“Have I found joy?... No, but I have found my joy and that is something wildly different…
The joy of Jesus can be personal. It can belong to a single man and he is saved. He is at peace, he is joyful now and for always, but he is alone. The isolation of this joy does not trouble him; on the contrary: he is the chosen one. In his blessedness he passes through the battlefields with a rose in his hand…
When I am beset of affliction, I cannot find peace in the blandishments of genius. My joy will not be lasting unless it is the joy of all. I will not pass through the battlefields with a rose in my hand.” - Jean Giono, 1936.
Easter, 2010:
Today I was thinking about the need for catholicism in our world. A Greek word used by first century Christians, catholic means “one and universal”. Catholicism is a word - I would say - that perhaps best describes the unity that Jesus desired when he prayed, “that they may be one, Father… as we are one: I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me...”(John 17:21-23); it was a word that first century Christians did, indeed, use to describe this reality.
Unfortunately, this kind of Christian unity does not exist in our world today. Over the centuries, philosophies of individualism have crept into the religious consciences of Christians: the individual, personal encounter one must have of Jesus has been overemphasized, seemingly to the point of being at the expense of the one Body of Christ (cf. Ephesians 4:4-6).
Comparative religious studies have seen this cycle of individualistic philosophies time and again. Plato emphasized a need to escape this life, and it is a journey that each individual should make on his own. Buddhism also feels a need to escape, even if through many reincarnations. In the end, the only God is that of Escape. These paths in life seem to sacrifice any attempt towards unity with other human beings, even if they are on the same journey. It is, finally, a lonely journey, and these individualistic philosophies have also unfortunately made their way into Christian theologies.
How tragic, how very far from the expressed desires heard in the prayer of our Savior. Certainly, there are many Christians in the world today, but they are separated into 25,000-plus denominations - a number that has been growing with each passing year. Instead of communicating the unity and peace of God with humanity, these separations communicate fracture, rupture, and divorce between God and humanity. Tragic indeed.
It seems to me that contemporary Christianity has all but completely lost a grasp for the meaning of covenant. We are living in the days of the New Covenant; we are a people covenanted to each other and to God, a family, in the “blood of the new covenant” (Luke 22:20; cf. 1 Cor 11:25). Easter, 2010; today, in the liturgy of our covenanted family, water was sprinkled on all those present. It is the waters of our baptism, a reminder of our covenanted promises in Christ – and a fulfillment of the covenant the Lord made with Israel at Sinai, where Moses “sprinkled the blood of the covenant” on the people (Exodus 24:6-8).
I am convinced that catholicism is needed in the world today; we should be united, “one and universal”. It is, I feel, what the Lord desired from the beginning: a covenanted family in God, in Jesus.
