On 31st January 2023 I officially started my new role as Canon for Intercultural Mission and the Arts at Bradford Cathedral. The role has been shaped in light of Bradford being name City of Culture 2025. If you look at the archive of this blog (before I focussed on New Monasticism) you will see my musings on the intersection of arts and faith. This role has brought me back to that area of thinking and practice. What I am keen to do is to give space for my reflections on faith, art and culture as I grow and learn over the next season of my life.
I have called this series ‘Into Culture’ as an obvious play on words and as a way of expressing something of my curious position in relation to ‘culture’. When I engage in any culture, including my own Western culture, I feel like an alien/foreigner. This is, in part, due to my neurodiversity which gives me a particular observation point to explore the broad topic of ‘culture’. I hope, over the next few years, to explore what faithful engagement with the culture sector of the city of Bradford and my attempts to facilitate intercultural mission in that diverse context looks like.
While on retreat before his consecration to episcopal office in 1970, Óscar Romero, wrote, ‘My consecration is synthesized in this word: sentir con la iglesia.’ Eight years later, as Archbishop of San Salvador, Romero found himself facing heavy criticism from the Church. He wrote, in a letter justifying his position to the established Church, ‘For many years my motto has been “Sentir con la Iglesia.” It always will be.’
To write on the life of Óscar Romero, is to write on the nature of conversion. It is on this singular topic that Romero returned most frequently throughout his long ministry. It is also his own, supposed ‘conversion’ that every biographer rightly focuses on and explores. The infamous story of the murder of Fr. Rutilio Grande, a Jesuit priest and long-time friend of Romero, twenty days after taking up the role of archbishop clearly had a profound effect and is often depicted as ‘Romero’s road to Damascus.’ To what extent, however, did that moment change Romero?
In the literature about Romero, the way that his change is described reveals much about how the entirety of his legacy gets accounted for. Consider three images of Romero. The first is the caricature perpetuated by his opponents: he was a weak and confused churchman who became a puppet of radical priests and communists ideology… the sudden and radical transformation of a right-wing bishop who becomes a revolutionary spokesman for justice, to a tamer notion of a churchman who responded with the same Christian faith he always possessed but in a new, highly charged situation.
Michael E. Lee, Revolutionary Saint: The Theological Legacy of Óscar Romero (New York: Orbis Books, 2018) p.49
Each biographer must navigate and select which of these seemingly competing views will be the lens through which they read the life and work of this complex figure. It is not, primarily, my intention to rehearse these different voices and tell this particular story again. I merely want to juxtapose those voices and add in Romero’s own to explore how one who is depicted as having been so dramatically transfigured can still be seen as the same person faithfully holding to the same ideal.
It is telling that so much is made of the supposed conversion of Romero and how it has been viewed by different parts of the Church in order to claim this man’s legacy as their own. Rodolfo Cardenal points to ‘three duelling versions of Romero: the nationalist, the spiritualist, and the liberationist’ Many would state that Romero was converted, as all conversions are traditionally seen as, from one place to another; from conservative to progressive, from neo-scholasticism to Liberation Theology, from timidity to prophetic but Romero consistently denied this view.
I denied having used the phrase attributed to me of “having been converted” and much less having compared myself to other bishops or vainly believing myself “a prophet.” What happened in my priestly life, I have tried to explain to myself as an evolution of the same desire that I have always had to be faithful to what God asks of me.
Óscar Romero, letter to Baggio, June 24, 1978, The Brockman Romero Papers
As he set out on episcopal ministry in 1970 through to his assassination ten years later, Romero stated he followed the Ignatian maxim sentir con la iglesia. I want to explore each of these ‘conversions’, the different ‘duelling versions’ presented in them and ask how Romero remained ‘faithful’ throughout. I will continue to return to Romero’s own voice and seek to present my conjecture: Óscar Romero embodies the Church at time of evolution, more than the popular, political revolution of society that he is heralded as a prophet for.
Sentir con la Iglesia
The Church, then, is in an hour of aggiornamento, that is, a crisis in its history. And as in all aggriornamenti, two antagonsitic forces emerge: on the one hand, a boundless desire for novelty, which Paul VI describes as “arbitrary dreams of artificial renewals”; and on the other hand, an attachment to the changelessness of the forms with which the Church has clothed itself over the centuries and a rejection of the character of modern times. Both extremes sin by exaggeration… So as not to fall into either the ridiculous position of uncritical affection for what is old, or the ridiculous position of becoming adventurers pursuing “artificial dreams” about novelties, the best thing is to live today more than ever according to the classic axiom: think with the Church.
Óscar Romero, “Aggiornamento”, El Chaparrastique, no. 2981, January 15, 1965, p.1.
