Resurrecting Chicago

Jesus carrying His cross.(author’s photo)

If I attempt to get too serious in these blogs, I feel something like a cartoonist who can draw but doesn’t know how to be funny. I’m not a theologian or a philosopher.  I’m just a guy who finds some things interesting enough to write about them. God’s mercy is one of those things.

What I experience of God’s presence is behind most of what I write about in this space. Sometimes, that experience is troubling. I think of God’s mercy in forgiving my lounging around in life as if I’ll forever be in my P.J.s and never fully clothe myself in the armour of salvation. I’m undeserving of His loving kindness.

I think that’s it:  God is merciful and full of loving kindness.  That’s why I dislike the phrase “God loves us unconditionally.” It sounds like God is Being itself, an ontological presence without what we call “personality.” It seems to me that loving kindness and mercy get more to the heart of Our Lord than unconditional love does.

Jesus has revealed that His Father is like the good Samaritan who binds our wounds and continues to care for us. The good Samaritan didn’t ask the injured man about his race or religion.  He simply stopped and helped another person whose injuries moved him. The Samaritan acted mercifully and with loving kindness.

Another thing.  If God’s love is unconditional, whatever anyone says or does, it seems to say, is of no matter in His eyes.  The Lord loves you anyway.

But, wait a minute! Think of Michaelangelo’s astounding backdrop for the main altar in the Sistine chapel.  It takes up the entire wall.  From floor to ceiling it is an illustration of how the painter views the final Judgement as described in Mt 25.  A fierce Apollo-like Christ at the center dispatches His angels to reap the harvest of the earth at the end of time.  Those judged good are led by angels from death to new life.  Those are on the Savior’s right. On his left, His army of angels is driving the souls of the damned into hell. They are falling, falling… and the demons are there to catch them. If the Sistine Chapel’s Last Judgement depicts an operation of unconditional love, it certainly is confusing … and terrifying.

So, what’s wrong with this picture? (Sorry.) Nothing. It’s the truth. We are all sinners, every one of us. It is God’s mercy that saves us and his justice which condemns those who resist that mercy.  It is the covenant virtue of “hesed” which the bible translators usually describe as “loving kindness.” Mercy is the essence of God in the experience of believers.

The Jews of the covenant placed God’s location at the space in the “Holy of Holies”above the cover of the ark of the covenant between two kneeling images of angels.  It was called God’s mercy seat. As a sinner, I come to the throne of mercy, not to the throne of unconditional love.

I have been in hundreds of sacred places from roadside shrines to tiny chapels and impressive cathedrals.  I have seen statues of the Sacred Heart and paintings of the Divine Mercy where rays of light emanate from the heart of Christ out to us who are so in need of mercy. I have seen statues of the suffering Christ carrying his cross and innumerable  images of Christ pinned to a cross but I have never seen an image of “Unconditional Love” because though truthful, it’s a negative term.  It says simply His love does not discriminate but it says  nothing about His overwhelming kindness in His loving. This loving kindness is revealed to us in the holy Gospels. It is a revelation!

Unconditional love is a theoretical stance of, for example, the counselor who actively listens to a client.  It is a decision the counselor makes. It’s a tactic used to help a person find his/her way through a maze of hurt to the possibility of healing.

Mercy is another thing entirely.  Mercy is God acting for me in spite of my unworthiness. Sacred Scripture reveals to us through Our Lord Jesus that the Father’s essence is to show mercy.

This is the action of God that I experience in my life. God reveals himself to me in his forgiveness which is beyond toleration.  His love is enduring, everlasting, crushing in its intensity. “Unconditional love” omits God’s positive action toward me. He initiates His love in mercy.

I wonder if there is a painting or fresco in some church which illustrates the final judgement where Christ is weeping for those at his left hand who are falling into hell. He would weep because He still loves those whom He has lost. And in that sense I could see God loving unconditionally even those damned for eternity.

While I live, I know the mercy of God and His love of me, a sinner. I hope that you who are reading this have had a similar experience.

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Dome of the Rock from the Garden of Olives.(author’s photo)

Pope Francis took off his shoes before he entered. I probably was required to do the same years ago when I visited the Dome of the Rock in the center of Old Jerusalem.  Islam reveres this spot as the  site of Mohammed’s ascension into heaven.

Jews believe that the rocky area enshrined under the Dome of the Rock is the foundation stone where the the ark of the covenant rested in the first temple.

The interior of the shrine is stunning.  Beautiful white double columns support the impressive dome and the walls are decorated with colorful,intricate patterns from floor to ceiling. The floor itself is covered with prayer rugs underneath the spacious dome.  The rocky area is at the shrine’s center enclosed by a protective border.   It is a shrine of remembrance, not a mosque. After Mecca and Medina it is the third most sacred shrine in Islam.

Traditional Jewish piety claims the rocky memorial as the exact spot of the Holy of Holies in the first temple built by Solomon.   Destroyed by the Babylonians in the sixth century, B.C.E. a second temple was built  soon after and was restored and embellished by Herod the Great.  This was the glorious structure that Jesus knew as His father’s House.

Destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD, the temple was the symbolic center of religious and cultural Judaism.

It’s the dream of Jewish zealots to reclaim the Dome of the Rock and many evangelical Christians expect that the temple will be rebuilt in the scenario of the last days.

As I slowly walked inside along the walls of this beautiful shrine I quickly found myself in front of the secured area of exposed rock. The rocky area looked like it had been bathed every day.  There was no dirt, no dust, just exposed rock in the floor of the mosque.  Light from somewhere gave the rocky outcropping a sheen. Until the 1960s no non-muslim was allowed to enter the mosque, shod or not.

As I exited the Dome of the Rock, I could see to my left the line of visitors approaching the Jewish religion’s most sacred site: “The Wailing Wall”or more properly “The Western Wall.” Jews cherish the wall as a remnant of the Second Temple, destroyed by Trajan in 70 AD.

A Man prays t the wailing Wall. (Author’s photo)

I walked to the low fence in front of the wall. As I reached the front of the line of visitors, a helpful man gave me a yamaka and asked me if I were Christian. I said yes, he nodded me toward the wall and I put on the yamaka.  I prayed for peace and left a private note in the wall, a kind of remembrance.

These days I feel we Catholics are losing a sense of the sacred in our own religious structures.  I really wish we would restore  the custom of the sanctuary.  I would welcome a railing around the altar of sacrifice and the tabernacle.  The altar and tabernacle area should be a place of silence and reserve. Too often, it is not.

Holy places should make us feel awed and humbled.  We needn’t take off our shoes as we enter the interior of our churches, but it is holy ground. Then, again, maybe we should take off our shoes to remind us of the holy ground we walk on or, maybe we should cover our heads humbly as we bow in reverence in the presence of God.