Vigils Reading

A reading from “Faith and Theology” by

FR MARIE-DOMINIQUE CHENU

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The Christian is always haunted by the memory of the primitive Church

community in which “the multitude of the believers were of one heart and one

soul, and not one of them said that anything he possessed was his own, but

they had all things in common”. In this the Christian sees the ideal blueprint of

the Church, the new-born foundation, fresh from the breath of the Spirit in the

candid youth of a first love.

Did the attempt fail? Some may believe so, but I will not! That sacred fire

was never extinguished; throughout the centuries the Church has supported,

protected and exalted those of her members who have practiced this ideal of

common life and borne witness to the truth of its revelation. I believe this with

all my heart, for despite the many failures, I see its success and I experience it

daily. The irrepressible leaven always makes the bread rise, and the great stages

of the Church, her great successes – not her political or military victories for

these are not important and they are far from the spirit of the Gospel – her true

triumphs are characterized by revivals of this fraternity which blossoms amid

the thorns of conflict, for it is in conflict, by a divine paradox, that this ideal finds

its daring and its authenticity.

A universal society? A chimera to the economist, a dream to the politician,

a mystical illusion to a reasonable person! And I would be inclined to

agree…had not God one day become the first-born among brothers.

We retract nothing of this fraternal mystique, and if there is folly in it, we

prefer its excess to the folly which in peoples, nations, races or classes,

condemns humanity to falsehood, hate and despair. But we believe that, far

from supplanting the structures and the solidarities which the economist, the

sociologist and the political scientist observe, this fraternity requires them; we

believe that this mystical fraternity, if it is to be realized in practice, must

penetrate these social values and orders in their own autonomous reality. To

fulfill its purpose this fraternity incarnates, and is incarnated by, the love of

God, the prototype of its own universal love.