Deus Caritas Est - A Eucharistic Encyclical
DEUS CARITAS EST! Pope Benedict has given us an encyclical the brevity of which contrasts starkly with its profound depth and rich content. Indeed His Holiness indicates in the first paragraph that: "These words from the First Letter of St. John express with remarkable clarity the heart of the Christian faith: the Christian image of God and the resulting image of mankind and his destiny."
Precisely because these words pertain to 'the heart of the Christian faith', this brief encyclical is a fruitful source of reflection from every perspective that is authentically Christian. The present reflection emphasizes the perspective that embraces all other perspectives and serves as the ground of their own authenticity, to wit: The Redemptive Incarnation of Christ definitively reveals the Reality conceptually expressed by the words 'God is Love'. We come to believe in God's Love not by "result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea" but through an existential encounter with the Person of Christ. Such was the case in the Gospels. Such is the case today through the mediation of the Church in its various operations (kerygma, leitourgia, diakonia), but most perfectly in the Eucharist - Sacrament and Sacrifice - the continuation of Christ's Redemptive Incarnation.
Truly, Pope Benedict has given us a Eucharistic encyclical. This is no surprise to those who recall the first full-length message of His Holiness on the 20th of April, 2005:
"How very significant it is that my pontificate begins while the Church is living the special Year dedicated to the Eucharist. How can one not perceive in this providential coincidence an element that must characterize the ministry to which I have been called? The Eucharist, heart of Christian life and source of the evangelizing mission of the Church, cannot but constitute the permanent center and the source of the Petrine service that has been entrusted to me.
"The Eucharist renders the risen Christ constantly present, who continues to give himself to us, calling us to participate at the table of his Body and his Blood. From full communion with him flows every other element of the life of the Church, in the first place communion among all the faithful, commitment to proclamation and testimony of the Gospel, the ardor of charity toward all, especially toward the poor and the little ones."
It is said that the first encyclical presents the vision of each Pope. In the present case it can also be said that the first message perfectly anticipated the first encyclical. It is also noteworthy that the unfinished notes of John Paul the Great inspired the encyclical and served as the basis for Part Second: "The Practice of Love by the Church as a Community of Love". The basis for this elaboration itself seems to be a brief section in the conclusion of the encyclical Ecclesia de Eucharistia:
"Every commitment to holiness, every activity aimed at carrying out the Church's mission, every work of pastoral planning, must draw the strength it needs from the Eucharistic mystery and in turn be directed to that mystery as its culmination."
Yet as we shall presently see, and with great delight, His Holiness gives us MUCH more than unfinished notes...
The present reflection will summarize Pope Benedict's highly original and deeply insightful synthesis in Part First of the encyclical, guided by the Eucharistic perspective as well as by the Pope's three-pronged approach to 'the heart of the Christian faith', viz., (1) the Christian image of God, (2) the resulting image of man, (3) man's destiny.
A Problem of Language
In order to understand that "God is Love" we must first inquire as to what is love, for a single word may conceal a variety of meanings. Pope Benedict identifies love between a man and woman as the meaning that seems particularly to stand out. With this paradigm the Pope inquires whether there might be found a single ultimate reality that underlies the various meanings of the word.
Eros & Agape: Difference & Unity
Presenting the Greek concept of love alongside an exegesis of various Biblical passages, Pope Benedict proceeds, dialectically, to examine eros (the desirous love between man and woman) and agape (the word most commonly used in the New Testament). While the pursuit for the ultimate meaning of love is at times set in contrast to various perversions of love, it would be a gross misreading to reduce this encyclical to a castigation of error. In fact, the Pope points out that since the Enlightenment, and especially in Nietzsche, Christianity has been widely accused of having poisoned eros. In asking whether this is really the case, the tone is more apologetic than disapproving. Yet the intent of His Holiness is neither condemnation nor apology but, rather, to reacquaint mankind with the beauty of love in its "true grandeur".
Two characteristics emerge from Pope Benedict's brief survey of the concept of eros and its perversions; (1) that the experience of eros bears within itself a promise of infinity and eternity - "a reality far greater and totally other than our everyday existence" - and even indicates a certain relationship to the Divine, (2) but that a simple submission to erotic instinct does not attain the promise implied. Indeed, observes the Pope, an intoxicated and undisciplined eros tends not toward an ascent in "ecstasy" to the Divine but to the degradation, exploitation and even the commoditization of human beings.
