing to giving and offering ourselves, both community and
abundance will result. Abundance does
not necessarily mean that we have embarked on a world without pain and
suffering but that in community we replace the assumption of scarcity which placates
the powerful few with satiation at the expense of the majority of God’s
children by reducing them to poverty.
Abundance is arrived at through individuals filled with passion who make
up a compassionate community.
Passion as the capacity
and readiness to care, to suffer, to die, and to feel is the enemy of imperial
reality. Imperial economics is designed
to keep people satiated so that they do not notice. Its politics is intended to block out the
cries of the denied ones. Its religion
is to be an opiate so that no one discerns misery alive in the heart of God
(Brueggemann, 1978:41).
In the story of Jesus feeding the five thousand, Jesus gives thanks
to God, acknowledges that he and the others are dependent on gifts that have
been given and expresses his trust that there is a power other than his at
work. This empowers Jesus to act
(Palmer, 1990:135).
Without our active
cooperation, God’s abundance remains in the realm of potential, always there,
always available, but forever untapped.
To put it into Christian terms, we are called to incarnate the
Christ-life (Palmer, 1990:135).
The value and role of our institutions is that they should work for
the common good. The more we become
aware of the illusions and opt for the reality that Jesus is showing us, the
better able we will be to form and reform our social institutions. In keeping with the definition of
contemplation as any way that we can unmask illusion and reveal reality, we are
able to act out of our contemplation. We
will be empowered to be prophets as individuals and as communities, who can
critically evaluate our society’s commitment to social justice. We will be empowered to guide our
institutions. The prophet is not concerned with the success of the mission as
such but is concerned with living and being who they are before God. Brueggemann writes:
The
prophet does not scold or reprimand. The
prophet brings to public expression the dread of endings, the collapse of our
self-madeness, the barriers and pecking orders that secure us at each other’s
expense, and the fearful practice of eating off the table of a hungry brother
or sister (1978:50-51).
How Are We To Deal With Difference, Otherness?
Francis tells us “We must never desire to be over others; rather we
must be servants and subject to every human creature for God’s sake” (Armstrong
and Brady, 1982:70). In this regard,
Jesus is our prime example of inclusiveness.
To Jesus women, even foreign women such as the Syro-Phoenician Woman (Mk
7:24-30, Mat 14:21-28) and the Samaritan Woman at the Well (John 4:1-42), were
worthy of his attention. Societal
outcasts, such as Zacchaeus the tax collector (Luke 19:1-10) and lepers (Luke
17:11-19), were shown to be loved by God through Jesus’ friendship and
ministry. Jesus demonstrates God’s love
for each of these people.
We must not overlook the fact that the Syro-Phoenician Woman and the
Samaritan Woman at the Well demanded to be heard. They were bold enough to step out of the role
that the dominant society had set for them and asked for what they needed. These women did not just “stay in their
place”. Often when questions of
inclusion or exclusion are considered the potentially (often actually) excluded
are not part of the discussion.
Exclusion from the dignity due the human person, made in the image
of God, is injustice. Oppression,
repression, murder, violence, and all the “isms” are the result of ignoring the
dignity and spark of God inherent in each and everyone of God’s creatures. Keeping silent on issues of injustice,
refraining from involvement when another is being unjustly treated, are ways of
passively participating in the violence itself.
Palmer touched a chord in my conscience and my soul as I read:
If we—people like me and
perhaps you—really believed in resurrection, believed it not just in theory but
in our bones, we would have no choice but to risk all that we have by taking
action for justice.
Bone-deep knowledge of resurrection would take away the
fears that some of us presently use to justify our cautious, self-protective
lives. Death-dealing fear would be replaced
by life-giving faith, and we would be called to do God-knows-what for
God-knows-who. Perhaps we would be
compelled to take in a homeless person; to go to prison in protest of nuclear
madness; to leave jobs that contribute to violence; to “speak truth to power”
in a hundred risky ways. In the process,
we might lose much that we have, perhaps even our lives—and that is the threat
of resurrection (Palmer, 1990:153-4).
Living as if we believed in the life, passion, death, and
resurrection of Jesus would put us right where contemplation and compassion
intersect, the union with God that we seek.
Conclusion
Our institutions have a role and value only if they work from a
bedrock based on truth instead of perpetuating life and love defeating lies and
myths. We need to heed the prophets of
our time who show us that “the emperor has no clothes” instead of the corporate
public relations spokespersons telling us to spend what we do not have to buy
what we do not need, to imprison ourselves in enclaves that keep out those who
might need what we have in our storehouses.
Jesus cured lepers, Francis kissed, nursed and befriended lepers, we can
at least break bread with the lepers of our time. In a nut shell, a viable theology of
compassion and contemplation has three components: love God, love God in and through our
neighbour, and act like we do. For as the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church says, “The failure to put love
into practice, even if we are faithful to the Church in all other ways, is a
rejection of salvation itself” (Huebsch, 1997:37)
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