One month ago I was installed as Canon for Intercultural Mission and the Arts in Bradford Cathedral. As part of the service I was asked to choose bible readings. I chose to perform one of the passages of Scripture in a way that I used to do more regularly during my training at Cranmer Hall (it was called, ‘doing a Ned’, and I was wheeled out when dignitaries came to the college as a party trick!) The reading was from John’s gospel, chapter 4, and tells the story of Jesus’ encounter with a woman at a well. I chose this story as it presents, in my mind, an excellent piece of intercultural mission from Jesus. The woman is a Samaritan, whilst Jesus is a Jew. The woman is a lone female and Jesus is a lone male. Jesus is in a foreign land here; Sychar, where the story takes place, is in Samaria. All of this means that there are multiple and conflicting statuses at play and within this complexity of who has power and who does not Jesus speaks boldly, gently and disarmingly.
In my dramatisation of the story I chose to portray the woman as having some forceful agency; a woman who has experienced much pain and trauma who is understandably defensive and strong-willed. We discover in the interaction that she has been married five times and is currently living with a man who is not her husband. I think of the many women who live in fear of physical attack, particularly when in public and the presence of a strange man. I think of women who have lived experience of being overlooked or looked over by oppressive/aggressive men. I didn’t want this female character to be read as meek and subservient; she has thoughts and she speaks her mind to Jesus. Jesus, in return, accepts all that she presents with compassion and understanding, and yet, he meets her opinions and defence with an equal but different force of love or, as Oscar Romero calls it, ‘the violence of love.’
This biblical narrative, as I say, speaks to me of intercultural mission and this is why it has been, in my first month, a framework in which I have tried to live and work.
In my first week Bradford Cathedral was privileged to co-host (with our neighbours, Kala Sangam) the Outdoor Arts UK Conference. This national gathering of outdoor artists and producers was well attended with some wonderful performers and companies coming to the future City of Culture to dream and collaborate. Part of my role as residentiary canon at the cathedral is to welcome all guests and so I was invited to do that at the conference and to give some housekeeping notices. As part of my welcome I spoke of the cathedral’s historic commitment to gathering people from all faiths and none (whatever ‘no faith’ means; that’s for another article!) to share in conversation about the immediate, real things of life as well as the sacred and transcendental things that we all experience. I quoted Peter Brook, saying that we were a stage ‘where the invisible can appear’, and then I finished by offering our side chapels as places of reflection and quiet and myself as someone who could sit with them in the silence or listen to their stories. This welcome was commented on by so many individuals who were touched by my genuine offer of support and care. It was, as one of the delegates said to me, the fact that I spoke knowingly of the stresses, pressures and particular loneliness of the artist’s life. It was the fact that I gave permission for the reality of their lives to be named and held with compassion just like the woman encountering the prophetic power of Jesus at the well.
From that conference I connected with so many exciting artists and was encouraged by the hope that emanated from the conversations. I heard subtle stirrings of people who would not describe themselves as religious (whatever they mean by that phrase; again, maybe for another time!) talk about the ineffable, transcendent quality of art that is so significant to their work and yet rarely is given space just to be; without words. It is the mystery at the heart of each one of us which, in our Western, scientific, materialistic culture is held with some suspicion or rushed to be defined or identified. It is the holiness that is fearfully known and often packaged too quickly as ‘self’. It is this rush and urgency when touching on the ineffable and often bewildering mystery at the very core of each of us that causes much of the confusion and painful divisions we see played out in our Western culture. The paradox at the heart of our self-identification is that we all believe we know ourselves and, at the same time, we know that we are conflicted contrasts evolving and growing. Hearing the stories of many artists and people across the city of Bradford, I have met, again and again, women at the well who want to be secure in themselves and yet discovering that they do not know enough and then experience profound vulnerability. Jesus met her in that moment of vulnerability and held a safe space for her to be seen and known.
