IN EXILE
By Father Ron Rolheiser, OMI
“I am a citizen, not of Athens or Greece, but of the world.” Socrates wrote those words more than 24 hundred years ago. Today more than ever these are words which we would need to appropriate because, more and more, our world and we ourselves are sinking into some unhealthy forms of tribalism where we are concerned primarily with taking care of our own.
We see this everywhere today. We tend to think that this lives only in circles of extremism, but it is being advocated with an ever-intensifying moral fervor in virtually every place in the world.  It sounds like this:  America first! England first! My country first! My state first! My church first! My family first! Me first! More and more, we are making ourselves the priority and defining ourselves in ways that are not just against the Gospel but are also making us meaner in spirit and more miserly of heart. What’s to be said about this?
First of all, it’s against the Gospel, against most everything Jesus taught. If the Gospels are clear on anything, they are clear that all persons in this world are equal in the sight of God, that all persons in this world are our brothers and sisters, that we are asked to share the goods of this world fairly with everyone, especially the poor, and, most importantly, that we are not to put ourselves first, but are always to consider the needs of others before our own.
All slogans that somehow put “me,” “us,”  “my own,” “my group,” and “my country” first, deny this. Moreover, this doesn’t just apply at the micro-level, where we graciously step back in politeness to let someone else enter the room before us, it applies, and especially so, to us as whole nations. For us, as nations, there is a certain immorality and immaturity in thinking first of all, and primarily, of our own interests, as opposed to thinking as citizens of the world, concerned for everyone’s good.
And the truth of this is found not just in Jesus and the Gospels, but also in what’s highest and best in us. The very definition of being big-hearted is predicated on precisely rising above self-interest and being willing to sacrifice our own interests for the good of others and the good of the larger community. The same is true for being big-minded.
We are big-minded exactly to the extent that we are sensitive to the wider picture and can integrate into our thinking the needs, wounds, and ideologies of everyone, not just those of their own kind. That’s what it means to understand rather than simply be intelligent. When we are petty we cannot understand beyond our own needs, our own wounds, and our own ideologies.
We know this too from experience. On our best days our hearts and minds are more open, more willing to embrace widely, more willing to accept differences and more willing to sacrifice self-interest for the good of others. On our best days we are gracious, big-hearted, and understanding, and, on those days, it’s unthinkable for us to say: Me first! We only put ourselves first and let our concerns trump our own goodness of heart on days when our frustrations, wounds, tiredness and ideological infections overwhelm us.
And even when we do revert to pettiness, part of us knows that this isn’t us at our best, but that we are more than what our actions betray at that moment. Below our wounds and ideological sicknesses, we remain riveted to the truth that we are, first, citizens of the world. A healthy heart still beats below our wounded, infected one.
Sadly almost everything in our world today tempts us away for this. We are adult children of Rene Descartes, who helped shape the modern mind with his famous dictum: “I think, therefore, I am!”
Our own headaches and heartaches are what’s most real to us and we accord reality and value to others primarily in relationship to our own subjectivity. That’s why we can so easily say: “Me first! My country first! My heartaches first!”
But there can be no peace, no world community, no real brother and sisterhood and no real church community, as long as we do not define ourselves as, first, citizens of the world and only second as members of our own tribe.
Admittedly, we need to take care of our own families, our own countries and our own selves. Justice asks that we also treat ourselves fairly. But, ultimately, the tension here is a false one, that is, the needs of others and our own needs are not in competition.
Athens and the world are of one piece. We best serve our own when we serve others. We are most fair to ourselves when we are fair to others. Only by being good citizens of the world are we good citizens in our own countries.
Putting ourselves first goes against the Gospel. It’s also poor strategy: Jesus tells us that, in the end, the first will be last.
(Oblate Father Ron Rolheiser, theologian, teacher and award-winning author, is President of the Oblate School of Theology in San Antonio, TX.)

Guest Column
By Sister Constance Veit, lsp
Each year since 2012, Catholics in the United States have observed the Fortnight for Freedom in preparation for Independence Day on July 4th. The theme set by the U.S. Bishops’ Conference for this year’s Fortnight was “Witnesses to Freedom.”
The bishops offered 14 men and women who bear witness to freedom in Christ – one for each day – for our reflection during the two weeks. Thirteen of these figures have already passed from this world into heaven and the majority of them are martyrs. The lone “person” who is still alive? The Little Sisters of the Poor!