The above quote, written years before his consecration, sees the first recorded instance of Romero writing about of the Ignatian ‘axiom’ that came to define his life and ministry. Sentir con la iglesia is used here to describe a seeming middle way that helps to protect the Church from falling foul of two extreme errors; a feature we will return throughout. The question one must answer first is: what does sentir con la iglesia mean?
Sentir con la iglesia is the object of a set of rules placed at the end of the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius. In the Latin Vulgate edition the opening remark is translated as ‘Some rules for observing how to feel with the Orthodox Church.’ In another translation it reads, ‘The following rules should be observed to foster the true attitude of mind we ought to have in the Church.’ Much has been written and explored on the complexities of translating sentir con la igleisa. Again, I will not replicate the old arguments, suffice to say George Ganss notes that the rules to ‘think with the church’ ‘involves far more than the realm of thought or correct belief.’ All would agree that sentir encapsulates a thinking, feeling, listening and embodying with and in the Church. Douglas Marcouiller SJ summarises it well.
To think with the Church is not a matter of the head alone. It is a personal act of identification with the Church, the Body of Christ in history, sacrament of salvation in the world. To identify with the Church means to embrace its mission, the mission of Jesus, to proclaim the Reign of God to the poor. To think with the Church is therefore an apostolic act… for Romero, to think with the Church meant not to think with “the powers of this world.” Romero listened to them, talked with them, but refused to align himself with them.
Douglas Marcouiller SJ, “Archbishop with an Attitude”, Studies in the Spirituality of Jesuits, issue 35, no.3, May 2003, p.3
Before turning to explore the ‘duelling versions’ of Romero, let us return to his episcopal commitment in 1970. He expands his simple synthesis with a pledge to the magisterium.
My consecration is synthesized in this word: sentir con la iglesia. This means I will make the three ways of the church according to the encyclical Ecclesiam Suam my own and after examining my personal reality according to the criteria of the glory of God and the eternal health of my soul.
Óscar Romero, “Cuadernos espirituales”, entry for June 8, 1970
Ecclesiam suam was published whilst the Second Vatican Council was still deliberating but outlines an ecclesiological shift later fleshed out in Lumen gentium. In the early part of the encyclical, Pope Paul VI outlines three principles ‘which principally exercise Our mind when We reflect on the enormous responsibility for the Church of Christ.’ These three principles are: deeper self knowledge, renewal and dialogue. In his spiritual notes on these principles, Romero sketched out how he would live them out in his episcopal ministry.
The first, a deeper self knowledge, meant a commitment to ‘know[ing] the church more each day and my place and duty to her.’ Romero’s vicar general, José Ricardo Urioste believed ‘He [Romero] was the man in this country who best knew the magisterium of the Church, and no one since then has known it as well.’ This will be explored when we look at the proposed conversion from conservative to progressive. The second, the need for renewal, draws from the recurring theme in Romero’s ministry, ‘The church demands holiness and is always in need of conversion. I will be before I act. I have examined the many things that ask for penitence, caution, and reform within me.’ Here we will continue to explore the renewal the Church went through during Romero’s ministry and how he incarnated that within him personally.
Finally, the demand for dialogue. Here we touch on a particular point of contention when observing the conflicting interpretations and adoptions of Vatican II theology; that is of the place of the Church in the changing world. Although we will explore it briefly before, this also raises questions about Romero’s character and whether he converted from being timid to being a prophet, speaking out against established power and being ‘manipulated’ by left-wing, Marxists with in El Salvador.
From Conservative to Progressive
The terms ‘conservative’ and ‘progressive’, in the current time of highly polemical politic, have become satirical caricatures used to white wash opponents. In the current discussion, and in relation to Romero, ‘conservative’ is an erring towards the more traditional views, in this case, of the Roman Catholic Church and to be ‘progressive’ is to tend towards new ideas which push towards a change of ecclesial theology. For brevity I want to focus on Romero’s relationship with the dramatic changes that were taking place during and after Vatican II.
The Second Vatican Council was an historic moment within the Roman Catholic Church but still there are many who argue about the correct interpretation and application of the results. Michael E. Lee points out that there emerges two emphases; those who see ‘“continuity” or “renewal” against those who stress “discontinuity” or “reform.”’ Interestingly, the different interpretations of Vatican II are the same applied to Romero in its aftermath.
In his surprising announcement of an ‘Ecumenical Council of the universal Church’, Pope John XXIII stated, ‘In an era of renewal,’ recalling ancient forms of doctrinal affirmation and wise orders of ecclesiastical discipline ‘yielded fruits of extraordinary efficacy, for the clarity of thought, for the compactness of religious unity, for the liveliest flame of Christian fervour that we continue to recognise.’ It was for very conservative reasons that this momentous council was called at a time of great ‘progress’. Under the subsequent pontiff, it took a decidedly different turn, as we have seen in the encyclical Ecclesiam Suam, focusing on ‘renewal’ but even then, based on a deeper knowledge and faithfulness to the Church’s continuous teaching throughout history.
