1.1 GIFT – GRACE - EUCHARIST

1.2 This reflection will focus on one of the terms most frequently used in our Christian faith and theology: GRACE. It is one of those words which, like the other, epiphany, enwraps the whole Christian mystery from a particular point of view. Unfortunately it also happens to be a word that is much abused because we often forget that Grace is Someone (God himself) and not something (as when we speak of “different graces”). Again, we forget the nature of Grace as a free gift, and consider our relationship with God to be something depending more on us than on Him (as when we speak of our “preserving” or “losing” grace). In reality, we can lose everything… except Grace, because Grace is the gratuitous and unconditional love with which God gives himself to us.

1.3 1. THE LOSS OF THE SENSE OF GIFT

1.4 After this theological and somewhat provocative lead-in, I would like to invite you to take the human reality of “giving freely” as our point of departure, not because we intend to develop it “from below” and then “baptize” it to make it Christian. Actually, what takes place is just the opposite: it is only from the standpoint of faith that we are able to understand and discover the deeper significance – and the human meaning as well – of giving freely. For us Salesians who want to live by the conviction that there is no separation between nature and grace, it would be seem appropriate that we examine the “anthropological infrastructure” of grace so as to become aware of the “lack of gratuitous giving” in our world today.

1.5 There are many signs pointing to this deficiency. I shall allude to three of them, as they are particularly significant for us:

1.6 1. In much of Western culture, the model of a “successful man” is someone who can say with pride: “Whatever I have achieved has been the result of my own efforts”; “I have not received anything from anyone as a gift…” This is why many persons who are able to make a success of their lives “starting from the bottom”, later become the fiercest opponents of advancement for the poor and needy, because they think (perhaps in a Pelagian sort of way) that “all have the same opportunities: if some didn’t know how to make use of those opportunities, worse for them; why should anything be ‘gifted’ to them?” With such a mentality, gratuitous giving makes no sense; it is not even considered a virtue. Unfortunately, this natural tendency of human beings, mostly limited to economic or material productivity, is fast becoming a paradigm of “human fulfilment” today.

1.7 2. Within the environment of the family, the treatment we give to the elderly and the sick, i.e., to those persons who cannot “produce” any more, is a matter of great importance. Unlike ancestral cultures which value the elderly person as a pivot of the family grouping and as a “wise person” whose word serves as the norm of conduct and irreversible judgment, present-day culture unfortunately sees such a one all too often as a nuisance and in the best of cases despatches him or her to an old people’s residence or a nursing home. Should these institutional resources be unavailable, nothing remains but to “put up” with this person at home. Should the criteria for judging a person’s worth be more human and less consumer-oriented, such a one would be appreciated for what he or she gave or could still give; but that is not usually the case. And, unfortunately, such situations exist also in religious life.

1.8 3. At world level, the situation of inequality between the countries of the so-called “first

1.9 world” and the “third world” is unacceptable, and in some aspects continues to grow. The idea of “cancelling the debts” contracted by poor countries has – with some honourable exceptions – still some way to go; it should be added that frequently this matter (the cancellation of debts) is not so much a question of economic interests (which of course it is, and considerably so) as a question of maintaining the status quo of the dependence arising out of the debt. As for the concept of “justice” in terms of “giving to each one what belongs to him”, it leaves no space for gratuitous giving; however, many things would certainly improve in our world if there were at least this type of justice, if the norm of conduct between persons and nations were… the law of retribution. All this points to the fact that there is still a long way to go before arriving at a “civilization of love”, and practically speaking, such a goal will be impossible if no attempts are made to reawaken and develop a sense and a culture of giving freely.

1.10 2. GIVING FREELY: A FUNDAMENTAL HUMAN REALITY

1.11 After what I have said, I do not intend to pass immediately to the Christian and theological viewpoint, leaving a total void on the anthropological level and giving the impression that the faith-proposal is the only response to an insoluble human problem. It may be so in reality, but it is important not to overlook the “intermediate space” in which every human being (including non-Christians!) can and must “experience gratuitousness”: that will enable the Christian faith to develop all its richness as the fullness of something every human being lives and yearns for.

1.12 Gratuitousness is intimately connected with the idea of a gift. However, it has slightly different connotations. Gratuitousness emphasizes the absence of merits on the part of the one who receives a gift: otherwise, it is not gratuitous. The stipend a worker receives at the end of the week is earned by the sweat of his brow: he does not receive it as a free gift.