We Little Sisters were shocked to find ourselves on a list of freedom fighters. I began to realize the significance of this when I read a reflection on the Fortnight by Archbishop William E. Lori, chairman of the USCCB Ad Hoc Committee for Religious Liberty. “Reflecting on the lives of these great men and women can show us how we might serve as witnesses to freedom today,” he wrote.
“They love their country, yet this love does not surpass their love for and devotion to Christ and his Church … By pondering the lives of these exemplary Christian witnesses, we can learn much of what it means to follow Jesus Christ in today’s challenging world. We pray that over these two weeks, the grace of God will help us to grow in wisdom, courage, and love, that we too might be faithful witnesses to freedom.”
We realize that in light of our Supreme Court case we Little Sisters of the Poor have become a symbol of courage to many people. As the bishops’ list of witnesses for freedom demonstrates, countless Christians down through the centuries, and in our own time, have shed their blood and given their lives for the faith.
I am both humbled and embarrassed to find us listed in their company, because I truly believe that our courage is quite relative. Our suffering is of the type that Pope Francis recently called “polite persecution.” After all, we Little Sisters have not been imprisoned or had to resist to the point of shedding blood!
I have always found the parable of the useless or unprofitable servants in Luke’s Gospel rather unpalatable, but in light of our current notoriety I have come to appreciate it. This is the parable where Jesus tells his apostles, “When you have done all you have been commanded, say, ‘We are unprofitable servants; we have done what we were obliged to do’” (Luke 17:10). Like the useless servants in the Gospel, we Little Sisters have done only what we should have done in standing up for life and religious liberty.
We profess to be daughters of the church – how could we not uphold her teachings, especially when they touch on something as basic as the right to life? Surely, we never thought our cause would go all the way to the Supreme Court, but we believe that all happened according to God’s plan.
As I reflect back on the experiences of the last three years, I thank God for the vast cloud of witnesses who have supported us every step of this journey, beginning with our legal team at the Becket Fund, whose constant good cheer and professional expertise were heaven-sent.  They are the real heroes. We also owe a huge debt of gratitude to all the people around the world who offered their prayers and sacrifices for our case.
Finally, we are indebted to our foundress, Saint Jeanne Jugan, and to the generations of Little Sisters who have gone before us, many of whom persevered through much more trying circumstances than anything we have had to face, including religious persecution. If we are a beacon for our contemporaries in this struggle for religious liberty, it is only because we stand on the shoulders of giants.
(Sister Constance Veit is director of communications for the Little Sisters of the Poor.)

Complete the Circle
By George Evans
This week I had an unusual movie experience. I went to see the “Free State of Jones” with Matthew McConaughey. It was a great movie. It made me wrestle with many feelings I have harbored for years. It solidified my current thinking and gave me some renewed hope that we can do better if we only commit to it.
I grew up in Vicksburg  and my predecessors were the victims of a brutal siege which terminated with civilians and soldiers eating dogs and cats to ward off starvation. Surrender of the city on July 4, 1863, after repelling numerous attacks by the armies of Generals Grant and Sherman, was the stuff of lore and stories from a young age emphasized by the surrounding National Military Park, the main roads of which were Union Avenue and Confederate Avenue.
As liberal and progressive as I have become in the ensuing years, there is still a small twinge of pain and hurt when I hear the South maligned. And then I look at the reality of slavery and its aftermath, lynchings, kluckers, Jim Crow and segregation and understanding that the institution of slavery was the cause of the Civil War and its awful carnage and slaughter I know that Biblical justice (Old and New Testament) mandate moving forward toward building a better South and a better U.S.A.
Free State of Jones helps remove the twinges of Old South romanticism so easy to embrace if one is white and rich as were the planters and slave holders. Cotton was like gold and slave labor made it that. Slavery also frequently gave even poor whites (and these were the great majority) a feeling of superiority toward someone.  Sin plays with us in some strange ways. Newt Knight of Jones County, Mississippi, deserts from the Confederate Army after the brutal battle of Corinth as the result of witnessing a very young kinsman being killed.
He goes back home to bury the youngster and gradually concludes that it makes no sense for poor whites who own no slaves to fight the battles for slave holders. As a deserter he is in the same class as a runaway slave and this shapes the movie. He joins up with a number of runaways and they gradually create a small but extremely resourceful army to protect the people of Jones and Jasper counties from the local Confederate troops ordered to confiscate food and goods from their own local people. Their efforts are surprisingly successful for the rest of the war.