Romero was ordained prior to Vatican II and so saw the changes as they occurred in history. All personal accounts of the ministry of Fr. Romero are of a faithful, pious priest who loved people and was committed to the pope. It is not, therefore, inconceivable to interpret the life of Óscar Romero as one who embodies the Church at a time of great change, particularly in the progressive demands in El Salvador, his own context.
A pastoral letter, ‘The Holy Spirit In The Church’, written by Romero as bishop of Santiago de María in 1975, is more conservative than the ones written later when we he was archbishop, but there is a characteristically Romero trait found in it that echoes throughout his life and ministry.
Every renewal will be authentic when it favours greater bonding of the hierarchy with the community, when it achieves better communication of the true faith, and when it makes better use of the sacraments and other channels of grace. Adopting any doctrinal or pastoral approaches that neutralise, obstruct, or render ambiguous one or another of these three coordinates will mean working in vain or sowing confusion, no matter how brilliant or up-to-date such approaches may appear.
Óscar Romero, “The Holy Spirit in the Church”, May 18, 1975, p.4
This balancing between two extreme positions reveals a synthesis that perfectly portrays the Transfigured Christ, both human and Divine, in one moment. Romero himself calls this synthesis, sentir con la iglesia. We also see it in Romero’s editorial in Orientacíon in 1973, as he responded to the ‘progressive’ Medellin document,
An event in the life of the Church, so transcendental for the Americas, has been disfigured by the exaggeration of two extremes: those who do not want to allow themselves to be led by the vigorous breath of the Holy Spirit that impels the Church to a more dynamic presence “in the current transformation of Latin America,” and those who want to accelerate that dynamism so much that they have confused the exigency of the Spirit with the spirit of an anti-Christian revolution. The former and the latter have done much damage to the true spirit of Medellin that, before all else, is a religious spirit.
Óscar Romero, “Medellin mal comprendido y mutilado”, Orientacíon, no. 2030 (August 12, 1973), p.3
What we see here, even before his arch-episcopal ministry, is a call to embrace the ‘progressive’ but without denying the ‘conservative’ and vice versa. Again, the interpretation of Medellin is projected on to Romero and one’s analysis of Medellin will lead to a particular view of Romero himself. The proof often cited for Romero’s conservatism is his noteworthy dedication to the Pope and his fascination with ecclesial documents and encyclicals that he continuously quoted. Edgardo Colón-Emeric sees ‘his persistent appeal to ecclesial documents in his teaching and preaching’, that continued throughout his life, ‘is an expression then of his sentir con la iglesia.’
From Neo-Scholasticism to Liberation
Romero himself, in an interview during the 1979 Puebla Conference in Mexico, reflected ‘St. Ignatius’s ‘to be of one mind with the Church’ would be ‘to be of one mind with the Church incarnated in this people who stand in need of liberation.’’ This embodied interpretation of sentir may well, for some, prove a conversion in Romero’s understanding from a spiritualised, neo-scholastic ecclesiology to an incarnational one characteristic of Liberation Theology and there might well be some veracity to this view. Certainly in his pastoral letter, ‘The Holy Spirit In The Church’, his ecclesiology is notably more hierarchical and traditional than later letters, but there are still foretastes of his more articulated idea of the Church as ‘The Body Of Christ In History’ . This later, more incarnational ecclesiology is still rooted, as is all of Romero’s theology, in the magisterium, and the earlier pastoral letter is rooted in Vatican II with its re-emphasis of the people of God and it even shows some signs of reflecting on the Medellin documents to which Romero was beginning to adopt.
Lee makes much of Romero’s training which, at the time, was drenched in neo-scholasticism and presents the Salvadoran priest as the epitome of this heritage. Although Romero, undoubtedly, was greatly influenced by his time in Rome, we must not forget that he trained in the Jesuit institution and, as Jon Sobrino notes, ‘he used to recall his humble origins.’ By the time Romero is archbishop it is difficult not see him as a supporter of some forms of Liberation Theology. This conversion, like that from conservatism to progressivism, is a matter of positioning.
…a central point of contention in remembering Romero’s legacy: judging whether he represents Vatican II’s theology, liberation theology, both, or something else altogether depends a great deal on how those positions are identified.