The conflict experienced by each one of us as individuals has been played out in pieces of work that I have seen this month. I think of ‘Ode to Partition’ by Tribe Arts and ‘A Tale of 2 Estates’ by Jae Depz, both expressions of different forms of anger, frustration and pain. Ode to Partition tackles the complex issues of race, faith, sectarianism, empire and colonialism. This spoken word piece written by a group of children of the partition powerfully articulates the experience of living in the UK and having South Asian heritage, in particular, migration caused by the partition. I noted that I was a minority in the audience, the show being aimed more overtly to those with lived experience of partition. I felt the responsibility, guilt and shame. I heard and experienced, powerfully, the rightful accusation put upon the British Empire and my historic ancestors and their leading role in this historic division. What I took away from the evening was a particular truth that art/poetry should provoke conversation. I left, however, with a sense of lack. I think it was a lack of enough expressed desire for healing. The piece was in development and I hope that the future ‘Tribe Talks’ event will work towards more of this need for healing for it is healing that I think so many want/need and yet we daren’t engage with that need for fear of being disappointed and hurt further.
A Tale of 2 Estates was similar. This piece was a research and development piece produced over a two week period. There is so much potential in the work and I do hope they find the means and funding to develop it further. Again, however, I left feeling a lack. It was the same lack as I had experienced two weeks before. The piece (due to lack of time) didn’t engage in depth in what narratives we have for healing and reconciliation. This is what I have realised about the popular Western culture: we have lost narratives of redemption, forgiveness, healing and wholeness. We are all feeling the exhaustion of pain and struggle. We all feel the overwhelming chaos of uncertainty within and without of ourselves. We all are struggling to find peace. We just want to get the water and go home but where might we encounter the stranger at the well who sees us and names everything that has ever happened to us? How might we allow him to interrupt the story of our current culture of urgent, immediate judgement with gentleness and grace?
If City of Culture is going to have any kind of legacy in Bradford, I am praying for a legacy of genuine love. That is not the love that is broad and undefined. That is not love that is about total acceptance and affirmation of my current understanding of my own self identity. This is the love that gives me room to be and to change; to heal and become; to rest in the knowledge that I am not perfect and there is more that I can be if I allow someone to stop my inner monologue and whisper to me a different story. A society that gives that kind of space… that’s my prayer for Bradford.
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.
If a brother is requested to do something difficult or impossible he should, at first, accept the command meekly and obediently.
Can we change?
Obedience.
Again.
Again I’m forced to ask the ever penetrating questions: how to respond to authority? and how to exercise authority? These two issues have oscillated throughout the Rule of St. Benedict and has raised obedience as the vow which cuts through the individualised, libertarian ethic of our age. Obedience is the virtue, the practice, I think, that challenges us most because it seems to our ‘progressive’ minds a reversal into authoritarian state which birthed both fascism and communism.
We want freedom. We want to be released from what others think of us. We want to be able to censor the oppressive demands placed upon us.
My heart knows what is good for me.
We want to be autonomous, in control, because the alternative is perceived to be unsatisfying and, at worse, abusive. We want freedom to choose because choice is the goal of our culture. We are told,
We can do anything if believe strong enough. We can achieve whatever we put our mind to. If anyone tells you can’t do it, they are wrong.
Our televisions project stories of people, ‘achieving their goals’. The contestants speak out in un-ironic parody the same statements of self belief. They’re ‘expressing themselves’ and ‘no one will stop them.’ It all sounds so positive and encouraging but under the surface lies a slightly more sinister tone of captivity.
Underneath the statements of ‘knowing self’, of finding ‘true self’ is an oppressive narrative which holds people in an identity which is unable to change;
You are who you are.
In this reality we need to discover who we are as static personalities and express it. Our gender and sexuality, our personality strengths and flaws all set in stone by a Creator who likes diversity no matter what the impact on others. Mistakes can be blamed on genetics and change of behaviours subtly denied because if we can change then we don’t know what we want or need and therefore choice becomes trickier to make.
In this consumerist narrative of free choice, we hear the call to obedience to something outside of our own choice as foreign. The truth is obedience opens our eyes to see the potential conversion of our life. It is only in obedience that we can be transformed from an old life to a new life but we must trust that which can lead us through the painful sear of true freedom into the fullness of life. All other freedom than that discovered through a commitment to obedience is false, a mirage that will blind you.
True liberation is a mystery many do not fully find because the false liberation is more appealing. The temptation makes more sense to us because we ask
why would freedom be difficult; it is the absence of pain, is it not?
