If I am to be blessed, let it be in this way.
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For we are wide of the mark, I think, when we use the word “blessed” to describe ourselves in light of those things that bring us comfort or prestige, as sometimes happens, for example, when a person is interviewed on TV after winning an event or a prize, and the interviewer puts the microphone near that person’s face, and asks them what they are feeling. It seems, anyway, on these occasions, that we forget this word’s other meaning. If we want to use the word “blessed” as Jesus meant it (and maybe we do not, who is to say?), really we should think of situations that are spiritually grueling, and that have broken us. We are blessed, for example, when, judged by humankind, justly or not, ostracized, unseen by those we thought loved us, and brought to a lowly place, far from anyone who would befriend us, we find ourselves still alive. For it is then that we must face our wretchedness, and try to become our true selves. It is then that we might draw closer to God.
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I think of the Beatitudes, where Christ described as “blessed” those who would seem abject in the world’s eyes. This blessed state, which seems to me true beauty, can be attained by any of us, so long as we are willing, through the practice of discernment, to relinquish our own will, and often, as a consequence, those things that make our existence comfortable, and that the world admires.
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For not all of us are called to lives of heroic sacrifice, and sometimes all there is for us to do is rest, or look at a tree, or reciprocate the smile of a friend, or someone we may not even know but who we happen to pass on the street, or to participate in some small work of kindness, or justice; and that is ok, each of us has capacities that perhaps are known only to ‘providence,’ which we cannot fathom, as it exists outside of creation, shrouded in the mystery of God, but the voice of which is really what we are listening for when we practice discernment. And it is by conforming ourselves to this voice, and by bending our will toward it, so that our will aligns with God’s will (whether that means a sacrifice that is difficult, or, as I mentioned, merely a smile for a friend, or an act of kindness or justice) that our lives become transfigured by beauty.
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Sometimes that means a life-changing sacrifice, for a person does not grow in closeness to God by remaining stagnant. But it doesn’t always mean that.
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What it does mean, however, is that we should order our lives toward the supernatural, which amounts to the practice of what is called discernment, which involves the sort of listening one does not with one’s ears, but with one’s conscience (or, if you like, with one’s heart), and the goal of which is to discover, in any given moment, what God wills for us to do.
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Which isn’t to say that our lives should become a series of moments where we martyr ourselves without reason, or for some pretend or insignificant cause. For to seek out suffering in a pointless or masochistic way is no better than hedonism, or the pursuit of pleasure, or distraction, all of which distort the things of creation by forcing them to fill some role that we’ve decided to ascribe to them (thus disregarding the purpose they’ve been endowed with) and that helps produce for us some vision we have of ourselves, or that we’d like for others to imagine is true of us, so that we can persist under whatever illusion is, at that time, most precious to us.
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In other words, to do what is ‘natural’ is not always the same as doing what is best for us, and certainly is not always the same as doing God’s will. Every fiber of the being of Jesus, for example, would have wanted to resist submitting to the crucifixion, for it is natural for the body to want to live, to thrive, and to avoid pain. It is because his will was perfectly conformed to the Father’s (that is, to the supernatural order) that he was able to go to his death the way he did, to drink that cup of suffering, for our sake.
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For one might say that there is the natural and the supernatural. And while, as part of creation, we exist in the natural order, we, among all creatures, have been made in the image of God, and are not merely bodies, but are bodies that have been imbued with spirit, and thus we belong to the supernatural order. Which is what is meant, I think, when people say that we should conduct ourselves as though we have a divine inheritance.
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And for that to happen, for a soul to draw closer to God, the absence of suffering is not a necessity. This speaks to a paradox that is central to the Christian understanding of life: while we should work to alleviate suffering where we see it in others, we should also know that suffering can be a path to sanctification, and so the avoidance of it in our own experience, while natural, is not to be sought above all else.
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But another answer to this question is that there is no answer, insofar as what the Church cares about is the salvation of souls, so that her foremost concern, when it comes to the governance of people, is not whether the governance conforms to a certain type (though of course the Church’s mission compels her to work against oppression, for she is forever on the side of the poor and the downtrodden), but whether that governance allows a soul to draw closer to God.
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One way to answer this question is to look inside a monastery or convent, where a ‘Rule’ that is particular to whichever order of religious is gathered there is designed to encourage Christian living in its most perfect form. Here, besides prayer, you will find an emphasis on work, sharing, and undifferentiated property, all of which (except for prayer) does resemble communism of the Marxist variety, though that resemblance ends once you begin to examine the motivations. For Christian communism is much older, and has no socio-economic or political ideology as it basis, but instead originates in the charity that is natural to a man or woman who has begun to imitate Christ, and to place the good of their soul, as well as the souls of their brethren, above other considerations.
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I suppose it might be asked, as I have couched my discussion in these terms, what form of governance, if any, the Church would most likely smile upon, given that she does exist in this ocean that is reality, and must navigate it like anyone else does.
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Those types of vessels are not here for the long haul, and in fact are composed of a different substance than is the ship that is the Church. For while they are completely material, which is in keeping with the outlook of their crew, who seek in the reality of the ocean not a means by which to reach a specific shore, but an end in itself, as if there is no shore for which they are destined, but merely an endless body of water, the governance of which, according to whatever system of thought they might subscribe to (even if that thought might be described as ‘noble’ and ‘just’) is their goal…yes, while those vessels are completely material, the Church is material and spiritual (in the world, but not of the world), which is why she is most properly described as a mystical body, and not an institution.
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She might always seem a little behind the times. For she isn’t cool or sexy, like a speedboat that might be piloted in swift circles around her, and then made to churn off toward the horizon while liable to run out of fuel, and whose owner cares not for the ocean he is in, and all of its creatures, but only for the pleasures he might experience from the way he treats it, and the reputation he imagines will accrue to him if enough people take notice of him, and believe he is in possession of something they ought to covet.
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And steer her with prudence he must. For her cargo is not ours to be reckless with, but is God’s, comprised not only of the truths of his nature, which we have come to know through his work of revelation, and have been charged with bringing, as ‘good news,’ to those who would hear it, but of all those souls who are on board her already, as well as those she might pick up along the way, on islands she happens to pass, or in the ocean itself, swimming, or treading water, or in a state of distress.
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This is why, when I say that the Church “moves through history,” I mean that she moves slowly through history, like a ship through open waters. Everything about her is slow, and takes time. For while she is always capable of turning (and even of turning again if she overcorrects) she is also huge and hulking, so that she must be mindful of her own momentum, which is strong enough to take her off course if the helmsman doesn’t steer with prudence.
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That these attempts are said to manifest as things that are “bound” or “loosed” in heaven is why the Church takes so solemnly her mission, and why she must always seek guidance from the Holy Spirt, before moving in one direction or another, for what greater responsibility can there be than to know that what one makes doctrinal, or issues ex cathedra (meaning ‘from the chair’), has repercussions not only in the temporal realm, but in the hereafter?
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Because, even if you doubt the veracity of that passage from Matthew’s gospel, or do not doubt it but see no divinity in the person of Christ, and thus do not attribute to it the power it might otherwise have, and perhaps even regard it as some sort of fraudulence, or, at best, a genuine sentiment that has been misconstrued, you should still be able to find in it the shape of the rationale by which the Church, responding to it, attempts to manifest in time.
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For, once you recognize that the Church sees both her structure and her authority as originating in a behest from Christ, certainly you are at liberty to say that the Church has been made to betray that behest, intentionally or not, by those who are in a position to lead her, or to do things in her name, but you cannot so easily say that her entire existence is an exercise in bad faith.