Michael E. Lee, Revolutionary Saint: The Theological Legacy of Óscar Romero (New York: Orbis Books, 2018) p.2
Lee does agree that Romero should never be presented as one who ‘lamented the loss of preconciliar identity; but given his rigorous neo-Scholastic formation, one can inquire as to the kind of reception he gave the council and its documents.’ These enquiries though will show, as already stated, that Romero remained faithful to ‘think with the church’ including being wed to ‘the hierarchical communion’ of the Church but it is a misreading of his earlier work to suggest that that ‘Romero’s understanding of church authority was changing.’ Romero’s faithfulness to the hierarchical Church not only means that of the power from the top down but also from bottom up.
Edgardo Colón-Emeric presents a thorough depiction of the many forms of Liberation Theology describing them all as a direct response to Vatican II which, don’t forget, was called to conserve Church teaching in a new context. It is in this context that Colón-Emeric presents Romero as a Church Father. He turns to José Comblin’s identification of common traits that characterize church fathers: ‘a holy life, an orthodox faith, an understanding of the signs of the times, and popular recognition. The church fathers were not academic theologians but pastors (or monks) dedicated to edifying the church.’ It was to these Fathers that the Church turned to in Vatican II and I would side with those presented by Lee as seeing the ‘reform of Vatican II’ as the church changing ‘to be more traditional.’
Before moving onto Romero’s character, it is worth concluding that his renewal of theology and shifts in articulation, particularly of ecclesiology throughout his ministry does show some development and change. This, I am arguing, is in line with Colón-Emeric’s view.
In all, Romero understood that only to the extent to which he experienced the renewal of his passions and actions could he be identified with a church that was also in a constant process of renewal.
Edgardo Colón-Emeric, Óscar Romero’s Theological Vision: Liberation and the Transfiguration of the Poor (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2018) p.188
From Timidity to Prophetic
The incident of Fr. Rutilio Grande’s death was seen to embolden Romero ‘to accept a larger, prophetic role as the voice of the Salvadoran people’ and ‘turned the conservative, timid, bookish bishop into a flaming prophet.’ Arturo Riveria Damas, Romero’s successor, agrees.
Before the body of Fr. Rutilio Grande, Monseñor Romero, on his twentieth day as archbishop, felt the call of Christ to defeat his natural human timidity and to fill himself with the intrepidness of the apostle.
Arturo Rivera Damas, in the preface to Jesús Delgado, Óscar A. Romero: Biografia (San Salvador: UCA, 1990) p.3
Romero’s vicar general, however, portrays a different view.
[In the pulpit] Romero was transformed… Monseñor was a bit timid. In conversations in informal groups he hardly said anything at all… But when he got to the pulpit he was another man.
José Ricardo Urioste, interview, 7 December, 2002, cited in Douglas Marcouiller SJ, “Archbishop with an Attitude”, Studies in the Spirituality of Jesuits, issue 35, no.3, May 2003, p.36
We capture something of that timidity in his notes prior to consecration in 1970 and see the desire seven years prior to the ‘conversion’ moment to evolve.
The church becomes self-aware and is renewed not for itself but rather to be attractive and bring redemption to the world. Being in order to act. I too need to be apt for dialogue with men…I will contribute my opinion. I have the courage to intervene… I will consult.
Óscar Romero, “Cuadernos espirituales”, entry for June 8, 1970
Romero is portrayed by many, particularly those closest to him, as an archbishop who listened to the people. In the introductory remarks of his final pastoral letter, ‘The Church’s Mission and the National Crisis’, Romero articulates this importance of dialogue.
Taking account of the charism of dialogue and consultation I wanted to prepare for this pastoral letter by undertaking a survey of my beloved priests and of the basic ecclesial communities… we must never think of the various responses to which one single Spirit gives rise as being at odds with one another. They have to be seen as complementary and all beneath the watchful overview of the bishop.
Óscar Romero, Joe Owen (trans.), “The Church’s Mission and the National Crisis”, Fourth Pastoral Letter of Archbishop Romero Feast of the Transfiguration, August 6, 1979, Archbishop Romero Trust, http://www.romerotrust.org.uk/sites/default/files/fourth%20pastoral%20letter.pdf, p.3 and 36
It was this dialogue that informed his homilies, the greatest testament to his theology, much like the Church Fathers to which we have already compared him. These homilies were examples, many of his later supporters have argued, to Romero being ‘the voice of the voiceless’, but it worth noting ‘Romero never arrogated that title for himself personally.’ He did, however, assume this role ecclesially. Quoting Lumen Gentium, Romero states ‘the holy people of God shares also in Christ’s prophetic office … under the guidance of the sacred teaching authority.’ Earlier in his ministry Romero stated
The pastor’s role is simply to raise his voice and summon people to loving responsibility, so that rich and poor love one another as the Lord commands (Jn 13,34), “because the strength of our charity is neither in hatred nor in violence” (Paul VI, 24-VIII-68).