True liberty does violence to self and, like Christ, who disregarded that he was sovereign becomes a slave to serve others. (Oscar Romero, The Violence of Love (Pennsylvania: The Plough Publishing, 1988) p.40)
It is this liberation and conversion that St. Benedict calls monks to through the consecrated life. Ultimately, this life is ‘impossible’ without the faithfulness and stable love of God. It would be wrong to enter the monastic life thinking that it is achievable, it is within our capabilities. Many decide not to pursue the monastic life because they see it as impossible with their personality or who they are. The truth is: it’s not about you!
It doesn’t matter who you are, or even think you are because that, hopefully, will change; in fact, it must change if you are to live the life of discipleship and true repentance. It matters not if, when you think about the expectations the Rule places upon you, you cannot imagine yourself being able to ‘succeed’ at being a monk. It only matters if you trust that God can and will transform you from the life you live as you enter into a being ready for eternal life with him.
The superior, the authority of the abbot, is not forceful here. Again we see the gentleness needed in instructing a monk into the possibility of change. There is room, for St. Benedict, to go together, abbot and monk, as brothers into the presence of their all loving Father to seek his will. Both are equal under God and it is his will that they both must obey. Norvene Vest reflects beautifully on this approach to authority,
I resonate with the image suggested by the Latin word translated “gentleness.” The word is mansuetudine, meaning “accustomed to the hand,” and refers to training wild animals. I have a vivid sense of a small colt, standing shivering in cold and excitement as an attentive trainer approaches and gently caresses it. I often feel that way in the presence of God: fearful and shivering both with anxiety and eagerness, but willing myself to do all I can to respond, which is often simply not to run away. Instead, I tremble, and await the hand that touches me in love. (Norvene Vest, Preferring Christ: a devotional commentary on the Rule of St. Benedict (Pennsylvania: Morehouse Publishing, 2004) p.261)
Reflection
We as the Church must not be lured into the social narrative of consumerism and individualism. We must proclaim the truth and reality of conversion. This is not some political ‘change’ that is preached during election season. This is deep and painful change that leads to meaningful relationships of trust and hope.
The church must suffer for speaking the truth, for pointing out sin, for uprooting sin. No one wants to have a sore spot touched, and therefore a society with so many sores twitches when someone has the courage to touch it and say: “You have to treat that. You have to get rid of that. Believe in Christ. Be converted. (Oscar Romero, The Violence of Love (Pennsylvania: The Plough Publishing, 1988) p.27-28)
Our message of salvation loses all it’s potency if we collude with the morally liberal philosophies of this world or the dictatorial conservative world views which state that significant change of behaviour is not needed nor is it possible. We are all sick and distorted. We are plagued by faulty genes and personalities. We’ve all been infected and we all need healing! To heal the patient must be obedient to the process of change otherwise nothing will happen.
The church must become a place of real transformation and healing to all who come. Change must be on our banners and explicit in all we do but a change that rightly is rooted in humility (acknowledgement of the sickness) and obedience (the willingness to let go of the past and step into a new life.)
Loving Father, we submit. We submit to your gentle hand in obedience. We cannot see how we will live out the impossible but we trust that nothing is impossible for you. What we have always been can be redeemed for you, for the Kingdom, the glory and the power are yours, now and forever.
Suscipiendus autem in oratorio coram omnibus promittat de stabilitate sua et conversatione morum suorum et oboedientia.
Upon admission, in the oratory, before all, he is to make a promise to stability, conversion (of behaviour/morals/life) and obedience,
Conversion
I would not be a true writer on the Rule of St. Benedict if I did not begin by explaining that the latin term conversatio morum is a controversial phrase when it comes to true translation. What St. Benedict meant is lost in the dust of the original manuscript. I have decided to simply translate it as ‘conversion’ as most translations include this phrase; what changes is the object of that conversion (behaviour, morals, life, etc.) Thomas Merton famously wrote,
It is the vow to respond totally and integrally to the word of Christ, ‘Come, follow me’…It is the vow to obey the voice of God,… in order to follow the will of God in all things. (Thomas Merton, “Conversation Morum”, Cistercian Studies (1966) p. 133
Brian C. Taylor likens this vow to the repentance which is at the heart of the sacrament of baptism. This vow is a commitment to the ongoing turning away from sin and, more importantly the turning towards God.