1.13 Instead, a gift emphasizes the positive nature of what is given. Giving someone a blow without his deserving it, is absolutely no gift at all. However, ordinarily and without our being aware of it, we tend to add yet another characteristic to a gift: we are inclined to see it as something selective, in the sense that it is given to some and not to others (at least, not to everyone). A “universal gift” would seem to be something contradictory: it would not seem to be a gift any more.1

1.14 In the light of these clarifications, let us analyze, still at the human level, the two fundamental experiences of giving freely.

1.15 1. The misunderstanding we alluded to just now prevents us many times from perceiving that, at the very basis of our existence, there is a gift, the gift of life – a gratuitous, positive and universal gift. It is a gift par excellence for two reasons:

1.16 Finally, it would be important to underline the universality of the gift of life, because it is lacking only to those who are not alive.

1.17 For all these reasons, a lot depends on the attitude we assume towards a question that is frequently prompted by certain exceptionally negative situations in the world: are there persons who do not deserve to live? I imagine that our unanimous answer is: no! And it is the correct answer, but perhaps the real reason is the opposite of what most people think. The answer to the question is no, not because all of us have the right to live, but because, really speaking, no one has the right to live, and therefore no one can dispose of the life of another person… (Perhaps if one had the right to live, he could lose it; but if the contrary is true?…)

1.18 Therefore, at the basis of every human being without exception we find a gift par excellence. Another question – more pressing for us, Christians and Salesians - is whether every human being perceives his own life as a gift, i.e. as something positive. Unfortunately, this is generally not the case, beginning with many young people who, for different reasons, do not have reasons to live, perhaps because they have never felt loved by anyone…

1.19 2. And this brings us to the second experience of giving freely. If life is a gratuitous gift par excellence, it is so as a foundation and not as a fullness, because there is another question to be answered: why do I have this gift? what can give meaning to my life? And here the reply is immediate and universal: love. Let us allow St. Thomas to offer us a remarkable and concise statement: “The reason for every gratuitous donation is love: if we give something freely to someone, it is because we want something good for him. Hence, it is clear that love is the gratuitous gift par excellence, because of which every other gratuitous gift is given” (a triple pleonasm!)(S.Th. I, 38, 38, a. 2, resp.).2 Josef Pieper places this statement as the epigraph in his excellent book on love.3

1.20 The gratuitousness of love is an inexhaustible theme, even from the human point of view. In the first place, gratuitousness is often confused with a lack of motivation, and therefore, with its incomprehensibility. Why do I love this person? is a question that always remains without an answer (and just as well, because if there were an answer, it would perhaps not be authentic love any more). Montaigne put it nicely when, to describe his friendship with Étienne de La Boétie, he wrote: “Si on me presse de dire pourquoi je l’aimais, je sens que cela ne se peut exprimer qu’en répondant: Parce que c’était lui, parce que c’était moi” (If one were to ask me why I love him, I feel that the only reply I could give would be: “Because of who he is and who I am.”).4

1.21 A second characteristic of the experience of love is its unconditional nature. There are forms of interpersonal relationship that base themselves on different qualities like physical beauty, intelligence and abilities (at times, strangely and inexplicably, they base themselves also on other factors which are practically the opposite of these). But, authentic love, while not being insensitive or indifferent to all these conditions (“Ubi amor, ibi oculus!” Richard of St. Victor used to say), transcends them all.

1.22 Nevertheless, like every human experience, love is not without ambiguity: it can lead either to an unconditional acceptance of the other person, and this is typical of true love, or it can lead to an “emptying” of the person loved by making the relationship depend on his qualities, and so ending up with a caricature of love: in fact, the one who “loves” in this way does not truly love, and the other person does not feel loved as a person. In many cases, it turns out to be a subtle manoeuvre of one’s own egoism. In a way, it is what St. Augustine describes in his Confessions: “I loved not yet, yet I loved to love”: Nondum amabam, et amare amabam.5

1.23 We could continue with this analysis. But, as we did with the theme of manifestation, it seems appropriate at this point to clarify the other pole of the ellipse of love. Till now, we were following the usual approach, viz. examining the attitude of the one who loves. But now it is time to ask: How is the experience (of love) lived “from the other side”?

1.24 And here we come across something tremendously paradoxical. The Rector Major, in his Letter on the Eucharist, alludes to it (p.14). What he says (and we shall return to it at the end) can be enriched, according to me, with some anthropological considerations.