"A sentiment can be a marvelous first spark" notes the Pope, "but it is not the fullness of love... Evidently, eros needs to be disciplined and purified if it is to provide not just fleeting pleasure, but a certain foretaste of the pinnacle of our existence... Far from rejecting or 'poisoning' eros, [purification and growth in maturity] heal it and restore its true grandeur." In the courtship recounted by the Song of Songs Pope Benedict finds insight into the structure of this ascent.
The Song of Songs uses two Hebrew words for love. "First there is the word dodim, a plural form suggesting a love that is still insecure, indeterminate and searching. This comes to be replaced by the word ahabà, which the Greek version of the Old Testament translates with the similar-sounding agape..." Love is no longer insecure, indeterminate and searching - it grows and is purified in becoming definitive, "both in the sense of exclusivity (this particular person alone) and in the sense of being 'for ever'... Love now becomes concern and care for the other... 'ecstasy', not in the sense of a moment of intoxication, but rather as a journey, an ongoing exodus out of the closed inward-looking self towards its liberation through self-giving, and thus towards authentic self-discovery and indeed the discovery of God..."
Diverging briefly from the encyclical, I wish to mention one consequence of the Pope's observation that it is in "becoming definitive" that love matures. Some pop-philosophers propose a "religion without religion" that denies notions of end, object and norm, yet speaks loftily of love as its core tenet. To appreciate this absurdity, one can imagine a bachelor who, enamored by sensual desire and by his limited idea of love, engages in flings but never commits. He believes he has attained love in a manner better than that of which his married friends speak. In truth, however, until he commits himself in relationship with a "definitive" entity, a particular woman, he can neither attain the fullness of love nor fully understand its meaning. If not shaped by a definitive object, love remains but an abstraction and very often assumes some form of self-love. While commanding us to love, religion also commands definitive objects, namely, the God of Revelation as well as our very concrete neighbor(s) in every here and now.
Returning to the encyclical, Pope Benedict says we are now at the "threshold of Biblical faith." Yet before establishing a fundamental unity between eros and agape we must consider various related distinctions that have oft been made regarding these two aspects of love: worldly love vs. love grounded in and shaped by faith; possessive love (concupiscence) vs. oblative love (benevolence); ascending love vs. descending love.
Distinctions, notes the Pope, are not separations. Christian love is not detached "from the vital relations fundamental to human existence" nor cut off from "the complex fabric of human life." Indeed, "eros and agape - ascending love and descending love - can never be completely separated. The more the two, in their different aspects, find a proper unity in the one reality of love, the more the true nature of love in general is realized..." Without agape, "eros is impoverished and even loses its own nature. On the other hand, man cannot live by oblative, descending love alone. He cannot always give, he must also receive. Anyone who wishes to give love must also receive love as a gift."
It is important to note that here at the "threshold of Biblical faith", and in the context of asserting the inseparability of love, Pope Benedict brings into view the previously unmentioned distinction of giving and receiving - categories amenable to a personalist approach of understanding love as "gift". Ultimately, the various dualities of meaning in the word love are united in the integrated person, the mature lover, for it is one and the same person who both experiences love (eros) and loves (agape). "It is characteristic of mature love that it calls into play all man's potentialities; it engages the whole man... Biblical faith does not set up a parallel universe, or one opposed to that primordial human phenomenon which is love, but rather accepts the whole man; it intervenes in his search for love in order to purify it and to reveal new dimensions of it."
An emphasis on this unity of love is found in the Biblical account of Jacob's ladder, in which the Fathers saw an "inseparable connection between ascending and descending love, between eros which seeks God and agape which passes on the gift received..." Pope Benedict notes the "striking interpretation" of Pope Gregory the Great: "the good pastor must be rooted in contemplation [in order to] be able to take upon himself the needs of others [like Saint Paul] who was borne aloft to the most exalted mysteries of God, and hence, having descended once more, he was able to become all things to all men... [like Moses] who entered the tabernacle time and again, remaining in dialogue with God, so that when he emerged he could be at the service of his people..."
