{"id":8570,"date":"2014-01-06T11:55:51","date_gmt":"2014-01-06T16:55:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/?p=8570"},"modified":"2014-01-06T15:00:21","modified_gmt":"2014-01-06T20:00:21","slug":"an-inheritance-of-joy-pope-francis-bookclub","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/2014\/01\/an-inheritance-of-joy-pope-francis-bookclub.html","title":{"rendered":"An Inheritance of Joy [Pope Francis bookclub]"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

In 2014, I\u2019m reading and blogging through Pope Francis\/Cardinal Bergoglio\u2019s\u00a0<\/em>Open Mind, Faithful Heart: Reflections on Following Jesus<\/a>. \u00a0Every Monday, I\u2019ll be writing about the next meditation in the book, so you\u2019re welcome to peruse them all<\/a> and\/or read along.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

After the introductions, the prefaces, and the translator\u2019s notes, the first two words I read by Pope Francis were \u201cApostolic joy.\u201d<\/p>\n

His reflections on living the Christian faith begins with this sentence:<\/p>\n

Apostolic joy is nourished by the contemplation of Jesus Christ, that is, by observing how he moved about, how he preached, how he healed, how he saw the world\u2026 The heart of the priest should be steeped in this contemplation and through it resolve the main challenge of his life: his friendship with Jesus Christ.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In order to set us dialogue with Christ, Pope Francis begins by meditating on the kinds of conversations that Christ has in the Gospels. \u00a0But before I move on the the main content of this chapter, I still want to linger on the opening words.<\/p>\n

The main context in which I hear the slightly-jargony \u2018apostolic\u2019 is the Nicene Creed, when, at Mass, the congregation says that we believe in \u201cone holy, catholic, and apostolic church.\u201d \u00a0So, as I use it, it\u2019s a word about lineage and provenance. \u00a0 When we talk about something being apostolic, we mean something handed down carefully from the apostles to now, something safeguarded and precious.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s hard for me to not assume anything that important must be something\u00a0solemn<\/em>. \u00a0Maybe something fiddly and detailed like canon law, maybe something mysterious and easy to be confused by, like the Trinity. \u00a0But in the opening words of his book, Pope Francis reminds us that our birthright is\u00a0joy<\/em> as much as it is anything else. \u00a0And we get an example of how we can stumblingly inherit that joy, when Pope Francis begins to narrate how Christ dealt in dialogue with those who sought to entrap him.<\/p>\n

In Luke 20<\/a>, some Sadducees ask Christ what would become of a woman who married the first of seven brothers, and then, when he died, married the next one in line, and so on and so forth, til she\u2019d married and been widowed by them all. \u00a0In the afterlife, would she be married to\u00a0all<\/em> of them? \u00a0Just the first?<\/p>\n

Francis writes that this question was not asked in good faith, and so,<\/p>\n

[T]he Lord responds by looking toward the eschatological horizon\u2026 This ploy is so shameful that the Lord doesn\u2019t even bother to argue with the tricksters: he responds by simply asserting the sublimity of the glorified life (Luke 20:27-40)<\/p>\n

Jesus said to them, \u201cThose who belong to this age marry and are given in marriage; but those who are considered worthy of a place in that age and in the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage. Indeed they cannot die anymore, because they are like angels and are children of God, being children of the resurrection. And the fact that the dead are raised Moses himself showed, in the story about the bush, where he speaks of the Lord as the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. Now he is God not of the dead, but of the living; for to him all of them are alive.\u201d Then some of the scribes answered, \u201cTeacher, you have spoken well.\u201d For they no longer dared to ask him another question.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Even under interrogation, Christ is offering the inheritance of apostolic joy. \u00a0Instead of responding in anger or withdrawing from the gotcha-conversation, He is pointing to something beyond the current conflict, a vision of \u00a0joy and peace that makes the argument on the table seem small.<\/p>\n

Whenever we are hemmed in in argument (theological or not), we always have the option to respond with joy. \u00a0Instead to becoming angry or frightened in defense of the idea we are trying to protect, we can offer it to our interlocutor with joy, in the same way you hold out your favorite book to loan to a friend, or sneak sideways looks at your child, when showing them your favorite movie, hoping for an opportunity to share your joy.<\/p>\n

When I am in this frame of mind, I\u2019m not only taking the chance to kindle delight in my debating partner, but to strengthen my own happiness and raise it to the level of my attention. \u00a0It\u2019s why I love doing alumni interviews or organizing theatre trips.<\/p>\n

When I\u2019m in an argument or debate, I want to follow Christ\u2019s example and try to offer the person the source of my joy, not a rebuke to their approach or a gotcha of my own. \u00a0I want to offer them the truth or beauty I\u2019m fighting to\u00a0share<\/em>, and see them take it up with joy, not to knuckle under on a technicality. \u00a0And I want to approach disagreements in a way that makes it easy and inviting for my opponent to share\u00a0their<\/em> joy, so I can happily notice and admit when I\u2019ve erred.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In 2014, I\u2019m reading and blogging through Pope Francis\/Cardinal Bergoglio\u2019s\u00a0Open Mind, Faithful Heart: Reflections on Following Jesus. \u00a0Every Monday, I\u2019ll be writing about the next meditation in the book, so you\u2019re welcome to peruse them all and\/or read along. After the introductions, the prefaces, and the translator\u2019s notes, the first two words I read by […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":127,"featured_media":8572,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[227],"class_list":["post-8570","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-debatetactics","tag-pope-francis-bookclub"],"yoast_head":"\nAn Inheritance of Joy [Pope Francis bookclub]<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"In 2014, I'm reading and blogging through Pope Francis\/Cardinal Bergoglio's\u00a0Open Mind, Faithful Heart: Reflections on Following Jesus. \u00a0Every Monday, I'll\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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