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Eternal
life—what is it?
In some
way we want life itself, true life, untouched even by
death; yet at the same time we do not know the thing
toward which we feel driven.
We
cannot stop reaching out for it, and yet we know that
all we can experience or accomplish is not what we yearn
for. This unknown “thing” is the true “hope” which
drives us, and at the same time the fact that it is
unknown is the cause of all forms of despair and also of
all efforts, whether positive or destructive, directed
toward worldly authenticity and human authenticity.
The term
“eternal life” is intended to give a name to this known
“unknown.” Inevitably, it is an inadequate term that
creates confusion. “Eternal” suggests to us the idea of
something interminable, and this frightens us; “life”
makes us think of the life that we know and do not want
to lose, even though very often it brings more toil than
satisfaction, so that while, on the one hand, we desire
it, on the other hand we do not want it. To imagine
ourselves outside the temporality that imprisons us and,
in some way, to sense that eternity is not an unending
succession of days in the calendar, but something more
like the supreme moment of satisfaction, in which
totality embraces us and we embrace totality—this, we
can only attempt. It would be like plunging into the
ocean of infinite love, a moment in which time no longer
exists. We can only attempt to grasp the idea that such
a moment is life in the full sense, a plunging ever anew
into the vastness of being, in which we are simply
overwhelmed with joy. This is how Jesus expresses it in
John 16:22 “I will see you again and your hearts will
rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you.”
Is
Christian hope individualistic?
In the
course of history, Christians have tried to express this
“knowing without knowing” by means of figures that can
be represented, and they have developed images of
“Heaven” which remain far removed from what, after all,
can only be known negatively, via unknowing. All these
attempts at the representation of hope have given to
many people, down the centuries, the incentive to live
by faith and hence also to abandon their ‘hyparchonta’,
the material substance for their lives. This type of
hope has been subjected to an increasingly harsh
critique in modern times: it is dismissed as pure
individualism, a way of abandoning the world to its
misery and taking refuge in a private form of eternal
salvation. Henri de Lubac, in his seminal book ‘Catholicisme’.
Aspects sociaux du dogme, assembled some characteristic
articulations of this viewpoint, one of which is worth
quoting: “Should I have found joy? No . . . only 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 . . . now and 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.”
Against
this, de Lubac was able to demonstrate that salvation
has always been considered a “social” reality. Indeed,
the Letter to the Hebrews speaks of a “city” and,
therefore, of communal salvation. Consistently with this
view, sin is understood by the Fathers as the
destruction of the unity of the human race, as
fragmentation and division. Babel, the place where
languages were confused, the place of separation, is
seen to be an expression of what sin fundamentally is.
Hence, “redemption” appears as the reestablishment of
unity, in which we come together once more in a union
that begins to take shape in the world community of
believers.
Concentrating on the Letter to Proba in which Augustine
tries to illustrate to some degree this “known unknown”
that we seek, his point of departure is simply the
expression “blessed life.” He quotes Psalm 144:15
“Blessed is the people whose God is the Lord.” And he
continues: “In order to be numbered among this people
and attain to . . . everlasting life with God, ‘the end
of the commandment is charity that issues from a pure
heart and a good conscience and sincere faith’ (1
Timothy 1:5).” This real life, toward which we try to
reach out again and again, is linked to a lived union
with a “people,” and for each individual it can only be
attained within this “we.” It presupposes that we escape
from the prison of our “I” because only in the openness
of this universal subject does our gaze open out to the
source of joy, to love itself—to God.
To be
continued next week: Spe Salvi Encyclical of Pope
Benedict XVI to all “On Christian Hope”
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