We are regaining an increasing awareness that conversion is not a one time event. I know too many people who said ‘the prayer’ and were baptised and have since fallen away. The journey of faith starts in that first ‘yes’ to God’s call but there are many who never take many steps beyond that. Some treat the life of faith like a club; after they have paid the lifetime membership fee they find they no longer visit the club house, speak to other members. They keep the card in their wallet which they look at time to time but they do not participate in the life of the club, they do not remember the purpose of the club but their name is on the list.
The vow to conversatio morum is a life time commitment to participate in a process of change.
When you stop and think a little about St. Benedict’s concept of conversatio morum, that most mysterious of our vows, which is actually the most essential I believe, it can be interpreted as a commitment to total inner transformation of one sort or another – a commitment to become a totally new man. (Thomas Merton, The Asian Journal of Thomas Merton (New York: New Directions, 1975) p.337)
The first tension in the trinitarian of vows begins to emerge as you commit to stability and to change. A monk is pulled by seemingly opposing forces; one to remain faithful and one to move forward. Under the surface, though, these two vows hold a mysterious unity, a unity that develops as the two dialogue with each other. As you remain faithful to others you will be asked to change.
The commitment to conversion is a commitment to be open to discoveries about your failings and the sin that hinder your transformation into the likeness of Christ. We discover, as we decide to stay, particularly in painful conflict, that the only way that we can maintain stability is if there is change in our viewpoint. These two vows demand a moving through entrenched views on both sides.
There is also an important link between the vow of conversion and the vow of poverty which helps to deepen our understanding of conversatio morum.
Oscar Romero, when he was seeking unity within the archdiocese of El Salvador called all Christians to a shared understanding of conversion.
The criterion of genuine conversion was love for the poor, who represented Christ, and this love obtained forgiveness and grace from God. (Roberto Morozza Della Rocca, Oscar Romero: prophet of hope (London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 2015) p.120)
Christ is seen, for Romero, amongst the poor. It was Christ who considered equality with God not something to be exploited but emptied himself (Phillippians 2:6-7). Christ became poor so that we could be rich by God’s grace. If we are called to continually be transformed into the likeness of Christ then we should seek to also empty ourselves so that others may become rich by God’s grace.
All of us, if we really want to know the meaning of conversion and of faith and confidence in another, must become poor, or at least make the cause of the poor our own inner motivation. That is when one begins to experience faith and conversion: when one has the heart of the poor, when one knows that financial capital, political influence, and power are worthless, and that without God we are nothing. (Oscar Romero, The Violence of Love (Pennsylvania: The Plough Publishing, 1988) p. 121)
As I explore these vows I realise that not only is there an awareness of the Trinitarian shape to the life of a community committed to them but I’m also reminded of the other Trinitarian frameworks which I have discovered within my own monastic call. Here, in this quote from Romero, there is a call to place ourselves in a perpetual Ash Wednesday. We are dust, nothing but the life of discipleship is to remain rooted there whilst also accepting the conversion, by God’s grace, into Christ and receiving the power and anointing to become children of God by the Holy Spirit.
In this framework the call to stability is rooted in the faithfulness of God the Father who raises us from the dust to shape and form us. The call to conversion is brought about by the Holy Spirit who blows where it likes and brings about newness of life but points us to Christ of the poor and back to the foundational view that we are nothing. The conversion is also about being brought into true communion with others as one is converted through relationship and community. This exchange from the Ash Wednesday moment to the communal Pentecost moment rotates around a third point of reference: Christ’s obedience to death on the cross.
The Philippians 2 structure is also interesting when discovering this life within the Holy Trinity: we begin with the humility and awareness of our need for God. We remind ourselves, as we do at the start of Lent, that we are nothing. Without this awareness we will not fully understand the wonders of god’s faithful love and grace.
Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,
who, though he was in the form of God,
did not regard equality with God
as something to be exploited,
but emptied himself,
taking the form of a slave,
being born in human likeness.