I will tell no more about the movie for I hope that everyone reading this will attend and soon.  Movies of seriousness and character development don’t tend to stay long in Mississippi theaters. McConaughey is magnificent as Newt Knight and though I am not a movie critic, I thought the rest of the cast was also very good.
As we struggle today with all sorts of racial and economic problems like “black lives matter,” “economic inequality,” “failing budgets,” “corporate tax reductions,” Newt Knight and those who proclaimed the Free State of Jones at least suggest that coming together in solidarity and fighting for the common good of all men and women and not just for the wealthy and prominent is good for the spirit and the soul and can be successful. They appealed to General Sherman for help against the Confederates who they were already fighting, but were turned down, so they found their own way to protect their community.
With the political mess we face, the moral demise we have created, the tawdry remarks and attacks and ugliness which seem to attract folks and be effective, why not try to rally the troops in a peaceful but effective proclamation of freedom and goodness and graciousness? Why not answer our problems with solutions based on rightness and effective action?
If it can be done in Jones County in the midst of a terrible war and with little help, surely we can do better with all at our disposal if we only put aside self serving ambition and greed and embrace our discipleship as Jesus admonished us to do recently at Sunday Mass and put Him first. He will give us what we need to do it.  That beats cursing the darkness, complaining and doing nothing.
(George Evans, a retired pastoral minister, lives in Madison and is a member of Jackson St. Richard Parish.)

Kneading Faith
By Fran Lavelle
The first week of June many lay people from across the diocese participated in the Pastoral Ministries Workshop at Lake Tiak O’Khata in Louisville. A feature of the workshop is an optional retreat. One morning I was sitting on a porch with a few of the retreatants.
During our reflection and conversation a dove gracefully flew into a nearby tree and remained there until a few minutes before we closed our session with prayer. Thankfully all three of us saw this most welcome visitor. I have been told that I am not the greatest birder in the family and may have mistaken the dove for an egret. I assure you, it was a dove, and its presence was powerful.
The presence of the dove reminded me of the powerful presence of the Holy Spirit, but it also reminded me that it was in our slowing down that we were able to see the gift that God had blessed us with that morning. Retreats are to the soul what good nutrition is to the body. Without feeding ourselves good food our bodies suffer. The same can be said for our spiritual life. Left unattended they no longer produce good fruit.
One of the things we reflected on during our time together was the need to create touch tones in our lives, regardless of our state of life or vocation, to heighten our awareness of God’s directing presence in our daily living. By touch tones I mean a physical reminder of a spiritual awareness that we have experienced.
I shared with the group what had happened to me about a month ago. I was on my way to Jackson and had a long list of things on my “to do” list. Maintaining a life in Starkville, working out of an office in Jackson and serving the people in a diocese the geographic size of ours had left me feeling like I was not serving God well.
Exasperated, I asked God, “Where are you in all of this?” A few miles pass. The thought came to me, if I were on the receiving end of defibrillators what would be going through my mind? I thought for a minute and was filled with gratitude for my family, the beautiful farm of my youth in Ohio, the amazing people I have met along the journey, the blessings of ministry, the love shared and the beautiful family that has been knit together from all these experiences.
These are the things that matter. The touch tone has become a physical touch on my heart during the times when I feel overwhelmed by life’s demands. That physical touch reminds me of the things that matter. It is a simple gesture but it moves me from anxiety to peace.
What are some of the ways you remind yourself to remain focused on the important stuff? I have a friend who uses music to keep her centered on God. Whenever she begins to feel stressed she listens to her favorite gospel radio station. Quotes from our spiritual heroes can also be used as a touch tone. A well placed quote on the bathroom mirror or a prayer card in our bible can serve as a reminder to keep our eyes fixed on the Beloved.
My favorite St. John of the Cross quote comes to mind, “In the evening of life we will be judged on love alone.” When I find myself short on patience or quick to judge this quote reminds me that love is my only option.
The folks who joined me on retreat all work for the church in a leadership role. But the conversations we shared each morning would be applicable to anyone who is serious about developing a more intimate relationship with God.
All our meaningful relationships depend on our ability to be present, listen, act with sincerity and appreciate the other. Just as our human relationships need this kind of care so too does our relationship with God. Personal retreats give us the opportunity to reconnect with God. To sit quietly and ask for nothing but the time to be present, fully present.
