In a column in the French daily Le Figaro Matthieu Rougé, professor at Notre Dame (Paris) and
rector of St-Ferdinand-des-Ternes, discusses the meaning of Whitsun/Pentecost,
in the context of a new and influential book by the philosopher Jean-Luc Marion. I have made one change throughout the article: he writes of “Catholics” but in
France this usually means “Christians” as opposed not to Protestants but to
atheists. So I have used “Christians” instead.
PENTECOST: BE NOT AFRAID OF CHRISTIANS
What is the state of mind of Christians in France, this
Pentecost? Some think of them as discouraged, weakened, disunited. However, at
the end of an election year in which Christians have been both singularly
denigrated and courted, the great philosopher Jean-Luc Marion has published a Brief Apologia for a Catholic Moment. A
specialist in the works of Descartes and Heidegger (the fathers, one might say,
of our modernity and our postmodernity respectively), Marion at the French
Academy has the chair of Cardinal Lustiger. On August 5th of this
year it will be ten years since the “Jewish Cardinal” (as Maurice Druon
acclaimed him at his almost-state funeral in Notre Dame) passed on. There will
be celebrations and conferences to mark this anniversary in the coming autumn.
Like his illustrious and charismatic predecessor, Jean-Luc Marion refuses the
suggestion, and the temptation, of a Christian withdrawal.
Christians should not harden their hearts but help the
people of our time go beyond “clichés and slogans: as if Christians were
divided into potential unbelievers (good) and identity-hugging fundamentalists
(bad), into uncertain humanists (acceptable) and enthusiasts for an alternative
society (intolerable!).” In fact “they have a rock-hard belief that it is
better to give than to receive . . .; that death can lead to life in fullness.
They believe it because they already see it in their own experience and
especially because they have seen it, in a certain sense, in the person of
Christ.”
That which allows Christians to bear this witness is the
gift of the Holy Spirit, celebrated on the feast of Pentecost. The spirit of
their current life is less important than its Spirit! Like the Apostles of the
first days, today’s disciples have received a Spirit of gentleness and
strength, of creativity and unity, of lucidity and hope.
They are not torn between an imperative of goodwill toward
all and the vigour of their spiritual and ethical convictions; between the
legitimate variety of their choices (especially political) and the unity of
their community; between a healthy severity vis-à-vis the ills of our age and a
profound optimism concerning the direction of history. While such tensions are
very real, the Holy Spirit allows them to conquer them by going deeper: the
Spirit of God joins with the human spirit to lead it into a way of truth, of
life, and of peace. That is the meaning of Pentecost.
It is more a matter of a force of the Spirit than a state of
Spirit. For the Holy Spirit allows the Christian faith to hold to the memory of
its roots without enclosing itself in a static conservatism. It is the source
of a dynamic that allows us ceaselessly to reinvent – in the original sense of
rediscovering – the Gospel logic of the love of truth and the truth of love.
Our country needs to get back the taste for, and the means
of, serious and serene discussions, while at the same time rehabilitating the
search for truth. We need at once to welcome and respect great diversities and
clearly to acknowledge that which makes our unity. We must take care of both
our memory and our capacity for invention; open ourselves up to vast new
horizons without denying who we are. These paradoxical necessities many
consider irreconcileable, but Christians know that they can accept their
demanding unity. They know this, not as a source of superiority but rather as a
grace and a responsibility.
But if Christians, inspired in the strongest sene of the
word, are thus to contribute to the peace and the vitality of our polis, it is
necessary that they should not be constantly denigrated. With John Paul II’s
famous “Be not afraid!” in mind, Jean-Luc Marion remarks, “One has the
impression that nowadays it’s the French
Christians who need to repeat these words to certain non-Christian Frenchmen
who fear a return of clericalism.” Our age should not be afraid of Christians:
their love of truth constantly in search of further depth, their ethical
rigour, their link to the universal, can be salutary for our society.
As for France’s Christians themselves, sometimes
“intimidated by their very existence,” they urgently need more intensely to
live the Spirit of Pentecost, by strengthening their spiritual, intellectual
and charitable commitments. That is the price, and a ridiculously reasonable one,
of the hope to which they are to bear witness. Quoting Chateaubriant, the
author of The Genius of Christianity
in the wake of which he is working, Jean-Luc Marion praises “that Christian
hope, the wings of which grow even as everything seems to betray it, a hope
longer than time and stronger than misfortune.”