Óscar Romero, Joe Owen (trans.), “The Holy Spirit in the Church”, First Pastoral Letter of Bishop Romero Feast of Pentecost, 18 May, 1975, Archbishop Romero Trust, http://www.romerotrust.org.uk/sites/default/files/lost%20pastoral%20romero.pdf
This ‘prophetic’ ministry was merely a continuation of his hierarchical understanding of the Church that he embodied and with which he thought felt and listened to. Marcouiller summarised it perfectly when he wrote, ‘The teaching of the Church called him to put himself on the line, to overcome his natural timidity, to identify himself with the church, the people of God, the Body of Christ in history.’ My conclusion, therefore, is that Romero continued in the Church’s duty, ‘to lend its voice to Christ so that he may speak, its feet so that he may walk today’s world, its hands to build the kingdom, and to offer all its members ‘to make up all that has still to be undergone by Christ.’’
Conclusion
Romero, remained, throughout his ministry, a faithful servant to the unity of the Church. He continually articulated the need to avoid the ever-diverging extremes and sought to unite them within the Body of Christ. A desire that finally ripped him apart. It is this understanding of sentir con la iglesia that I have tried to present here; a Church not solely of the magisterium but of the people, the Body of Christ in history. This church is both conservative and progressive, neo-scholastic and liberational.
The danger of any movement lies in going to extremes: either too much activity or too much spiritualism. There must be a balance between prayer and work for one’s neighbour.
unreferenced in Roberto Morozzo Della Rocca, Oscar Romero: Prophet of Hope (London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 2015) p.123
To think with the church, then, was an evolving task. Colón-Emeric writes, ‘Sentir con la iglesia is not a point of departure for Ignatian spirituality but its point of arrival.’ This language, however, presents it in too static a way rather than dynamism with which Romero himself experienced it.
St Ignatius would present it today as a Church that the Holy Spirit is stirring up in our people, in our communities, a Church that means not only the teaching of the Magisterium, fidelity to the pope, but also service to this people and the discernment of the signs of the times in the light of the Gospel.
Óscar Romero, originally in Enrique Nuñez Hurtado, Ejercicios esprituales en, desde y para América Latina: Retos, intuiciones, contenidos (Torreón, Mexico: Casa Iñigo, 1979), this translation by James Brockman, “Reflections on the Spiritual Exercises”, The Way, no.55, Spring 2986, p.102
Whatever conversion, renewal, evolution Romero experienced throughout his life seems to always occur at the same time as the Church to which he was devoted. It is significant, as I have repeated, that the same depictions of Romero from the various wings of the Church, mirror the exact same portrayals of the Church itself. In this way Romero faithfully embodied the Church, throughout his life, and in so doing is seen to evolve to suit the new context in which Christ is invited to work, speak and work.
Those that have no property in the world must not, in the monastery, look for those things that, outside, they were unable to have. But let them have what their frailty requires, even when they were so poor that they could not provide even the necessities of life.
Last time we explored the nature of property, possessions and our relationship with them. The Rule of St Augustine does not immediately require a vow to poverty (the complete disowning of property and possessions) but rather a vow of sharing. The acquisition of wealth is not completely shunned but rather the utility of wealth is of greater import. In the previous verse those who had wealth when entering the monastery were to hand over the ownership of property and possessions to the whole community. This is biblical. The community of Acts, which St Augustine looked to as a model, sold property and gave the income to the community but also shared all they had, not just wealth but the use of wealth too. In the current verse we see the mirror of this: those that come into the community with nothing also are to learn a different way of being.
As I said, last time, I would rightly consider myself middle-class and come from a relatively wealthy family. I grew up in the poorer end of a wealthy town (Royal Tunbridge Wells). When I first moved out I lived in the rich end of a poor part of London (Archway). Later, Sarah and I moved into the poorer end of a rich part of London (Twickenham) and then in curacy we lived in the rich part of a poor area in York. I tell you this because it gives you an indication that I seem to end up in places where rich and poor live literally side by side. In my current context you can have a family with an expensive car and delightful interior design choices living next door to a family who struggle to pay for any furniture. This wealth divide is a microcosm of our world today.
In his commentary on the Rule of St. Augustine, Tarsicius J. Van Bavel OSA notes,
The social problem caused by the immense gulf between the many poor and the few rich is one of the most prevalent themes in Augustine’s sermons. This affluence of the few was the cancer of the society of his time.