When was the last time you went on a retreat? For some the answer may take us back to confirmation several decades ago or perhaps to a college retreat. For some the answer may be never. Having recently returned from directing this retreat I was left with the profound awareness that retreats are not only helpful in our faith journey but necessary if we are to fully embrace a loving relationship with God.
If you have never taken a retreat or if it has been years since you did, I am not admonishing you in any way. Rather, I hope to encourage you to take the time away and nurture your relationship with God. If you work in ministry, paid or volunteer, participating in a retreat for yourself is the best gift you can give the people you serve. If you are interested in learning more about retreats, feel free to contact me at fran.lavelle@jacksondiocese.org.
(Fran Lavelle is the Director of Faith Formation for the Diocese of Jackson.)

Millennial reflections
By Father Jeremy Tobin, O.Praem.
Before last week, when you said “Orlando” people usually thought about Disney or one of the other theme parks in the Florida town. Now the name recalls the largest mass shooting in the nation’s history: 103 shot, 49 dead, several still in the hospital in various stages of recovery.
The response was huge. Displays appeared that proclaim only love can heal. Forty-nine crosses made by a volunteer with names of the deceased are on display.
Some responses brought people together. Gay sons and daughters, straight parents and siblings, people came together with love and compassion. Labels temporarily disappeared. It was ‘our family’ that got shot up by someone consumed with hate and false religion. Other responses were predictable: ban Muslims, attack and distort their religion.
All this in the midst of a toxic presidential election that will only get worse until it is over added fuel to the fire. I was on vacation when the shooting happened. Details came out in bits and pieces in initial reports on television: a terrorist shot up a night club, 22 dead, possible hostages. The fact that Pulse was a gay club only came out much later. These were young people having a good time falling victim to a hate consumed terrorist. As reporting developed, a picture emerged. This terrorist specifically targeted and vented hate in one place the gay community felt safe.
Among notable responses to this, I want to applaud Bishop Robert Lynch of St. Petersburg Florida, who made three points. First, he said, that “Our founding parents (note the inclusive language) had no knowledge of assault rifles which are intended to be weapons of mass destruction. In crafting the second amendment to the Constitution, which I affirm, they thought only of the most awkward of pistols and heavy shotguns. I suspect they are turning in their graves if the can only but glimpse at what their words now protect. It is long past time to ban the sale of all assault weapons whose use should be available to the armed forces.”
His second point is also worth reflecting. “Sadly it is religion, including our own, which targets, mostly verbally, and also often breed contempt for gays, lesbians and transgender people… Those men and women who were mowed down early yesterday morning were made in the image and likeness of God. We teach that. We should believe that.”
His third point is also very important. “Responding by barring people of Muslim only faith from entering the country, solely because of their stated faith until they can be checked out, is un-American, even in these most challenging times… There are as many good, peace loving and God-fearing Muslims to be found as Catholics or Methodists or Mormons or Seventh Day Adventists. The devil and devilish intent escape no religious iteration.”
He concludes by saying that his three points must be taken seriously by society or we can expect more  attacks such as this one in Orlando.
What is courageous in his statement is his condemnation of this horrendous act as a hate crime or act of terror aimed specifically at the gay community. We are called to love and support one another on this journey. This love and support cannot come with judgment. It cannot come with demands. We must offer it freely and abundantly. We are our brothers’ and sisters’ keepers in good times and in times of tragedy.
Bishop Lynch also points out that many prejudices and hatreds find material in religion to justify their views. He mentions that when the imam spoke to repudiate this atrocity, there would be attempts to find religious roots in this. Bad people often use religion to justify their wickedness, but singling people out for victimization because of their religion, their sexual orientation, their nationality – this has to stop also.
While we live in very polarizing and violent times, we also live in a time of opportunity. The Orlando atrocity, on top of everything else, should wake people up that it is time to stop all this. Our love could be just the thing that turns someone else away from his or her prejudice. Our compassion could be the key to opening someone’s heart.
Our country is at another crossroads. Many of us thought that these old hatreds and prejudices were things of the past. They are coming back when we need leadership that can bring all of us together, not insulated by labels, but united by common humanity and love of peace. When America responds like that it can be a light to the nations.
(Father Jeremy Tobin, O.Praem, lives at the Priory of St. Moses the Black, Jackson.)

By Bishop Robert Baron
Editor’s note: Bishop Joseph Kopacz is traveling. His regular column, Let there be Light, will return later this summer.
