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Maundy Thursday usually has people twittering about whose carefully cultivated stinky feet will get washed and what canons might or might not get violated. This is all well and good, but as we gear up for Good Friday, we should start honing in on the absurd act of gratuitously inflicting violence on a God who graciously, even foolishly,\u00a0empties himself out<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n You might not be aware of this, but thinking, reacting, and rectifying the act of needlessly inflicted violence upon others was the cornerstone of the Solidarity movement in Poland<\/strong><\/a>. Fr. Jozef Tischner, a scholar of Husserl<\/a><\/strong> and phenomenology<\/a><\/strong>, became the unlikely chaplain of the workers\u2019 movement\u2013perhaps the single historical instance of the proletariat rising up against the bourgeoisie and ultimately winning non-violently.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve been reading his reflections, The Spirit of Solidarity<\/em><\/a>, which he wrote right in the middle of the movement\u2019s organization, as an attempt to describe its thrust. He asks some pointed questions in this little book, questions that could have issued from both some kind of Polish theology of liberation and a traditional reflection on Holy Week (as if those two are mutually exclusive!):<\/p>\n \u201cWith whom therefore is our solidarity? It is, above all, with those who have been wounded by other people, with those who suffer pain that could be avoided\u2013accidental, needless pain. This does not preclude solidarity with others, with all who suffer. However, the solidarity with those who suffer at the hands of others is particularly vital, strong, and spontaneous.<\/p>\n Does this touch politics? Yes, indeed; but only when the politics is corrupt. When politics is good, it is permeated of itself with the spirit of solidarity. Is it not the aim of politics to organize the arena of human life in such a way that one person does not inflict injury on another?\u201d<\/p>\n He further explains the\u00a0spirit of Solidarity<\/a> in a way that ties it further to recognizing and responding to the senseless (from at least the human point of view) torture of Good Friday<\/a>:<\/p>\n \u201cThis old but also very new word\u00a0solidarity<\/em>, what does it mean? To what does it call us? What memories does it bring back? To explicate more precisely its meaning, perhaps it is necessary to reach into the gospel and seek the origin of the word there. Christ explains its meaning: \u2018Carry one another\u2019s burden and in this way fulfill God\u2019s law\u2019 (paraphrase of Paul in Gal. 6:2). It means to carry the burden of another person. No one is an island all alone. We are bound to each other even if we do not know it. The landscape binds us, flesh and blood bind us, work and speech bind us. However, we are not always conscious of these bonds. When solidarity is born, this consciousness is awakened, and then speech and word appear\u2013and at this point something that was hidden becomes manifest.\u201d<\/p>\n This makes me wonder whether it is more important to pick up someone else\u2019s cross rather than your own. Or, alternatively, perhaps is it not the case that there isn\u2019t really much of a distinction between these two crosses?<\/p>\n By the way, it seems the pope was channeling solidarity-consciousness during Maundy Thursday Mass today:<\/p>\n<\/a>