And being found in human form,
he humbled himself (Philippians 2:5-8a)
As we continually remind ourselves of our status without God we become obedient to his remoulding of us, his shaping of us. We submit ourselves to his will,
and became obedient to the point of death—
even death on a cross.(Philippians 2:8b)
Submitting to God’s will will lead us to death with Christ and we painfully obey that call in the hope that we will rise to new life. It is here that the start of conversion begins. The Holy Spirit begins its work of transformation and converts us into the likeness of Christ
Therefore God also highly exalted him
and gave him the name
that is above every name,
so that at the name of Jesus
every knee should bend,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue should confess
that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.(Philippians 2:9-11)
This conversion to ‘glory’ is not as most would imagine, an individual perfecting but the conversion is into the corporate Body of Christ who empties Himself to enrich the lost and the poor, not with material wealth but the riches of heaven. To be converted into this, therefore, is to particpate in that kenosis of God in Christ. This conversion into ‘something’ at once reminds ‘that without God we are nothing’.
Practical
So what might the call to conversion look like for the different forms of community?
Sodal
For those communities of more intentional belonging and activity the call to conversion maybe a relatively easy vow to taken on. Most of these communities are ‘new’ and part of the attraction of them is that they are fresh and different. These communities are born out of a desire for change from the mode. There is a temptation to stagnate, however, and the intial impetus fades. The response to these occasions is either to do something new or multiply. When multiplying though there may be a call to ‘not fix what isn’t broke!’ That which had embraced a call to bring about new things soon settles into a rhythm and tradition of its own. Trying to maintain both the call to stability and to conversion is a space, I think, which will bring about much fruit for sodal communities.
An ongoing question for sodal communities who adopt a vow to conversion as outlined above would be in what way are they converting and why?
For individual participants it will be about that inner conversion of opinions and behaviours. This must be done within the context of community in dialogue. This will be come into play at times of great discernment about directions or visions.
Why do I think or feel that is the right thing to do?
But the call to conversion also plays out on the communal aspects of life together too. Consider that point of stagnation into familiar, the plateauing of missional zeal and activity. How does the community continue to grow and develop whilst maintaining stability? The tension here is a creative one and will help steer discernment.
Modal
Parish churches are often parodied as the ultimate change resistors.
How many Anglicans does it take to change a light bulb?
Change? We don’t change!
This vow of conversion, the commitment to change, however, is at the heart of our baptismal liturgy. the issue is that the majority of our baptisms are to infants who are never encouraged to live out the continual conversion into Christ. This is why the baptism service must be performed within a main service in order ‘that the congregation… be put in remembrance of their own profession made to God in their baptism.’
Most change resistance within the parish church, I find, is about power. People get a status with positions of power. People connect that sense of control, prestige with what they do and so when someone challenges what is being done the individual takes it as a challenge to them. So Romero’s call to remind ourselves that financial capital, political influence and power are worthless is integral to bring about necessary change within a modal community.
The commitment to conversion, held within the tension of the vow to stability, is about the individual continual repenting of any claims on power and influence. It dialogues with the commitment to the rest of the community as you discern the will of God together in relationship. Yes, there are somethings that should remain but often asking the questions as to why reveals ulterior motives which will always need to be challenged within the context of repentance.
Nodal
As with the call to stability, nodal communities, particularly any New Monastic Society, the vow to conversion will be worked out in dialogue. All that has been said about having an openness to be changed by another is key in the nodal model. Conversion begins with the individual but develops into the communal and this evolution must continue into the networks of communities too.
Conversion could also remind distinct communities to remain connected with others as they seek to continual revisit their own life together. To dialogue with others who share this vow to both stability and conversion will mean that fruitful discoveries will be found. Sharing good practice, supporting one another, mediating for one another and ultimately challenging one another are many practical ways in which a nodal society can enable the living out of conversion across the communities.
He must be knowledgeable in Divine Law so as to know when to “bring forth new things and old”
Should we be trained and ordained locally?
I have written a lot on leadership and ordained ministry on my journey through the Rule of St Benedict. As I read this chapter on the election of an abbot I can see some of my own personal journey to ordained ministry in it but there are differences which mainly focus on the Benedictine understanding of leadership within a local context. It calls me to ask questions about our understanding of leadership:
Is it better to be called from and to a local community? Should we be training people to serve in their local church?
Currently in the Church of England one is called to ordained ministry to the national Church. It is the laity, on the whole, who are called to the local church. There is a growing sense, however, of the local call of ordained ministers with the rise of training programs offered by St Mellitus and St Barnabas Centres and other local training courses. I have mixed views about these.
