Once in the seminary I debated with another seminarian about whether the imitation of Christ legimitated a "tough love" approach to being a pastor. He said that he preferred to imitate the meekness of Christ.
At the time, I was caught up in a conservativism that reveled in the angry moments of Jesus Christ--which, to be fair, are not few. Thus, hearing my friend say that he preferred the meekness of Christ left a bad taste in my mouth. Internally, I criticized him for "sentimentalizing" the Gospel, for "cherry-picking" a "nicety-nice" Jesus out of the Gospel, which I believed was a predominantly rough-and-tumble endurance test of pained and bloody charity.
EDIT: You know what? This article says it all better than I ever could.
1 comment:
Oh My God, that explains so much.
For all his faults, Fr. Steve is still a viable priest.
When I was in a period of heavy vocational discernment back in 2005, he asked me how I would treat an employee after repeated wrongdoing if I were his boss. I told him and he said, "so at first you would be a Jesuit about it say 'he knew better' executing a swift and final judgement and then shift to being a Franciscan about it and, 'pitty him' unto a second chance. Hmmm, interesting..."
I instantly had a "eureka and rapture" moment and realized that different approaches to Jesus Christ within the Roman Catholic faith were acceptable and I should be open to the wisdom of the entire spectrum from the "hard noses" to the "softees" and everything in between.
Talking to priests is so cool! I now realize it has saved me from tons of needless self-doubt in my young adulthood that most of my peers bash themselves to pieces against. Thank God for the royal preisthood! Weeeeeee!!!
Post a Comment