1.25 At first sight, it is evident that all of us want to be loved, and above all, to be loved in a gratuitous and unconditional manner. Still, things are not that simple. Let me allow J. Pieper to speak to us once again:

1.26 Love is never something that is said to be ‘due’ (…) However, it would seem as though there were in man an aversion to being the recipient of a gift. All of us understand and are familiar with the well-known expression, ‘I don’t want any presents!’ This is a risky sentiment and it borders ominously on that other expression, ‘I don’t want to be “loved”.’ (…) C. S. Lewis says that what we need is a love that is gratuitous, not merited, but that this is precisely the kind of love we do not want. ‘We want to be loved for our intelligence, beauty, generosity, friendliness, or outstanding talents’.”6

1.27 Here again we come across the ambiguity we alluded to earlier, but this time from the side of the passive experience of “being loved”. The person loved could very well ask himself: “In this experience of being loved, do I want to allow myself to be ‘emptied’ (apparently, at least) of everything that makes me a unique and irreplaceable ‘I’?” “If someone were to say to me: ‘I love you, just as you are: it doesn’t matter to me what you are like’, would that be an expression of unconditional acceptance, or of disinterestedness and indifference? Imagine your saying to a confrere of your community: “You are the special object of my love.” That could be a subtle and sarcastic way of offending him, for we find it very difficult indeed to allow ourselves to be loved unconditionally by others, even by God himself…

1.28 In addition to the afore-mentioned misunderstanding, there is yet another reason which perhaps explains, to some extent, this refusal to be loved unconditionally, and it is the apparent uselessness of our response. We have the impression that it does not matter to the other person whether we respond or not to his love; and this puts us in an obvious position of inferiority. Nietzsche did have a point when he said that “the one who is accustomed only to giving has calluses forming on his hands and in his heart.” We must state it clearly: the essence of loving requires a giving… and a receiving, even in God. This statement will form the subject of an ensuing reflection.

1.29 3. “…GRACE AND TRUTH CAME THROUGH JESUS CHRIST (Jn 1, 17b).

1.30 If we recall the difference we explained earlier between expression and manifestation, then it becomes easier to point out that all we have so far, in the life of every human being, is the expression of God’s gratuitous love. However, in order to be perceived as such, the manifestation in Jesus Christ is necessary.

1.31 Basing ourselves on this distinction, we can point out three fundamental characteristics of God’s gratuitous Love:

1.32 * Universality: “God desires everyone to be saved” (1 Tim 2,4). Thence arises the missionary character of the Church in the strict sense and, within it, the Salesian mission with its particular traits. Personally, I believe that one of the elements that can best help to understand the “need” of belonging to the Church for one’s salvation is its communitarian nature. The fact is that, outside the actual Church, there is missing a full experience of salvation because what is missing is the concrete, perceptible and historical manifestation of God’s love in Jesus Christ, as lived in “God’s Family”, the Church.

1.33 * God’s initiative: “It is not that we loved God but that he loved us first” (1 Jn 4,10). Grace, as the gratuitous expression of God’s love, is always pre-venient: it always precedes the human response which, in a certain way, is also a gift from God that does not exclude human freedom. In this sense, Don Bosco’s Preventive System has its roots in the core of our faith: “Don Bosco lived (…) a spiritual and educational experience which he called the ‘Preventive System’. For him it was a love that gave gratuitously in so far as it was inspired by the love of a God who provides in advance for all his creatures” (C 20). I think that the word, pre-venient, has a twofold meaning: it refers to a pre-cedence and to the pre-occupation of forestalling anything negative. The first meaning refers to love, which always pre-cedes; the second meaning refers to the concern to prevent the experience of estranging oneself from God through sin. (This is why both terms can be used, pre-venient and preventive.)

1.34 * Unconditionality: God’s love, in so far as it is Grace, does not allow prior conditions to be placed on his love, but – here is something that baffles us, human beings - goes to the extent of showing a predilection for the one who is not “lovable”, for the one who “has no right” to demand to be loved. “The love of God loves the one who is sinful, bad, silly, weak and ugly in order to make him lovely, good, wise and just. Sinners, in fact, are lovely because they are loved (by God), they are not loved because they are lovely”.7

1.35 I cannot resist the temptation to quote a beautiful text of Dostoevskij, placed on the lips of that terribly ambiguous figure, Marmeládov the drunkard:

1.36 “And he will judge and pardon everyone, both the good and the bad, the wise and the humble… And when he will have finished with all the others, it will be our turn to be called: ‘Come here!’ he will say, ‘you drunken, weak, shameless people!’ And all of us will come out, without blushing, and stand before him (…) And the wise and learned will say: ‘Lord, how is it that you receive these people as well?’ And he will say: “I receive them, O wise people; I receive them, O learned people, because not one of them has considered himself worthy of this!…’ And he will stretch out his arms towards us, and we shall fall on our knees before him… and we shall break into tears… and we shall understand everything!”8

1.37 4. THE LOVE OF GOD, AGAPE AND EROS

1.38 Man’s experience of love, even of the Love of God, is a human experience. As such, therefore, it cannot escape the ambiguity inherent in every perception of love. And, unfortunately, this is what happens: God’s universal love is seen as something generic, God’s prior initiative in loving is so distant as to pass unnoticed, and God’s unconditional love is confused with indifference. Precisely, therefore, because their task is to proclaim God’s love, evangelization and catechesis must help to dissipate these misunderstandings so as to enable his love to be perceived in all its beauty and efficacy in the life of each one of us and of the young people the Lord entrusts to us.

1.39 From among all these misunderstandings, there is one I would like to look into as it is practically unexplored territory. From what I know, the only person who has been bold enough to examine it has been Joseph Ratzinger, and it is a great comfort that he has done it as Supreme Pastor of the Universal Church.

1.40 It is indeed unfortunate that the authors of great treatises have taken for granted that God’s love is different from human love because it has, among other traits, a total and absolute gratuitousness that expects nothing in return. J. Pieper asserts, without feeling the need to prove it, that “one would have to be God to be capable only of loving without needing to be loved”.9 And C. S. Lewis writes: “God is Love (…) This primordial love is a gift: God has no hunger that needs to be satiated, but only an abundance that wants to give (…) Our ‘affection-needs’ - as far as I am able to make out – bear no comparison to the Love which is God himself”.10

1.41 Pope Benedict XVI contradicts these authors almost literally, using unusual theological terms: “The Almighty awaits the "yes" of his creatures as a young bridegroom that of his bride (…) On the Cross, it is God himself who begs the love of his creature: He is thirsty for the love of every one of us” (Message for Lent 2007).

1.42 Continuing our effort to “learn” what is Love, and contemplating its full and definitive manifestation in Jesus Christ, we ask: In the experience of love, what is the “best example” of giving freely?

1.43 Making use of a diagram, we can identify different possibilities:

1.44 - One loves without expecting any response from the person loved: this is clearly not the “best example” of love (even though Jüngel seems a little inclined to consider it that way when he says: “There is of course no doubt that the essence of love comes into sharper focus from the hermeneutic point of view when the person who is loved does not love the one who loves him”11).

1.45 - One loves in order to receive a response: here too it is evident that we do not have the “best example” (and perhaps not even an example of true love, but a hidden egoism).

1.46 - One loves in a disinterested manner, expecting a response from the person he loves for the sake of that person’s own good: in other words, I am keen that the other person should respond to my love, not for my good, but for his in so far as his response will enable him to come out of himself and realize himself as a person, in love. This is a “noble” stance, but if we are sincere with ourselves, we have to acknowledge that it is not humanly satisfying.

1.47 - One loves in a disinterested manner, expecting a response from the person loved for the sake of that person’s own good, which flows from his response to the one who loves him. This is very similar to the preceding example, but there is one essential difference, viz. the person loved finds his happiness not in going out of himself in love, but in the “one who loves him”. However, this is not acceptable in human relations (“Who do you think you are?”). But, curiously, it would seem to be typical of our relationship with God. We are talking here about salvation, properly understood: only God can be the happiness of the one who responds to his love.

1.48 - Still, this is not the “best example”. In the light of all that has been previously seen, we have to add that man’s response to God’s love makes for the full happiness, not only of the human being… but also of the One who loves him, viz. God himself. If we take this point seriously, then I think it will give us some incredible glimpses into the Mystery of God who is Love revealed in Christ.…

1.49 Dostoevskij himself has a marvellous text, in which he describes a young mother making the sign of the cross on her newly-born child who smiles at her for the first time. This is how he explains her gesture: “The joy a mother experiences when she observes the first smile of her little son is the same joy God experiences in heaven when he observes a sinner beginning to pray to him with all his heart”.12