There is, in many quarters, increasing concern about the hyper-charged political correctness that has gripped our campuses and other forums of public conversation. Even great works of literature and philosophy — from “Huckleberry Finn” and “Heart of Darkness” to, believe it or not, Kant’s “Critique of Pure Reason”  — are now regularly accompanied by “trigger warnings” that alert prospective readers to the racism, sexism, homophobia or classism contained therein.
And popping up more and more at our colleges and universities are “safe spaces” where exquisitely sensitive students can retreat in the wake of jarring confrontations with points of view with which they don’t sympathize. My favorite example of this was at Brown University where school administrators provided retreat centers with play-doh, crayons, and videos of frolicking puppies to calm the nerves of their students even before a controversial debate commenced!
Apparently even the prospect of public argument sent these students to an updated version of daycare. Of course a paradoxical concomitant of this exaggerated sensitivity to giving offense is a proclivity to aggressiveness and verbal violence; for once authentic debate has been ruled out of court, the only recourse contesting parties have is to some form of censorship or bullying.
There is obviously much that can and should be mocked in all of this, but I won’t go down that road. Instead, I would like to revisit a time when people knew how to have a public argument about the most hotly-contested matters. Though it might come as a surprise to many, I’m talking about the High Middle Ages, when the university system was born. And to illustrate the medieval method of disciplined conversation there is no better candidate than St. Thomas Aquinas.
The principal means of teaching in the medieval university was not the classroom lecture, which became prominent only in the 19th century German system of education; rather, it was the quaestio disputata (disputed question), which was a lively, sometimes raucous, and very public intellectual exchange. Though the written texts of Aquinas can strike us today as a tad turgid, we have to recall that they are grounded in these disciplined but decidedly energetic conversations.
If we consult Aquinas’s masterpiece, the Summa theologiae, we find that he poses literally thousands of questions and that not even the most sacred issues are off the table, the best evidence of which is article three of question two of the first part of the Summa: “utrum Deus sit?” (whether there is a God). If a Dominican priest is permitted to ask even that question, everything is fair game; nothing is too dangerous to talk about. After stating the issue, Thomas then entertains a series of objections to the position that he will eventually take.
In many cases, these represent a distillation of real counter-claims and queries that Aquinas would have heard during quaestiones disputatae. But for our purposes, the point to emphasize is that Thomas presents these objections in their most convincing form, often stating them better and more pithily than their advocates could.
In proof of this, we note that during the Enlightenment, rationalist philosophes would sometimes take Thomistic objections and use them to bolster their own anti-religious positions.
To give just one example, consider Aquinas’s devastatingly convincing formulation of the argument from evil against the existence of God: “if one of two contraries were infinite, the other would be destroyed…but God is called the infinite good.
Therefore, if God exists, there would be no evil.” Thomas indeed provides a telling response, but, as stated, that is a darn good argument. Might I suggest that it would help our public discourse immensely if all parties would be willing to formulate their opponents positions as respectfully and convincingly as possible.
Having articulated the objections, Thomas then offers his own magisterial resolution of the matter: “Respondeo dicendum quod… (I respond that it must be said…).  One of the more regrettable marks of the postmodern mind is a tendency endlessly to postpone the answer to a question. Take a look at Jacques Derrida’s work for a master class in this technique. And sadly, many today, who want so desperately to avoid offending anyone, find refuge in just this sort of permanent irresolution.
But Thomas knew what Chesterton knew, namely that an open mind is like an open mouth, that is, designed to close finally on something solid and nourishing.  Finally, having offered his Respondeo, Aquinas returns to the objections and, in light of his resolution, answers them.  It is notable that a typical Thomas technique is to find something right in the objector’s position and to use that to correct what he deems to be errant in it.
Throughout this process, in the objections, Respondeos, and answers to objections, Thomas draws on a wide range of sources: the Bible and the Church Fathers of course, but also the classical philosophers Aristotle, Plato and Cicero, the Jewish scholar Moses Maimonides, and the Islamic masters Averroes, Avicenna, and Aviceberon.
And he consistently invokes these figures with supreme respect, characterizing Aristotle, for example, as simply “the Philosopher” and referring to Maimonides as “Rabbi Moyses.” It is fair to say that, in substantial ways, Thomas Aquinas disagrees with all of these figures, and yet he is more than willing to listen to them, to engage them, to take their arguments seriously.
What this Thomistic method produces is, in its own way, a “safe space” for conversation, but it is a safe space for adults and not timorous children. Might I modestly suggest that it wouldn’t be a bad model for our present discussion of serious things.