I still fundamentally believe that residential training for ordained ministry is the ideal due to the opportunities and space for deep reflections and theological study. The local training is fantastic in preparing deacons and priests for the practical work of ministry but, from conversations with those trained in these ways, there is little time and space given for the possibility of adaptation and growth in personal theologies.
For me training was done in the common room where I learnt to hear opposing views of theology in the context of a lived out community. There was little escape from having to eat and serve those who you disagreed vehemently with. It was in the common room experience where I learnt the practical way to love in disagreement; something the Church of England desperately needs to explore and work out.
The residential model of training does leave gaps in training particularly, as I say, in the more practical experience of leading, preaching and long term pastoral work and mentoring. Yes, curacy picks up these gaps but expectation gives little room for mistake and genuine learning on that. The local forms of training, with the long term placements of over two/three years, give more space to learn such skills.
It is here that the difference between monks and ordained ministers in the Church of England must remain distinct. A monk chooses stability and their life is one dedicated to a community over their life time. Clergy dedicate themselves to itinerant ministry going where God calls them. Their stability is to the order of deacon and priest and to the institutional church.
Treasures Old and New
Having reflected on how an abbot is chosen in Chapter 2: the qualities of the abbot, I was struck, when reading this chapter, the instruction that an abbot ‘must be knowledgable of Divine Law so as to know when to “bring forth new things and old” (Matthew 13:52).’
This passage from Matthew was used for the title of a conference which gathered traditional and emerging communities within the Anglican tradition (Treasures Old and New). The couple of days in Whitby earlier last year was an important gathering for those of us who are sensing a movement of the Holy Spirit to a renewal of religious life in different forms.
I was sad not to be able to make it to these days but continue to hear from many of my friends who went about what God is beginning to reveal amongst us. I have had the privilege of journeying with many of those present and gaining from the wisdom gleaned together.
The title says something important for me of where God is speaking to us in the Church of England.
As I wrote in Parish Monasticism: a conference, I have an unsettling feeling about our current culture within the Church to create new groupings, new labels, to be new, fresh, relevant, cutting edge, etc. Yes, God creates and brings new things to birth but for me new comes from the old. I said,
In our desire to be relevant to the present, I feel, we have sold our inheritance and we have no sight on our descendants.
I am deeply concerned that we are throwing babies out with bath water in our desperation to remain in step with the world. The Church, particularly the Anglican Church, is feeling much pressure to keep up with the world, its ‘wisdom’ and its progress. We make knee jerk responses to questions and challenges posed by the people outside the Church, whom we serve in love. We have a selective replacement theology in every wing of our broad family, and a view of Jesus as someone who came and said,
So that Jewish thing hasn’t really worked, so let’s start again.
Yes, Jesus preached a ‘new’ commandment but ‘new’ is ironic because what he preaches is right at the heart of the Hebrew Scriptures: Love God, love your neighbour.
The sound system in one of our churches was quite old and temperamental and there had been cries for a new one for over four years. I had often joined with these calls to throw this old system out and get a brand new one. I was asked to look at the system and make some recommendations. In looking at it and studying it careful I realised that it was perfectly fine as it was. The problems stemmed from not using it right. The wrong cables were plugged into the wrong inputs and the speakers are not powerful enough for the amplifiers but when you use the system as it is meant to be used it works well. The problem was we wanted to throw it out and get a brand new one without asking the question: are we using it right?
I think there’s a similar problem with the Church.
We are not spending enough time thinking and studying how the Church is meant to work and we all presume it’s no longer fit for purpose. In fact, I think a lot of what the Fresh Expressions movement has discovered is what we knew before but had forgotten. The New Monastic movement (or whatever name you want to give it) has discovered what Martin Luther and Dietrich Bonhoeffer and many others already identified.
This does not mean that I am suggesting blindly clinging to the old, the fatal choice to remain faithful to a potentially sinking ship. There is much need of re-newing and discovering how God is adapting his plans to accommodate the world’s freely chosen direction. The world is changing and we can’t allow our world to become so alien to us that we can no longer communicate with it. Jesus shows us God is a being who loves us enough to enter into our lostness in order to be with us and save us. We must go to where people are, often places and situations where the Church has not been before because people have not been before.
The danger is allowing the new situations to change who we are in Christ. The danger, as it has always been, is to return to the life of the flesh and darkness when we have been given a life in the Spirit and of light.
