Pope St. Leo the Great exhorts Christians to take their Christian faith seriously, to be true children of light. We are expected to follow the ways of love, not only doing what love suggests we should do, but also what it tells us not to do. In this way, we should learn that love and justice and interdependent with each other, which means, the denial of one leads to the denial of the other:
We encourage you to “abstain” in love, “from every wicked deed” and to pursue chastity and justice. Children of light ought “to cast off the works of darkness.” So turn aside hatred, deflect lies, dispel pride with humility, wipe out avarice through generosity. It becomes the members [of a body] to be compatible with their head, so that we may deserve to share in the blessedness he has promised, through the Lord. [1]
Hatred, lies, pride, and avarice each represents a form of injustice, and so, forms of unlove. Some might question the way lies are seen as intrinsically evil, saying that the intention behind the lies are important. Indeed, they might suggest people could even lie, not as a way of rejecting the way of love, but to affirm it, as can be seen in the way those who lie in order to save the vulnerable from oppression, or worse, death. St. Augustine, who explained why lies are intrinsically evil, also agreed with this point; but what he suggested is that we distinguish the good intention and the work which it achieves from the lie, pointing out the good is something which we can and should praise. Similarly, he said, the type or quality of evil associated with the lie can differ from person to person, and lie to lie, so that some lies are relatively minor, while other lies can be and should be seen as producing great evil. Thus, when Scripture seems to praise those who have lied, doing some good with the lie, he suggests it is not the lie itself which is praised, but the good which is done, and the intention behind that good, even as the error in the lie itself can be so slight, that it is almost negligible. When we talk about hate, we must also understand what is intended by the word; if we mean the pure malice associated with the denial of love, such hate is indeed a grievous sin; however, we can talk about hating something, like some evil, and in doing so, actually not really embrace unlove but its opposite, and in this way, such hate must not be understood equivocally with the sin which is known as hate. We should pursue what is right and just, that is, what is good and true, promoting not just any kind of justice, but the justice which is founded upon the revelation of love given to us by Jesus Christ: “Now, justice is faith in God through Christ, and love of God and one’s neighbor.” [2]
Love for our neighbor is important. If we love them, we will do what we can to promote them, their personal dignity, so that they can attain what is good and just for themselves. The more they suffer some injustice, the more they are hurt by the effects of various systemic structures of sin, the more we will work on their behalf, doing what we can to help them obtain the justice they lack:
Justice is something about which we should be passionate, for it is essential to a fulfilled life and social flourishing. In the Bible justice appears again and again as the vindication of the poor and the oppressed. They can turn with confidence for redress to God and to those who seek to follow in the way of God. [3]
Laura Swan gives a good representation what this means in practice:
Justice encompasses the acts, structures and systems that affirm, support and defend human dignity and worth. Justice affirms, rather than diminishes, the worth and dignity of all. Justice encourages the pursuit of one’s fullest potential as well as the potential of those around us. A justice-oriented life pushes forth to pursue that potential. Justice demands a stand of intense interior listening and awareness of the vulnerable who are in need of protection.[4]
It is imperative that we do more than contemplate justice, we must act upon what we learn. We must do our part, taking the grace we receive from Christ, and the justice it brings to us, and share it with the world, doing what we can to make the world a better place. We must follow the example of justice revealed to us on the cross, where what is unjust is brought to the open and then cast away into the abyss. That way, what was impeded by sin and injustice can be set free and made new. Divine justice, and so true justice, is not punitive, but restorative. To be sure, in the restoration which comes with true justice, there will need to be the revelation of injustice, where injustice is denounced and rejected. Without metanoia, there will be no restoration, just as without the cross, there is no resurrection from the dead. This is something which we need to understand as we go into the Great Fast, into Lent. We must seek justice within, casting aside all injustice, using the Great Fast as a time to contemplate our failings and to do penance, to begin paying back to the world the restitution it is due as a result of our sin. Then, we should take the grace which is made available to us as we cast aside our own injustice, and the sinful habits it has created in us, and use it, not only to better ourselves, but to better the world around us; if we do not do that, we remain entangled with the kind of selfishness which undermines justice and as such, we find ourselves far away from the justice God intends for us to possess.
[1] St Leo the Great, Sermons. Trans. Jane Patricia Freeland CSJB and Agnes Josephine Conway SSJ (Washington, DC: CUA Press, 1996), 138 [Sermon 32].
[2] John Colet, “On the Sacraments,” trans. John B. Gleason in John B. Gleason, John Colet (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1989), 317.
[3] Duncan B. Forrester, “Social justice and welfare” in The Cambridge Companion to Christian Ethics. Ed. Robin Gill (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 198.
[4] Laura Swan, Engaging Benedict: What the Rule Can Teach Us Today (Notre Dame, IN: Christian Classics, 2005), 140.
Stay in touch! Like A Little Bit of Nothing on Facebook.
If you liked what you read, please consider sharing it with your friends and family!
N.B.: While I read comments to moderate them, I rarely respond to them. If I don’t respond to your comment directly, don’t assume I am unthankful for it. I appreciate it. But I want readers to feel free to ask questions, and hopefully, dialogue with each other. I have shared what I wanted to say, though some responses will get a brief reply by me, or, if I find it interesting and something I can engage fully, as the foundation for another post. I have had many posts inspired or improved upon thanks to my readers.
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In