excerpt from an article by Silvina Primat, linked to at the blog, Feast of Eden:
Everything in our life, today
just as in Jesus’ time, begins with an encounter. An encounter with this
Man, the carpenter of Nazareth, a man like all men and yet different.
The first ones, John, Andrew, and Simon, felt themselves to be looked at
into their very depths, read in their innermost being, and in them
sprang forth a surprise, a wonder that instantly made them feel bound to
Him, made them feel different.
When Jesus asked Peter, “Do you love Me?”,
“his ‘Yes’ was not the result of an effort of will, it was not the fruit
of a ‘decision’ made by the young man Simon: it was the emergence, the
coming to the surface of an entire vein of tenderness and adherence that
made sense because of the esteem he had for Him–therefore an act of
reason;” it was a reasonable act, “which is why he couldn’t not say
‘Yes.’”
We cannot understand this dynamic of
encounter which brings forth wonder and adherence if it has not been
triggered–forgive me the use of this word–by mercy. Only someone who has
encountered mercy, who has been caressed by the tenderness of mercy, is
happy and comfortable with the Lord. I beg the theologians who are
present not to turn me in to the Sant’Uffizio or to the Inquisition;
however, forcing things a bit, I dare to say that the privileged locus
of the encounter is the caress of the mercy of Jesus Christ on my sin.
In front of this merciful embrace–and I
continue along the lines of Giussani’s thought–we feel a real desire to
respond, to change, to correspond; a new morality arises. We posit the
ethical problem, an ethics which is born of the encounter, of this
encounter which we have described up to now. Christian morality is not a
titanic effort of the will, the effort of someone who decides to be
consistent and succeeds, a solitary challenge in the face of the world.
No. Christian morality is simply a response. It is the heartfelt
response to a surprising, unforeseeable, “unjust” mercy (I shall return
to this adjective). The surprising, unforeseeable, “unjust” mercy, using
purely human criteria, of one who knows me, knows my betrayals and
loves me just the same, appreciates me, embraces me, calls me again,
hopes in me, and expects from me. This is why the Christian conception
of morality is a revolution; it is not a never falling down but an
always getting up again.
-words of Cardinal Bergoglio, now Pope Francis
3/13/2013
The Encounter
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