1.50 5. “DO THIS IN MEMORY OF ME”: THE GIFT OF THE EUCHARIST

1.51 All the foregoing gives us a better understanding of what the Rector Major says in his Letter on the Eucharist:

1.52 The Eucharist is a mystery because in it is revealed so much love (cf. Jn 15,13), a love so divine that, going far beyond our capabilities overwhelms us and leaves us astonished. Even though we are not always aware of it, usually we find it difficult to accept the gift of the Eucharist, the love of God manifested in the gift of the body of Christ (cf. Jn 3,16), which exceeds our capacity and challenges our freedom; God is always greater than our heart and reaches those places beyond our wildest desires (…) A love so profound frightens us revealing the radical poverty of our being: the deep need to love does not leave us the time nor the energy to let ourselves be loved. And so we prefer to be busy, hiding ourselves behind ‘doing’ so much for others and giving them so much of ourselves, [46] and we deprive ourselves of the wonder of knowing that we are so much loved by God (AGC 398, p. 13-14).

1.53 Obviously, the Rector Major is reechoing some of the contents and expressions of the Postsynodal Apostolic Exhortation, Sacramentum Caritatis, which all of us know and have meditated upon.

1.54 Among the many possible reflections, I would like to concentrate first of all on the very root of the word, Eucharistia. We are taken back once again to s, which lays great emphasis on gratuitousness in so far as it is not “a” gift of God but God himself who becomes a Gift. The Pope’s initial statement in his first encyclical, Deus Caritas Est: “Being Christian is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the encounter with an event, a person, which gives life a new horizon and a decisive direction” (DCE, n. 1), becomes concrete in the Eucharist (cf. SC 86, and passim): “Jesus continues, in the sacrament of the Eucharist, to love us "to the end," even to offering us his body and his blood. What amazement must the Apostles have felt in witnessing what the Lord did and said during that Supper! What wonder must the Eucharistic mystery also awaken in our own hearts!” (SC 1).

1.55 In the second place, it is well to recall that the “Last” Supper, as such, was preceded by many others (otherwise, we would not speak of it as the “last”). The Rector Major evokes the meaning of the “banquet” of the Eucharist by taking as his point of departure Jesus’ “eating together”, particularly with sinners. Among many Gospel texts, suffice it to recall Mt. 9,9-13; Lk 5, 29-30; 15, 1ff. (cf. AGC 398, p. 33-35).

1.56 At this point, there arises an interesting question: in which Sacrament is the “Christological foundation” of the Church to be found more fully – in the Eucharist or in Reconciliation? I think that the answer ought to be: both, inseparably. We must not forget that pardon is a central element in the life and mission of Jesus, and a privileged way for God to show his merciful Love. Furthermore: only in love can pardon have its authentic foundation. We see this also in the etymological analysis of the word. At least in Western languages, the root of the word “pardon” is simple: to give, to donate, preceded by the intensive prefix, per (in Anglo-saxon languages: for-give, ver-geben) as though to say that there is nothing greater to “give” than for-giveness. We may recall St. Thomas’ phrase about there being no authentic forgiveness except that which is born of love.

1.57 All this has many practical applications, but there is one that refers to our community life. “There the community celebrates the paschal mystery and unites itself to the immolated body of Christ, which it receives so as to build itself in him into a fraternal communion and renew its apostolic commitment” (C 88). Taking the Eucharist seriously leads to an increase in fraternal communion (including the daily reality of for-giveness) and in an acceptance of Jesus’ command: “Do this in memory of me”, which implies that we too become the body that is given and the blood that is poured out for the salvation of our young people.

1.58 Finally, I would like to invite you to contemplate the Blessed Virgin Mary. We do not need to invent “apocryphal” presences of Mary at the Last Supper (or appearances of Jesus to her after his Resurrection). John Paul II points out that “the account of the institution of the Eucharist on the night of Holy Thursday makes no mention of Mary” (EDE 53). There is no need to do so because “in addition to her sharing in the Eucharistic banquet (…), Mary is a “woman of the Eucharist” in her whole life” (ibid.). “From Mary we must learn to become men and women of the Eucharist and of the Church” (SC 96).

1.59 After explicitly stating this with the help of various New Testament texts, the Servant of God, John Paul II, concludes: “The Magnificat expresses Mary's spirituality, and there is nothing greater than this spirituality for helping us to experience the mystery of the Eucharist. The Eucharist has been given to us so that our life, like that of Mary, may become completely a Magnificat!” (EDE, 58).