Joseph Tetlow SJ that suggests “God’s Project” is more useful than terms like “God’s Will” or “God’s Plan”. He prefers “God’s Project” because it is more indicative of a work in progress and one in which we are all active collaborators. (See Chapter 10 of his book Making Choices in Christ- you’ll get the guts of it online through Google Books although Ignatianspirituality.com has an abridged rendering). This is in tune with what Joan Chittester refers to as “a new view of Creation... emerging in the Scriptures of Science”.
She says, “Creation in this model is.. a series
of... acts of a Great God who says my gift to you is life- use it well.... This
is a Great God, a humble God, allowing life to work itself out. ...In this
model of theology, Creation is a work in progress. Each of us has a bit of it
and each of us is meant to complete our own and all of life around us- that is
our responsibility... This is a God who shares responsibility with the human
race..... Here, free will really gets important- everything that you and I do
changes the world everywhere and for everyone. We know that God doesn’t create
evil- we do... And we can uncreate [it] any time we want to. Why? Because in
this model we have a responsibility to the ongoing creation of life and we
share that with our humble God who is accompanying us right now, here with you
and me. Not monitoring us, not abandoning us, not setting out to catch us but
to say to us I’m with you..... This God is a summoning God saying, ‘Don’t stop
now! Come on, don’t stop growing now. Don’t close your mind now. Don’t stop
your soul now. I have so much more that you can find if you’ll just look.”
I was asked lately how I can possibly have faith when there is so much going wrong and so much wrong doing in the world. My response was that I don’t believe this to be the work of a God of Love. In loving us human beings and allowing us free will, a consequence is that we have created systems and made choices apart from love and solidarity and the will of God Leonard SJ has it fleshed out much more in his book ‘Where the Hell is God?’
I believe that Christian social teaching, the Word incarnate, the God of love and a recognition of the divine Spirit in each and every person is the most compelling and perhaps the only response. Pope Francis has said that it is not enough to say one loves Jesus; it must be shown in love for those he loved. In speaking of Christian Love, he has reminded us that “Jesus Himself, when He speaks of love, speaks to us about concrete things: feeding the hungry, visiting the sick, and many concrete things.”
I feel compelled to respond to suffering before us, to love where it appears to be lacking, to pray and hope in the face of disaster. It is what we are asked to do in the lines of scripture below:
“And what does the Lord require of you? To act
justly and to love tenderly, and to walk humbly with your God” Micah 6:8
“And now I give you a new commandment: love one another. As
I have loved you, so you must love one another. 35 If
you have love for one another, then everyone will know that you are my
disciples.” John 13 34-35
Ignacio Ellacuría SJ who was martyred in El Salvador said “We are people of the Gospel, a gospel that proclaims the reign of
God, and that calls us to try to transform this earth into as close a likeness
of that reign as possible.” I rather prefer this "faith that does justice" ahead of the alternative of despair.
Christ
has no body but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which he looks
Compassion on this world,
Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good,
Yours are the hands, with which he blesses all the world.
Yours are the hands, yours are the feet,
Yours are the eyes, you are his body.
Christ has no body now but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which he looks
compassion on this world.
Christ has no body now on earth but yours.
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which he looks
Compassion on this world,
Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good,
Yours are the hands, with which he blesses all the world.
Yours are the hands, yours are the feet,
Yours are the eyes, you are his body.
Christ has no body now but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which he looks
compassion on this world.
Christ has no body now on earth but yours.
- Teresa of Avila
“Let us not tire of
preaching love; it is the force that will overcome the world. Let us not tire
of preaching love. Though we see that waves of violence succeed in drowning the
fire of Christian love, love must win out; it is the only thing that can.”
- Oscar Romero, included on p.20 of The Violence of Love
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