August 18, 2005> 9:34 PM
the power and meaning of love > 4 Continuing on with the Merton chapter on Love, I'm skipping ahead a bit here for current relevancy's sake. A little friendly discussion was happening in the comments in part 3 about "loving Christ in my brother" and loving people in their own reality as people, Christ or not. I see both, but was pointing out a problem I saw being possible in the former way of thought. I was skipping just ahead of the last quote in the book and saw Merton talking of just this thing as well. I thought it might be helpful. I'll say first that I am not saying, and do not think, that anyone talking about loving Christ in those around us is necessarily going this far with things. I just find this line of thought very interesting and not quite what we're used to hearing. Here's Merton's take on it.
But what does this faith imply? Here again the familiar phrase "seeing Christ in my brother" is subject to a sadly superficial interpretation. How many Christians there are, especially priests and religious, who do not hesitate to assert that this involves a sort of mental sleight-of-hand, by which we deftly do away with our neighbor in all his concreteness, his individuality, his personality with its gifts and limitations, and replace him by a vague and abstract presence of Christ.
Are we not able to see that by this pitiful subterfuge we end up by trying to love, not Christ in our brother, but Christ instead of our brother? It is this, in fact which explains the painful coldness and incapacity for love that are sometimes found in groups of men or women most earnestly "striving for perfection." It also accounts for so many avoidable failures in the apostolate on the part of those who are so sincere, so zealous, and yet frighten people away from Christ by the frozen rigidity and artificiality of their lives.
Our charity is intended to give glory to God, not by enabling us to multiply meritorious acts on an imaginary "account" recorded for us in a heavenly bank, but by enabling us to see Christ and find Him where He is to be found, in our brother and in the Church.
So, it's not so much that we should never have such a thought. It's not that there isn't truth in the fact that Christ in some way is "in our brother" - in all around us. I think it depends on how exactly we look at this concept. Are we merely seeking to "please God" by loving "Christ" in others? If so, I would submit that we not doing either. We are not truly loving the person, any person, in whatever state, good or bad, who is around us. And so, we are not really loving Christ either, at least not in the way that we thought we were.
We love Christ in others when we love other as Christ and as He loves them, not when we substitute an interior image of Christ for the person in front of us and block them out. So maybe it's about viewing it as secondary as opposed to primary - not setting out initially to "love Christ" in that way, but initially, because we love Him, we open ourselves to become Him and so Love others AS Him. We love Him by being what and who He made us to be.
I think, actually, that this may be the difference between looking at Christianity as a "religion" in which we are down here and God's waaaay up there with us here trying to do what He says so He'll be happy and bless and save us AND looking at it as the incorporation of the mystical reality of God's Life into our life and world, into our dimension. We get back to that "God alone" thing again. Nothing that can be fully worked out here and now for sure. I'm sure I could go on and on but it's not necessary. Hopefully any of that made sense and didn't come off wrong. I'm paranoid about that kind of thing you know. Peace to you.
August 18, 2005
> 9:34 PM
038
