Sr Marie-Reine Gauthier, fdls
General Councillor
DARING A PASCHAL WAY OF SEEING
« This is what the kingdom of God is like. A man scatters seed on the land. Night and day, while he sleeps, when he is awake, the seed is sprouting andgrowing; how, he does not know.”
The Kingdom sprouts and grows without us knowing how. Looking at the state of our world, the changing climate, the natural disasters and their effects on populations, at the violence suffered or inflicted on our brothers and sisters, on Creation, we might ask ourselves where are the signs of the Kingdom sprouting and growing. “Indeed, behold, the Kingdom of God is among you”, says Jesus.2 Perhaps it is a question of changing the way we see our world? Perhaps it is a matter of looking at our world with a Paschal way of seeing, that is to say, with a seeing that does not ignore suffering or difficulties but discerns the signs of the newness of the Kingdom in the density, messiness of reality. On what condition and in what way can we recognize it?
In the text New wine, new wineskins, Pope Francis responds by saying: “The whole of Jesus’ words and gestures continually encourage a process of infinite openness to the newness of the Kingdom”³ The Kingdom comes about through a new way of living, a new way of being in relationship with God, with others and with Creation: a way of living which is counter-cultural.
In the midst of the distress of our world, the poor, the impoverished, the disaster-stricken, the hungry and people of good will choose cooperation over competition, giving and sharing over accumulation or self-preservation, life given over comfort, relationship over isolation, community over individualism, dialogue and reconciliation over violence, hospitality over hostility. Are these not signs of openness to the newness of the Kingdom?
¹ Marc 4,26-27, AELF
² Luc 17, 21, AELF
³ New wine, new wineskins, Since the Second Vatican Council, Consecrated Life and the Challenges Still Open, Orientations, Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life. p.67.