I have been reading the biography of Oscar Romero and the following quote sums up what I feel God calling me to say in this generation,
The Church, then, is in an hour of aggiornamento, that is, of crisis in its history. And as in all aggiornamenti, two antagonistic forces emerge: on the one hand, a boundless desire for novelty, which Paul VI described 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. Unconditional attachment to what is old hampers the Church’s progress and restricts its “catholicity”… The boundless spirit of novelty is an impudent exploration of what is uncertain, and at the same time unjustly betrays the rich heritage of past experiences… 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 “artifical dreams” about novelties, the best thing is to live today more than ever according to the classic axiom: think with the Church. (Oscar Romero quoted in Morrozzo Della Rocca, Roberto, Oscar Romero: prophet of hope (London: Dalton, Longman and Todd, 2015) p.22-23)
Reflection
At this point in the Church of England’s history with so many questions over our inner polity and interactions with the world in mission, we desperately need leaders who are knowledgable of Divine Law, who are virtuous, sober and merciful, prudent, moderate and humble. Above all of these things spiritual men and women who are wise in administering the Rule of Life for all disciples. Servants of the gospel who can bring forth treasures old and new so that the Kingdom of God can establish itself amongst us.
Loving Father, the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of your children who grow in the likeness of your Son are who are led by your Spirit. You did not give a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear but you gave us a spirit of adoption to future glory. Elect men and women from amongst us who will guide us through temptations and live out a stable and pure life.
On Saints’ Days (feasts) and all Church festivals the Night Office should be ccarried out as on Sunday, the exceptions being that the psalms, antiphons and lessons are to be appropriate to these days.
Why remember the saints?
Coming from the reform tradition, i.e. protestant, this chapter may cause some of my brothers and sisters some confusion or a desire to pass over this short chapter as unimportant. Having grown up in the Roman Catholic Church, however, I have had to understand the importance of saints and, although I reject the need to pray to saints in time of need, I do see the benefit of identifying with them in the ‘communion of saints’. Spending a day meditating on the life of Christians who have died in the faith and, sometimes, for the faith is a great practice. It helps to inspire, challenge and encourage us in our own walk of transformation into the likeness of Christ.
On 24th March 1980, Oscar Romero, bishop of El Salvador, was assassinated whilst presiding at the Eucharist in a small chapel. This year I was reminded of his life and witness via ‘Daily Prayer’ of the Northumbria Community which gives a brief biography of particular saints on their feast day. Romero is a particularly significant Christian figure for me. When I was a teenager in the Roman Catholic Church I went through Confirmation, a rite of passage for any Christian who wants to take personal ownership of the faith given to them through Baptism. Now is not the time to explore the development of the rite/sacrament of Confirmation but it just needs to be said that, in my church at the time, it was customary to take the rite of Confirmation when you were 16 years old.
During the Confirmation service in the Roman Catholic Church the candidate chooses a saint’s name to be given. This is an interesting practice and should create an opportunity for the Christian to rename themselves and to have a development in identity as they try to identify with a saint of the Church. Unfortunately for our church, and the poor Archbishop who presided over our Confirmation, as teenagers, we didn’t take this very seriously and our year had chosen the most obscure saints names, not because of the example they set or the affinity we felt with them but merely to try to confuse the Archbishop (I’m sorry to him!) And so, one after the other, the Archbishop renamed teenagers in Tunbridge Wells,
Bonaventure, Sexburga, Zynovij, Bairfhoin…
And after these came me,
Odo.
So technically, I could write that my full name is Edward James Odo Lunn. I don’t!
After my Confirmation, as a group, we started a new youth group for those post-Confirmation. Our parish priest at the time, one Fr. Michael Evans, a godly man to whom I have been inspired throughout my life, named this group the Romero Group. We were introduced to the name and it was met with blank faces from all. Fr. Michael then introduced us to the life and death of Oscar Romero…
If I had known this story before my Confirmation, then I’m sure I’d have had the great privilege of naming my desire to emulate the walk of disciples to Jesus of Oscar Romero. Ever since hearing his story, told so passionately by Fr. Michael on that Sunday evening, Romero has been, in my mind, an exemplar of what being a disciple is like.
