Christian Viewpoint: When love is the guiding impulse, a divided world has a chance to heal
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By John Dempster
Fratelli Tutti – ‘all brothers and sisters.’ This month Pope Francis took the words of St Francis of Assisi as the title of his third encyclical.
In it he calls a divided world to ‘the blessed awareness that we are part of one another.’
He challenges us to recognise the dignity of each and every human being. Though different in many ways we are fundamentally one human family and are set free when we replace the walls we construct with the warm embrace of love.
I’m always impressed by my friend Adam’s openness to spiritual life. This week he shared over a coffee what he’s learned from his reading about caring for one another.
One author, John O’Donohue emphasises the beauty, the loveliness to be seen in another human being, and calls us to reverence one another as God’s precious creatures.
Kindness always wears a smile and gives birth to joy in the person to whom kindness is shown.
Another, Rowan Williams discusses the healing power of kindness in relationships.
Kindness is closely related to joy, he thinks. Kindness always wears a smile and gives birth to joy in the person to whom kindness is shown.
Adam shared personal experiences of receiving kindness in the care of hospital staff following a serious injury, and described the spirit of deep respect with which, as a doctor, he approaches each of his patients.
How much do we celebrate the uniqueness of each human being? It is easy to be swamped by the immensity of the world’s love deficit. What we can do is to begin with our families, friends, neighbours, the people we interact with every day on the internet. How often is love our guiding impulse?
Adam is a man of the mountains, seldom happier than when he’s in the hills, immersed in the joy of their beauty. But our relationship with the planet is as dislocated as our relationships with one another.
St Francis, spoke of ‘Brother Sun’, ‘Sister Moon’ and ‘our sister, Mother Earth.’ But we have lost this sense of reverence towards our planet and have come close to destroying it.
Jesus Christ calls us to a new way of living in oneness both with the universe, and with one another as we acknowledge our common humanity. Though flawed and imperfect, the church gives us glimpses of the truth that where God is welcomed, there is no love deficit.
The Pope reminds us in Fratelli Tutti that it is in encountering one another that we become fully ourselves. As Adam and I shared together I sensed something of the love which Pope Francis is calling us, and of my own uniqueness and loveliness in God’s sight. It is as we know ourselves secure in God’s love that we are set free to love others.