In concluding this section in which eros and agape are revealed as "different dimensions" of one single ultimate reality, it is not insignificant that the understanding of love as "gift" and the corresponding structure of receptivity-response comes to the fore as a segue to the next section in which is discussed the Revelation of God as Person. Indeed the attentive Catholic reader might begin to intuit that Pope Benedict has been 'setting the table', as it were, for the Wedding Feast of the Lamb!
The Newness of Biblical Faith
"The newness of biblical faith is shown chiefly in two elements... the image of God and the image of man... The divine power that Aristotle, at the height of Greek philosophy, sought to grasp through reflection, is indeed for every being an object of desire and of love - and as the object of love this divinity moves the world - but in itself it lacks nothing and does not love... The one God in whom Israel believes, on the other hand, loves with a personal love... The Prophets, particularly Hosea and Ezekiel, described God's passion for his people using boldly erotic images... using the metaphors of betrothal and marriage... [True humanism] consists in the fact that man, through a life of fidelity to the one God, comes to experience himself as loved by God... God loves, and his love may certainly be called eros, yet it is also totally agape... not only because it is bestowed in a completely gratuitous manner, without any previous merit, but also because it is love which forgives... God's passionate love for his people - for humanity - is at the same time a forgiving love. It is so great that it turns God against himself, his love against his justice..."
No longer is God seen only in metaphysical terms as ultimate source of all being. "[The] Logos, primordial reason, is at the same time a lover with all the passion of a true love. Eros is thus supremely ennobled, yet at the same time it is so purified as to become one with agape." The Song of Songs "was soon explained by the idea that these love songs ultimately describe God's relation to man and man's relation to God."
"The first novelty of biblical faith consists... in its image of God. The second... is found in the image of man... First, eros is somehow rooted in man's very nature; Adam is a seeker, who 'abandons his mother and father' in order to find woman... [Second], eros directs man towards marriage, a bond which is unique and definitive; thus, and only thus, does it fulfill its deepest purpose. Corresponding to the image of a monotheistic God is monogamous marriage. Marriage based on exclusive and definitive love becomes the icon of the relationship between God and his people and vice versa. God's way of loving becomes the measure of human love."
Jesus Christ — The Incarnate Love of God
"The real novelty of the New Testament lies not so much in new ideas as in the figure of Christ himself, who gives flesh and blood to those concepts... When Jesus speaks in his parables of the shepherd who goes after the lost sheep, of the woman who looks for the lost coin, of the father who goes to meet and embrace his prodigal son, these are no mere words: they constitute an explanation of his very being and activity. His death on the Cross is the culmination of that turning of God against himself in which he gives himself in order to raise man up and save him. This is love in its most radical form. By contemplating the pierced side of Christ (cf. Jn 19:37), we can understand the starting-point of this Encyclical Letter: 'God is love' (1 Jn 4:8)...
"Jesus gave this act of oblation an enduring presence through his institution of the Eucharist at the Last Supper. He anticipated his death and resurrection by giving his disciples, in the bread and wine, his very self, his body and blood as the new manna (cf. Jn 6:31-33)... The Eucharist draws us into Jesus' act of self-oblation. More than just statically receiving the incarnate Logos, we enter into the very dynamic of his self-giving. The imagery of marriage between God and Israel is now realized in a way previously inconceivable: it had meant standing in God's presence, but now it becomes union with God through sharing in Jesus' self-gift, sharing in his body and blood. The sacramental 'mysticism', grounded in God's condescension towards us, operates at a radically different level and lifts us to far greater heights than anything that any human mystical elevation could ever accomplish.
"Here we need to consider yet another aspect: this sacramental 'mysticism' is social in character, for in sacramental communion I become one with the Lord, like all the other communicants... Union with Christ is also union with all those to whom he gives himself... Communion draws me out of myself towards him, and thus also towards unity with all Christians... Love of God and love of neighbor are now truly united...