Van Bavel, The Rule of St. Augustine, p.54
It is important to place the Augustinian Rule in its global context because it is similar to our own. St. Augustine was writing at the collapse of the Roman Empire as this global super power began to crumble along with all its institutions. With his came a great deal of social unrest across the world. We remind ourselves of what we said previously about times of scarcity and the division of resources. To offer a way of life within this context that sought to bring rich and poor together should be seen as a bold and hopeful act. The community at the Abbey of St. Victor, of which Hugh was one of the first and, arguably, the greatest pioneer of the way of life, along with hundreds of others at the time, rediscovered the Rule at a time of great reform and renewal in Europe.
The purpose of this exploration of the Rule of St. Augustine is for me to begin to articulate my own sense of how this short depiction of a community focussed on being of ‘one heart and mind in God’ could offer the world a much needed alternative way of life, starting with the Church. So far we’ve touched on inequality (see Chapter 1.iv) and possessions (see Chapter 1.v) and in both these cases we’ve discovered that the outward lives only reflect the inward lives and it is there that the work must be done. There is, however, in Hugh’s ‘On the Formation of Novices’, a strong emphasis on ensuring the outward life reflects the inner life. It is both true that “what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this is what defiles. For out of the heart come evil intentions, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness, slander” (Mt 17:18-19) and also, “you will know them by their fruits.” (Mt 7:20). How we act says much about what we think and believe.
This relationship between inner and outer lives is significant when looking here, in this current section of the Rule of St. Augustine, at possessions because the guidelines are about the external issues of who gets what but they also touch upon the internal requirements of the heart and mind. Those that enter the community with nothing are going to benefit from the system of sharing whilst their, previously wealthier, brothers or sisters are going to be disadvantaged. St. Augustine, however, gives to both a challenge: for the rich, to relinquish the power of ownership and for the poor, to relinquish the desire for such earthly pleasures.
So here I come to my main reflection that immediately stand out for me relating to the Church and how we might ‘monasticize the clergy’ and ‘monasticize the world’: how we deal with perceived privilege.
I acknowledge my many privileges. I understand that I am in a certain position due indirectly to my biological reality, as well as my cultural inheritance. I do not believe I can change those things (that is a different socio-philosophical debate which I won’t get into now!) What then do I do with my reality? What do I do as a white person when my black brothers and sisters suffer unduly? What do I do as a male when my sisters are disproportionately fearful of walking alone? What do I do as a middle class person when when my neighbours, both figuratively and literally, are struggling?
My wealth I can use to assist my poorer neighbours but I must be careful that I do not do so from a position of power, as though I give to them rather than rightly share with them. It begins not by me just giving them my stuff, wealth, etc. but rather seeing them as interdependent persons and establishing an economic of mutuality. When I reassess what is valuable, I am more likely to share that with others. This looks like establishing relationship with them on a personal level and listening to their story and their struggles and seeking to walk with them into the reality of God’s Kingdom. It is also requires them to be able to listen to my story and my struggles and seeking to walk with me in to the reality of God’s Kingdom. In the Kingdom of God we both will be transformed and we will both be challenged to change and convert. This verse in the Rule is directly applicable, however, to warn the net recipient of earthly wealth to not fall into the trap that their wealthier brothers and sisters are being taken out of.
The warning given in this verse, to not look to gain that which you previously lacked by the rehabilitation of one’s wealthier brothers and sisters, sounds like the wealthy again do not face up to the pain and struggle they caused by hoarding the resources. Reparations must be paid! St. Augustine, however, has already established that the whole community, whether rich or poor, must change the value system. This re-valuation is enforced by external doctrine and explicit concord in order to change the heart and mind but it must not just be the external but also be of internal desire and understanding. I can imagine it is easy to demand that justice means getting what you deserve; both positively and negatively. What if our understanding of justice is not right?
It is easy to equate justice with the reparation and to desire to see those who have punished unduly to be punished themselves. There is a deep seated desire to see them ‘experience the pain and heartache they caused others.’ This is a natural response. We believe that it will lead us to feel better about it but it never does. The reason forgiveness is so hard to do is because we get a kick out of winning and of being in power. For those who have been robbed of power and agency the only way they see they can achieve satisfaction is by taking it away from those who have. In times of scarcity this is what happens. What this actually means is that the oppressed seek to use the same means as the oppressors to take what they rightfully feel is theirs. ‘To take back control’ is a powerful statement because we all know that is what we truly want. The problem is it isn’t.
What the Rule of St. Augustine offers us is a way of life that explicitly mitigates against the perpetuation of a broken system. I often state that the familiar saying, ‘one must fight fire with fire’ is absurd; it just creates more fire. Alternatives, however, sound to the oppressed and the poor not enough to satisfy their understandable and historical hurt and pain. Forgiveness only sounds worthwhile to the perpetrators and not the victims. That is, unless, we reassess our values and change the rules of the game. What if, for example, my privilege is not seen as privilege? What if we re-define the status I am in and say that the benefits I have received due to my biology are not benefits, are not things to be lauded and desired? What if we say wealth and possessions are not the highest goal? What if the power wielded by those in authority is not what is good for us?
