Solemnity of the Mother of God. Today’s readings: Numbers 6:22-27; Psalm 67:2-8; Galatians 4:4-7; Luke 2:16-21
Jean-Yves Leloup's autobiography L’Absurde et la GrâceIn his autobiography L’Absurde et la Grâce, Jean-Yves Leloup shares “fragments of a journey” made of his constant meandering in a life marked by anguish in an attempt to come to terms with absurdity hitting us all in the depths of our being: stories of love, abuse, death, indigence, strong emotions and desires, existential dissatisfaction with life and the coming to terms with the weight of decisions taken for good or bad.
Leloup comes across as a wondering seeker in search for meaning. Obsessed from a tender age by the thought of “man, dead as from his birth”, he journeys from Angers, France, to India, Istanbul, Mount Athos, Grenoble and other places, crossing the threshold of death and resuscitation, allowing himself to be marked by alterity.
At one point, he is struck by the penetrating eyes of the Pantocrator depicted in the remarkable Haghia Sophia Deësis mosaic. His conviction is that “one day we will be judged by the gaze of a child”. There’s nothing romantic in this gaze. He writes: “standing before this terrible innocent look, how could I still keep illusions about myself, and, at the same time, no longer despair? When we have been looked at like this, we do no longer feel safe from Love, no matter how thick our masks.”
From the first to the last page “the child” features constantly in his autobiography, revealing that life’s journey is all about recovering the child in us. In the final page, Leloup confesses that for him “absurdity and grace are not separated. Saying either that ‘all is absurd’ or that ‘all is grace’ is at one time lying and cheating... similar to dying and resurrecting; absurdity and grace are the two sides of the same coin.”
Taking then inspiration from the Gospel infancy narratives, Leloup shows that life is decisively always a response to an encounter with alterity, wherein we have to choose between acceptance and rejection of the other, and therefore of the self. There is no escape from this basic dynamic.
“It happened two thousand years ago, it happens today: Joy: a child was born to us, the Word becomes flesh; Pain: blood and tears flowed, in the city, murder of the innocent!... No longer separate this joy and this pain.” The Incarnation brought joy and affirmation to those who, like Mary, Joseph and the shepherds welcomed the other, and pain to those who, like Herod, rejected the other out of fear for safety, in perceiving the other as a threat.
Effaced by alterity we have a choice: acceptance or rejection. Acceptance generates life and deep joy, rejection generates death and despair. The choices determine the future consequences.
Today’s readings speak to us of the Lord turning his countenance upon us, communicating the blessing of peace, mercy and protection. Faced by this turning of God’s countenance upon them, “the children of Israel” had a choice whether to accept or reject it.
Today’s readings speak to us of the Lord turning his countenance upon us, communicating the blessing of peace, mercy and protection
Similarly the psalm expresses the people’s desire to be the receptacles of God’s creative gaze upon them. Open to otherness, they mirror God’s choice to be open and well disposed to our alterity. This reciprocal divine-human openness culminates in the birth amongst us of the son, Jesus Christ, in whom we are children and heirs of God.
The gospel tells of the shepherds coming with haste to the newborn son, after being approached with the announcement of his birth. Once again, alterity revealed what was in their hearts: openness and well disposition to receive the other. The shepherds had a choice to welcome or reject, as much as Mary and Joseph had a choice; ultimately as much as all of us have a choice to accept or reject otherness and consequently our own selves.
Ultimately it is in the other that we are affirmed in our human development.