So on 24th March this year I dedicated the day to reflecting on Romero’s life and death. I changed my profile picture to a photograph of him and published some quotes and my reflections. You can read some of what Oscar Romero did and said here. The main thing I admire about Romero was the way he both remained steadfast in his faith and theology whilst adapting to the context in which he found himself. He was appointed to the Episcopal See of El Salvador because he was a conservative traditionalist and was deemed a ‘safe pair of hands’ in a time of great uncertainty and uprising in the lower classes. He remained, in my eyes, conservative and traditionalist but, after his Jesuit friend was killed, Romero’s ministry developed and he began standing with the poor and marginalised, to fight injustice. he did not betray his heritage or tradition, nor did he waiver in his theological standpoint but he grew into a deeper understanding of this.
I see the same characteristics in the new Pope Francis. It is the Catholic Church, based in the home of liberation theology, South America, which manages, in my opinion, to balance the love and commitment to Scripture and Tradition, and, at the same time, reveal the open love of God through Jesus Christ. There is no compromising at any point. It is a difficult and rare skill to be able to stand in that point of apparent paradox and contradiction that the power of God’s love is shown. Oscar Romero epitomises this ability to me and reveals Christ and it is this that I seek to grow into, with the help of God. To spend a day praying this prayer for help is a worthwhile and valuable thing to do.
But be warned: it is easy to read into the lives of the departed saints what we want to see. No doubt I have done this with Romero and with countless other saints I admire. It is a natural human instinct to make gods/idols in our own image; we’ve done it with Jesus, we can do it with one of his disciples. Take, St Aelred of Rievaulx, as an example. On his feast day (12th January) there was a flurry of articles and reflections on the question of St. Aelred’s sexuality. His most famous work is ‘Spiritual Friendship’ which is an excellent book on community and relationships. In this book St. Aelred’s relationship with younger monks, depicted in a series of dialogues with them, seems to be very close and intimate. In St. Aelred’s monastery, of which he was the Abbot, he allowed/encouraged monks to hold hands and to meet each other with a holy kiss. All this could be seen as an open acceptance of homosexuality within the monastery. I do not deny that St. Aelred is indeed encouraging close intimacy between brothers (and sisters) and is akin to that of a romantic couple but I refute that this necessarily means that he condoned homesexual practice. I doubt very much if he would remain as an abbot if he had been so ‘progressive’.
I love St. Aelred and his ideas about deep commitment between people of any gender. I encourage that sort of relationship now, same sex or opposite sex, but the complication comes when we discuss the matter of the sexual act and to immediately suggest that one must contain the other is a fallacy.
What upset me on the feast day of St. Aelred was the ease with which people ‘out’ed a dead man. Whether he struggled with his sexuality or not; whether he always wanted to admit to his superiors his same sex attraction or not is not our job to say for him. That action has been dealt with between St. Aelred and his God. However much we feel we are doing St. Aelred a justice in proclaiming his perceived sexuality, it is not our place and nor the reason he should be remembered. St. Aelred, along with all the saints, should be remembered for their proclamation and witness to God. For St. Aelred and Romero this must be only what they said and did not what we hoped they said and did.
Reflection
To connect ourselves with past Christians from a bygone era seems a dangerous thing to do to us in a progressive generation whose obsession with our own ability to ‘improve’. We are in an age where all progress is good progress and we are growing in enlightenment. We are now more informed and more rational than any generation before us and we are building on the past in positive and constructive ways. Unfortunately, the same could be said of the people in Babel. We reached a climax of this thinking during the 20th century when all our intelligence and rationality, all our philosophies and ethics culminated in the possibility of two World Wars and a death toll unimaginable before. Despite this fact, we still consider ourselves as evolving and improving.
For me, remembering saints, reading and learning the tradition holds and protects me from considering that I am in anyway unique or special without a great cloud of witnesses behind me. If I cut myself off from their example and their lives and deaths, I isolate myself. I leave myself open to the temptation and fallacy that I am an island and able to survive without God. I build a tower of my own to reach the heavens in an attempt to displace God from His throne and take charge of the whole world…
Many have tried. All have failed. Alleluia!
Lord, Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. Draw me closer to yourself, through the crowd of saints who gather round your throne where they worship and adore you for your amazing sovereignty, grace and love.