Briefly, I want to say something about the Black Lives Matter protests taking place across the world in response to the devastating and ongoing issues of race within the U.S.A. This particular issue is not just about race and to suggest that it is is to ignore the cause and therefore avoid the solution. It is about the wider, underlying issue, at the very heart of the American ideal (and perhaps the wider Western system): individualised capitalism. Within the very founding documents of the U.S.A. there is an explicit value of individual rights. These rights of ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’ are put front and centre. Their shared way of life is based on a principle that they are owed unalienable rights. Everyone deserves equal; equal prosperity, equal power, equal privilege. We return, again, to equal outcomes vs. equal opportunity and the confusion between the two. Black Live Matters is important because it could be about the equality of respect under God, unfortunately, at this point in the history of the American Empire, it so often becomes about economics and power.
The current system perpetuates a zero sum game where one’s benefits equates to others’ losses. At this time of perceived scarcity, or at least where the narrative is one of scarcity, the ownership of the limited resources becomes the source of value. When the value system suggests that you are owed life, liberty and pursuit of happiness and they are all based on the ownership of resources and power you begin to fight for those rights particularly if they are God-given. In this social narrative it is easy to adopt the neo-Marxist worldview that interprets reality as an eternal struggle between the haves and the have nots. The power games that are being enacted at the moment rely upon the division of the world into oppressed and oppressors.
Focusing on identity, for short term political gain, is a zero sum game. Identity is the last refuge of political mediocrity. Parties, which are bankrupt in ideology and short on demonstrated success, are the ones most likely to use “traditional identity” as a means to gain political support.
What if this narrative is wrong? What if the world is not like that? What if the world is full of people who are all hurting and are in need of love and respect? Why is there so much blame, cynicism, guilt and shame being thrown around? Why is everyone claiming oppression upon themselves and others? Why is there so much protest and demand to be heard and why is it that everyone thinks that those other people are to blame for the problems we face? What if we all just pause, for a moment, breathe, and admit we all want unity? That is, of course, if we do want unity, which I don’t think we all do… How we avoid a zero sum politics is a challenge and is the work of us all to discover the solution. We cannot do this whilst still playing a zero sum game; it requires, therefore, agents who choose to play by different rules and I would suggest that a community that lives out a different set of values would be good brokers of conversation within the public square.
The idea of community ought never to lead us to equate people with one another, and to leave it at that. Uniformity reduces people to ciphers and effectively means the destruction of personality. Love, on the other hand, respects what is characteristic of each person with his different needs and gifts, his own irreplaceable temperament and character.
Van Bavel, The Rule of St. Augustine, p.53
In this current climate, my privilege often means only unresolvable guilt and shame for being who I am biologically. That is because my position, status, possessions, etc., all that divides me from others, those with less, becomes my identity and I am seen as only having these things because others do not. The Rule of St. Augustine encourages, like the Bible, to review that understanding. What if my possession of material objects of perceived value and indeed of socio-political power was not seen as mine, individually but ours, collectively? What if more value was given to being in greater relationship with others and contributions to the wider social functionality.
To return to Black Lives Matters, no change will come about when we all just demand equality within the current political game because it is zero sum and so the ‘opponents’ whoever the protestors have united against as their common enemy are forced to compete and enact the combative politics which will see only violence perpetuated. The change will only come when the rules of the game are changed and that will involve, as St. Augustine lived out, Hugh of St. Victor encouraged, we begin to live under a different Rule. A Rule where the explicit value is to be of one heart and mind in God. To seek the benefit of the community above one’s own individual pursuit of happiness. To believe that my value is received when it is given to the wider community and no way else. That I should seek to receive what is needed but not at the expense of a brother’s or sister’s needs. My frailty is the responsibility of the whole community just as theirs is mine. So if a brother or sister suffers, I suffer, and when a brother or sister is privileged, I am privileged.
It is of no use, I do not think, for me to perpetuate the zero sum game. It is not useful for me to force others to hand over power by making them feel guilty or shamed because they will merely hold tighter to what is clearly the most valuable thing in our society. Change comes when we follow in the footsteps of Martin Luther King Jr., Nelson Mandela and, ultimately, Jesus Christ himself, who lived a different narrative and chose to seek first the Kingdom of God where all are invited, rich and poor, strong and weak, male and female, to work together to see that sharing resources and power is not zero sum and that there’s plenty to go around. This will, of course mean that the rich and powerful will need to give up ownership (and they will need gentle but persistent love to do that) but it also requires those that lack to not fall foul of the self same temptation.