"God's own agape comes to us bodily, in order to continue his work in us and through us. Only by keeping in mind this Christological and sacramental basis can we correctly understand Jesus' teaching on love... Faith, worship and ethos are interwoven as a single reality which takes shape in our encounter with God's agape... 'Worship' itself, Eucharistic communion, includes the reality both of being loved and of loving others in turn... Love can be 'commanded' because it has first been given...
"Lastly, we should especially mention the great parable of the Last Judgment (cf. Mt 25:31-46), in which love becomes the criterion for the definitive decision about a human life's worth or lack thereof."
Love of God & Love of Neighbor
"God is visible in a number of ways. In the love-story recounted by the Bible, he comes towards us, he seeks to win our hearts, all the way to the Last Supper, to the piercing of his heart on the Cross, to his appearances after the Resurrection and to the great deeds by which, through the activity of the Apostles, he guided the nascent Church along its path. Nor has the Lord been absent from subsequent Church history: he encounters us ever anew, in the men and women who reflect his presence, in his word, in the sacraments, and especially in the Eucharist... He has loved us first and he continues to do so; we too, then, can respond with love...
"Contact with the visible manifestations of God's love can awaken within us a feeling of joy born of the experience of being loved. But this encounter also engages our will and our intellect... the 'yes' of our will to his will unites our intellect, will and sentiments in the all-embracing act of love... The love-story between God and man consists in the very fact that this communion of will increases in a communion of thought and sentiment, and thus our will and God's will increasingly coincide: God's will is no longer for me an alien will, something imposed on me from without by the commandments, but it is now my own will, based on the realization that God is in fact more deeply present to me than I am to myself. Then self-abandonment to God increases and God becomes our joy...
"Love of neighbor is thus shown to be possible in the way proclaimed by the Bible, by Jesus. It consists in the very fact that, in God and with God, I love even the person whom I do not like or even know. This can only take place on the basis of an intimate encounter with God, an encounter which has become a communion of will, even affecting my feelings... Here we see the necessary interplay between love of God and love of neighbor... The saints - consider the example of Blessed Teresa of Calcutta - constantly renewed their capacity for love of neighbor from their encounter with the Eucharistic Lord, and conversely this encounter acquired its realism and depth in their service to others. Love of God and love of neighbor are thus inseparable, they form a single commandment. But both live from the love of God who has loved us first. No longer is it a question, then, of a 'commandment' imposed from without and calling for the impossible, but rather of a freely-bestowed experience of love from within, a love which by its very nature must then be shared with others. Love grows through love."
Conclusion: Image of God, Image of Man, Destiny
As God-with-us, the Eucharist is indeed the heart of the Christian faith in which God is Really Present and from which the Christian image of Him derives. As the source and summit of the Christian life, the Eucharist grounds the Christian image of man both in his identity as the beloved of God and in his vocation to love. It is in the Eucharist that man - made to the image and likeness of God - is fully revealed to himself. As pledge of future glory, the Eucharist is where we discover our destiny as Pope Benedict concisely explains in closing Part First of Deus Caritas Est: "Love is 'divine' because it comes from God and unites us to God; through this unifying process it makes us a 'we' which transcends our divisions and makes us one, until in the end God is 'all in all' (1 Cor 15:28)."
Gift-Mystery, receptivity-response, consummation: The Redemptive Incarnation of Christ definitively reveals the Reality conceptually expressed by the words 'God is Love'. We come to believe in God's Love not by "result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea" but through an existential encounter with the Person of Christ. Such was the case in the Gospels. Such is the case today through the mediation of the Church in its various operations (kerygma, leitourgia, diakonia), but most perfectly in the Eucharist - Sacrament and Sacrifice - the continuation of Christ's Redemptive Incarnation. THE MYSTERY OF FAITH IS A MYSTERY OF LOVE! Praised be Jesus in the Most Blessed Sacrament of the Altar!
As I said at the beginning, Pope Benedict has given us MUCH more than recycled notes. Thank you Papa Benedict! I can hardly wait for Your Holiness' Apostolic Exhortation regarding the Synod of Bishops that recently closed the Year of the Eucharist!
O Sacrament Most Holy, O Sacrament Divine,
through Perpetual Eucharistic Adoration,
all praise and all thanksgiving be every moment Thine,
by every heart in every parish throughout the world!
