Attentiveness to the Passion and Resurrection

According to James Alision, for God, death is as if it were not. This is revealed in the resurrection of Jesus. Prior to the resurrection, all human understanding occurred through, and was structured by, a cultural system in which death was understood as inevitable and in which the death of a scapegoat provided the social glue which held the culture together. In the resurrection of Jesus, God has vindicated the man who lived his life befriending scapegoats and who allowed himself to become a scapegoat in order to overcome scapegoating. In the resurrection of Jesus, God has decreed that scapegoating is not a means for pleasing God; rather, it is the antithesis of the creative work of God’s spirit.

As a student of Rene Girard, Alison understands how culture first came into existence: mimetic rivalry between two pre-linguistic hominids was copied by others; violent conflict followed and was copied; an accusatory gesture was copied; the accused was then murdered by a mob; finally, the mob then notices the quiet social cohesion of the mob’s activity. This act of group murder was then ritualized into the act of human sacrifice. This sacrificial act provided social cohesion and a means for overcoming anarchy. When there was a crisis, it was deemed that the gods wanted blood. Upon performing the sacrificial act, social cohesion was restored and the people believed that the gods then blessed them with peace.

Some cultures maintained the ritual of human sacrifice. Others eventually substituted animal victims for human victims, but the dynamic of uniting people over against a human scapegoat was passed down in different forms. Hitler used the dynamic to unite people against the innocent Jewish populace. At prisons, people celebrate the execution of a condemned person. Presidents liberal and conservative are hated by their ideological opponents. Immigrants are unfairly deemed unclean and dangerous. Gay people are denied their rights. Misogyny still exists. People with brain disorders are portrayed as threats to the community. Human rights activists in many countries are imprisoned and deemed a threat to the state. It seems that humanity cannot kick this social habit. This is very sad for God kicked this habit long ago. Truth be told, God never wanted this habit to begin with. It came into existence because primitive human beings projected their own violence onto God.

During this Holy Week, we need to ask, “How are we continuing to project violence onto God? Who are our scapegoats and what does the gracious truth of the crucified and risen Christ say to us?” The answers to these questions can come from rational analysis. They also come to us through the process of prayer. To borrow from Howard Gray’s analysis of the Jesuit Constitutions, as we pray , we need to be attentive, reverent and devout. In being attentive, we allow the other to be most fully itself. We then move to reverence, in which we accept and esteem that good that we find in the other. Finally, in devotion, we then see in an authentic way how God is at work in our prayer.

I was blessed to experience this on a retreat. I had been wounded by another. I carried the resentment for months. Finally, I had the time to make an Ignatian retreat. During the retreat, I followed Jesus through his life. When we came to the meditation on the passion, the most amazing thing happened. As I prayed before the crucified Christ, I saw the face of the one I resented on the face of Christ. I then was drawn to the person of Peter as he denied Christ. In my mind’s eye, I could see Peter’s sandals as he ran from the cross. The strange thing was that my feet were in his sandals. In nurturing the resentment, I was crucifying this other and I was running from Christ. I wept and the resentment was lifted. After the retreat, I felt no resentment toward him. This did not mean that I spent a lot of time with him for he himself had not changed and continued to hurt others. To this day, I am always prudent when dealing with this person, but I no longer hate him.

So, once again, the question is: who are our scapegoats? Who do we encourage others to gang up on—whether physically or verbally? Can we be attentive and take the time to allow the Lord to lead us through his passion in a meaningful, life-changing way? If we have been scapegoated, have we joined in and scapegoated ourselves? Can we overcome this self-hatred by entering into the passion and resurrection? Where does the healing lie? Will we allow the Lord to lift our resentments? Will we allow the Lord to be the Lord and stop trying to be God ourselves? Finally, can we be attentive to the spiritual consolation of the resurrection and enter into an ecclesial order free from gossip, discrimination and group violence? Can we see how God is at work in our prayer lives?