This all requires a new social narrative to be told, one where the pursuit of happiness is given a communal focus and happiness is properly understood. That happiness cannot be rooted in individual earthly desires, be they possessions or power. Taking St. Augustine’s own definition,
For what do we call enjoyment but having at hand the objects of love? And no one can be happy who does not enjoy what is man’s chief good, nor is there any one who enjoys this who is not happy. We must then have at hand our chief good, if we think of living happily…Such, then, being the chief good, it must be something which cannot be lost against the will. For no one can feel confident regarding a good which he knows can be taken from him, although he wishes to keep and cherish it. But if a man feels no confidence regarding the good which he enjoys, how can he be happy while in such fear of losing it?
St Augustine, Of the Morals of the Catholic Church, 3.iv-v.
Augustine goes on to say that our chief good is not earthly, for that can diminish and be taken from us, for it is limited and finite. Our chief good is to be in relation to God for He is infinite and and eternal.
For the sweetness proceeding from God has in itself a certain wonderful and limitless abundance; so that these words have been spoken concerning it: “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man, what things God hath prepared for them that love him” (1 Cor. 2:9) Whence again it is written: “I shall be satisfied when thy glory shall appear.” (Ps. 16:15) This kind of satiety must be our happiness.
Alone I’m trapped behind my solid doors With no purpose or public mask to show Except to face my too ignored ego And sort his stockpiled, overflowing stores. My famed recital of the same old scores Just won’t appease the crowds who want to know What am I for and where now do we go, For us, not clapped, and no desired encores? Turn to the cell and it will teach you poise, To sit and hide and fight the inner fiends. To finally parent the frightened boys Who drive my life like unconsidered teens. Now the time to stop the incessant noise. For God has called and given us the means.
The nightingale sang a lamenting tune, Of all consuming loss and absence real. Its voice deceptive in that lightest croon, Still sombre in its beauty, painéd peal. It sang of Thornfield and its entrapped lord, Lonely, protected and wary of joy, When came the skylark with melodic chord. Surprising the house with a pleasing ploy, And making the rough and robust a home. The nightingale, a vigil watcher there, Now duets with skylark and enjoys the gloam, With dawning dialogue between the two where Once was absence now full feeling expressed, A life half lived can indeed be twice blessed.
At the junction of compass points, Round and round they go, up and down, Journeys continue or turn around, Heading North and South, East and West.
Cars only slow at these roads joints, Out to the peaks or back into town. The noise is constant, nature drowned, No time for the journey or for the rest.
There stands the church that prays and anoints, There lie the houses all darkened and brown There run the arteries of traffic abound And there, the people needing to be blessed.
They say, “What ever doesn’t kill you, Makes you stronger.” This is not the case, I have found. Jacob’s disjointed hip Speaks of weakness and limitation That scars forever. With each new trial and setback, one shouts, “Not again.”
But the intervention of a god Who cries, “Not again,” Who prayed it too in his own trial, Prays it with me. His suffering speaks that “not again,” Will not be again And one day we will pray, “Again,” Again and again.
Girls came and sparked in bosomy doubt; In those days I was the friend, The one who had to talk about A shooting-match, if ever had. For twenty whole years I took out Friend like faces, I rose but had not her.
Over ten years ago I met love. She was in rehearsal, unknown was I. Two in four hundred, like two gloves, And letters wrote where numerous charms learnt I worked off my selfish snaps. And in her laugh I met my end. Agreement twice that parting, bored, I twice got a ring and easily rose To be well thought of and, after, to believe.
Written using the words of Philip Larkin’s poem ‘Wild Oats‘ on 28th January 2020.
That I may be holy, good and full of peace, I pray my heart and mind might be one. That the unending onslaught and storm may cease And compulsions to success might be gone. I offer the landscape of my inner soul To Him who comes to me and yet is my goal.
O God, make speed to save me from fear. Make haste, O Lord, to help my troubled heart Which with the world’s distortions and sin adheres. Teach me afresh your ways of peace and art My pattern’d design and my evening prayer. May mercy fall and lift me in your care.
“See the Lord is doing something new.” But not until we’ve returned to him To the desert where we first fell in love. There, in the wilderness, we must prepare, Not in city success or in comfy town, In exile, abandoned, we must prepare. Prepare and not receive. Wait. Painful and distraught. Wait. The slogans of hope will be just words. The songs of harvest, wishful ditties.
“Prepare the way of the Lord. Make straight the crooked paths.” My heart is crooked by trauma, Triggered by an unconscious past. Before the new I must clear the old Unhelpful ways and wait. We do so together or we suffer alone, Exile made execution by excuses we make. Gather up the harps and silence the drums, Prepare ye the way. The Lord, he comes.
