Father Richard's letter
‘Pride is the great sin, the head and cause of all sins, and its beginning lies in turning away from God. Beloved, do not make light of this vice, for the proud man who disdains the yoke of Christ is constrained by the harsher yoke of sin: he may not wish to serve, but he has to, because if he will not be love’s servant, he will inevitably be sin’s slave’.
St. Augustine wrote these words sixteen centuries ago, and their freshness and insight are as relevant today as they were then. I love his directness in the stark choice of being either ‘love’s servant’ or ‘sin’s slave’.
It seems to me that the only real way to love the world (which must begin with those around us) is to eschew the habits and ways of the world and live the Life of the Kingdom, whose sovereign is Christ. It is so easy and understandable to deal ‘like for like’ – finding oneself a cog in the rusty ancient machinery of automatically answering an unkindness received, with an unkindness given.
‘How often shall I forgive my neighbour?’ Christ is asked, ‘seven times?’ One has the impression that the apostle asking the question has been slighted several times (by another apostle?) and awaits ‘divine sanction’ for a revenging broadside. Christ’s answer of ‘seventy times seven’ is His answer to us as well. When it comes to wrongs inflicted on us we are meticulously numerate –(we know the score), but are strangely vague and impressionistic when it comes to counting the times we have offended or hurt others.
I have always delighted in the Marx Brothers, and their anarchic antics. In all their films they carry on regardless of conventional expectations, they march to another tune than those around them. Conventionality, ‘Upstandingness’ and Respectability are not gifts of the Spirit. Living a life of creative loving freedom is a sure sign that the Kingdom of God is breaking out among us.
The tired, so worldly system of retribution, revenge and bitterness is so self perpetuating and disfiguring. Where Christ’s way rather than the world’s way is chosen, the whole world changes – and what seemed impossible comes into the glorious light of Him for whom ‘all things are possible’.
The South African Truth Commission, chaired by Archbishop Tutu is a wonderful example of the liberating servitude of Love ousting the slavery of sin.
Perhaps, as you read this you may think of a person or a situation that you have ‘given up on’. The ‘way of Christ’ has never failed when it has been acted upon, rather, it is a way – God’s way, that is too seldom tried.
God give us all grace to follow, a little more faithfully Him who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life – ‘in whose service is perfect freedom’.
With Love
