Session 4

What are you into? The Search for Indignation. - Hurts

 

Whatever we become in terms of future work, whatever positions of power we hold, what­ever cocktail parties we might attend, whatever shoulders we may rub, our lives must be rooted in the passion for the poor that Christ had. There we will find ourselves. Page 53

 

“So, what are you into?”

I made a comment about my trip. He really didn’t care.

“Want to know what I'm into?”

“What?” I responded.

He said – I swear it – “I’m into darts.”

Turns out that darts is a big sport in Scotland, where he had just visited. He finished me off with “Want to see my darts?”

My introvert persona went into total warp drive. I looked at this guy’s silver darts briefly and then headed for another bar.

But I thought about his question at its most fundamental level: What are Jesuits into?

 

Into Jesus

Well, it starts with Jesus and the words of John’s Gospel: “You did not choose me, no, I chose you . . . to go out and to bear fruit, fruit that will last.” (John 15:16).

First of all and last of all and most of all, we are into a relationship with Jesus. It is a relationship that changes our lives. His dreams and passions have become ours. He makes sense of our life and our commitments in a world that thinks what we are doing is naiveté at best and folly at worst. He has turned our world upside down.

So we believe that it is better to be generous than selfish, better to be true than false, better to be a brave person than a coward, better to be compassionate than self‑absorbed, better to embrace peace than violence, better to be just than unjust, better to love without cost than to play life safe, better to walk our talk than to whine from the sidelines, better to have nothing than to have everything, better to be chaste and poor and obedient than to cruise through life committed to no ideal, no dream, no person. Page 54f

 

Into the Poor

 

The spirit of the Lord Yahweh has been given to me,

for Yahweh has anointed me.

He has sent me to bring good news to the poor,

to bind up hearts that are broken.           Isaiah 61: 1

 

Jesuits, because they are into a relationship with Jesus, are into a relationship with the poor. If anything is a reflection of the beauty of the life that a Jesuit chooses, it is our desire to be with, and to bring the good news of God's heart to, the poor, the abandoned, the despised, and all those shorn of dignity. Page 56

The poor teach us to be truth tellers: to speak to what must be done to transform oppressive structures even as we are meeting individual needs. The poor teach us of compassion: to feel another's heartache even as we are creating concrete practices of relief The poor teach us to embark on the sacred search for indignation: to discover our anger in the face of the greed, malice, and human indifference that give birth to suffering and to speak to it. No, we must yell about it. As Salvadoran archbishop Oscar Romero rebuked his government: “If you strike my people, you strike me.” Page 57

 

Jeremiah makes it clear to me that no one chooses to fall into the hands of the living God. I am chosen. Sometimes I resist and resort to rage and bitterness, but finally I succumb – in love – to the God who has given me my identity in the first place. Such love explains why I am here and why all the people I write about in this book are so precious to me. Page 59