Readings in the Heart of Spiritual Politics
Larry Hart
This brief post suggest three books which I hope might prove helpful to you in reflecting on the crises of our time and “the heart of spiritual politics.” The first is my new book, Advent Meditations for a World on the Brink. The other two are by Pope Francis and deal with some of the largest issues of our day.
Advent Meditations
First of all, then, I am letting friends and contacts know I have just published a book of advent meditations on the internet that can be downloaded for free by going to the website of which this blog is an extension (the way of the awakening heart––larry hart) and clicking on the book menu.
Advent Meditations for a World on the Brink is about hope in a world that although created good and beautiful, is often full of difficulty and discouragement; and, now seems poised on the brink of apocalyptic catastrophe. The Biblical text for each meditation looks at those historical and linguistic elements that help shape its meaning, and that assist us in understanding the questions that swirl around messianic prophecy, the nativity, and how to live in a world on the brink. More important, it encourages personal involvement with the texts. There are four chapters with questions for individual and group reflection and an addendum exploring the New Testament’s sometimes puzzling use of messianic prophecy. Individuals or groups using World on the Brink for study and reflection are welcome to contact me regarding questions they may have either directly or through my website. Although this work is copyrighted you are free to print it out. The first Sunday of Advent is November 29th so that by reading leisurely (two to four pages a day) you should be able to easily cover a chapter a week, ending by Christmas day.
Two Encyclicals
I have been reading Pope Francis’s recent encyclical Fratelli Tutti. It is a wise and generous letter written not only for bishops as its designation as an encyclical would indicate, but as its title suggests, for all humanity. I am reading it, of course, in English as a book (Fratelli Tutti: On Fraternity and Social Friendship published by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. In its writing Francis resorts frequently to the use of the older word “charity” (caritas) for love. By “charity” Francis means what Christians understand as that form of love known in the original Greek New Testament as ἀγάπη, agapē. He says, “This charity, which is the heart of spiritual politics, is always a preferential love shown to those in greatest need; it undergirds everything we do on their behalf. It sees paths open up that are different from those of a soulless pragmatism. This gaze,” he goes on to observe, “is at the heart of the authentic spirit of politics (84-85).”
In a society in which people have lost the theological or philosophical ability to distinguish spiritual religion from religious institutions; or, indeed the capacity to grasp the distinction between secular and sacred, the idea of politics with an authentic Christian spirituality at its heart may seem a strange concept. It is however a stream of thought, or perhaps better an awareness, with it source in antiquity and traveling to and through the present. Politics, the art and wisdom of a community or polis (literally the city or city state) of achieving the highest possible good for both the community as a whole and its individual members. No wisdom tradition, no religion of depth, no authentic way has conceived of political and spiritual practice as two separate things.
I highly recommend you read Fratelli Tutti: On Fraternity, and Social Friendship as well as, Laudato Si: On Care for Our Common Home. In this latter encyclical, actually prior in time, the pope critiques consumerism, irresponsible development, climate change, and the degradation of the environment. In Fratelli Tutti he focuses on contemporary social and economic problems and encourages an ideal world of human “fraternity” in which the goal is not unending growth in consumerism and unimaginable wealth for the very few, but sustainability for all which requires caring for the earth as our common home.