(Bishop Robert Barron is the founder of Word on Fire Catholic Ministries and the host of CATHOLICISM, a groundbreaking, award-winning documentary about the Catholic Faith. He was ordained an Auxiliary Bishop of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles on September 8, 2015.)

IN EXILE
By Father Ron Rolheiser, OMI
“The most damaging idolatry is not the golden calf but enmity against the other.” The renowned anthropologist, Rene Girard, wrote that and its truth is not easily admitted.  Most of us like to believe that we are mature and big-hearted and that we do love our neighbors and are free of enmity towards others. But is this so?
In our more honest — more accurately perhaps, in our more humble moments — I think that all of us admit that we don’t really love others in the way that Jesus asked. We don’t turn the other cheek. We don’t really love our enemies. We don’t wish good to those who wish us harm. We don’t bless those who curse us.
And we don’t genuinely forgive those who murder our loved ones. We are decent, good-hearted persons, but persons whose heaven is still too-predicated on needing an emotional vindication in the face of anyone or anything that opposes us. We can be fair, we can be just, but we don’t yet love the way Jesus asked us to; that is, so that our love goes out to both those who love us and to those who hate us. We still struggle, mightily, mostly unsuccessfully, to wish our enemies well.
But for most of us who like to believe ourselves mature that battle remains hidden, mostly from ourselves. We tend to feel that we are loving and forgiving because, essentially, we are well-intentioned, sincere, and able to believe and say all the right things; but there’s another part of us that isn’t nearly so noble.
The Irish Jesuit, Michael Paul Gallagher, (who died recently and will be dearly missed) puts this well when he writes (In Extra Time): “You probably don’t hate anyone, but you can be paralyzed by daily negatives. Mini-prejudices and knee-jerk judgements can produce a mood of undeclared war. Across barbed wire fences, invisible bullets fly.”  Loving the other as oneself, he submits, is for most of us an impossible uphill climb.
So where does that leave us? Serving out a life-sentence of mediocrity and hypocrisy? Professing to loving our enemies but not doing it? How can we profess to be Christians when, if we are honest, we have to admit that we are not measuring up to the litmus-test of Christian discipleship, namely, loving and forgiving our enemies?
Perhaps we are not as bad as we think we are. If we are still struggling, we are still healthy.  In making us, it seems, God factored in human complexity, human weakness and how growing into deeper love is a life-long journey. What can look like hypocrisy from the outside can in fact be a pilgrimage, a Camino walk, when seen within a fuller light of patience and understanding.
Thomas Aquinas, in speaking about union and intimacy, makes this important distinction. He distinguishes between being in union with something or somebody in actuality and being in union with that someone or something through desire.
This has many applications but, applied in this case; it means that sometimes the heart can only go somewhere through desire rather than in actuality. We can believe in the right things and want the right things and still not be able to bring our hearts onside.
One example of this is what the old catechisms (in their unique wisdom) used to call “imperfect contrition,” that is, the notion that if you have done something wrong that you know is wrong and that you know that you should feel sorry for, but you can’t in fact feel sorry for, then if you can wish that you could feel sorry, that’s contrition enough — not perfect, but enough.
It’s the best you can do and it puts you at the right place at the level of desire, not a perfect place, but one better than its alternative.
And that “imperfect” place does more for us than simply providing the minimal standard of contrition needed for forgiveness. More importantly it accords rightful dignity to whom and to what we have hurt.
Reflecting on our inability to genuinely love our neighbor, Marilynne Robinson submits that, even in our failure to live up to what Jesus asks of us, if we are struggling honestly, there is some virtue.
She argues this way: Freud said that we cannot love our neighbor as ourselves, and no doubt this is true. But since we accept the reality that lies behind the commandment, that our neighbor is as worthy of love as ourselves, then in our very attempt to act on Jesus’ demand we are acknowledging that our neighbor is worthy of love, even if at this point in our lives we are too weak to provide it.
And that’s the crucial point: In continuing to struggle, despite our failures, to live up to Jesus’ great commandment of love, we acknowledge the dignity inherent in our enemies, acknowledge that they are worthy of love, and acknowledge our own shortcoming. That’s “imperfect” of course, but, I suspect, Thomas Aquinas would say it’s a start!
(Oblate Father Ron Rolheiser, theologian, teacher and award-winning author, is President of the Oblate School of Theology in San Antonio, TX.)