Learn to feel compassion and to find, if not justification, then an explanation for the actions of those who have hurt you.

And always put yourself in the place of those people.

Hatred only eats away at you.

Do not seek justice from God, but seek mercy.

Anthony Bloom of Sourozh was born in Lausanne in 1914. He spent his early childhood in Russia and Persia, where his father was a member of the Russian imperial diplomatic corps. During the Russian Revolution his family had to leave Persia and, in 1923, settled in Paris, where he graduated in physics, chemistry and biology from the University of Paris, and later took a doctorate in medicine. In 1939, before going to the front as a surgeon in the French army, he secretly took monastic vows. In 1943 he received the tonsure and was given the name Anthony. During the German occupation of France he worked as a doctor and took part in the French Resistance.

When we speak of reconciliation, we mean a new relationship, an entirely new relationship between the parties in conflict, or between a person who has been deeply wronged and the one who wronged them. On the part of the wrongdoer this means acknowledging responsibility; on the part of the wronged it calls for breadth of heart, a readiness to accept the humble confession of another's sin, and an open conversation that does not seek to restore what went before, but to create a new relationship. The Lord says: "Behold, I make all things new!" (Rev 21:5).

We are called to build peace by choosing a vocation great enough to embrace the whole of humanity, to build the Kingdom of God, which includes peacemaking: peace between one person and another, peace within small groups, peace within ever larger wholes, but first of all peace with what God has created and in which we live. Then we shall have a common goal, and in the fellowship of that goal we shall make the world as God wanted it to be, and so we shall be reconciled with one another too.

The first three cracks

If we look at the Bible, we see that the first crack arises the moment the first human couple turns away from God and is separated from him. Roland de Pury, a French Protestant, wrote: "The sin of our first parents lies in this: that they turned their backs on God and sought their fulfilment outside him." The moment they turned their backs on God, all that remained for them was death, since God alone is the source of life. The crack deepens at the moment Cain kills Abel. The Bible is tragically clear when it says that God speaks to Cain: "The voice of your brother's blood is crying to me from the ground!" (Gen 4:10). The earth cries out, weeping for Abel's spilled blood. It is a tragedy for the earth that it must drink that blood. This is not a defilement of the earth; rather, the earth is scandalised that such a thing could happen at all. The third step by which the whole of creation is drawn into sin takes place after the great flood. The Lord says to Noah and those saved with him: "The fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth, and upon every bird of the air, upon everything that creeps on the ground and all the fish of the sea; into your hand they are delivered. Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you; and as I gave you the green plants, I give you everything" (Gen 9:2-3). Is that not the situation in which we live? The earth, deeply wounded by the first murder that cries out to heaven, still cries out because of the blood that is shed; the whole of creation dreads man, who has become the chief predator, the most dangerous beast of prey. He is not only capable of killing, but surpasses the whole of creation in the number of his killings, and becomes its fear and trembling.

Called to come to our senses

It comes as a surprise to us when St Paul, in one of his epistles, says that the whole creation groans together and suffers together the pains of childbirth, waiting eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God (Rom 8:19-22). The whole creation, groaning, awaits the moment when humanity will come to its senses, when it will - instead of being a pack of predators - turn to God, find its rightful place and play its true role.

If we now ask what the role of man is, let us look at a biblical passage that we have misinterpreted for centuries. When God says that man has dominion over all creation on earth, what does that mean? For centuries we have understood the word "dominion" in the sense of having supremacy, mastery, superiority - but is that really so? In English, the word "dominion" comes from the Latin "dominus", meaning lord, master, the head of a family or household - but does that mean being a tyrant, prevailing, having superiority? Certainly not. It means being a wise steward, a wise husband, the one entrusted with all creation, so that it may grow to the fullness to which it is called. That is the role of the dominus, the lord. A lord is not a tyrant but a guide.

If that is so, it means that we human beings have got everything wrong. We betrayed God when we turned away from him and sought our fulfilment, our place in creation, outside him. We betrayed him when we shed blood in murderous hatred towards one another, when we behaved towards each other as wild animals behave towards other species. We are the only species in all creation capable of destroying itself. Ever since the first blood was shed, the whole history of humanity has been marked by bloodshed, and the earth still cries out - not because of Abel's blood shed by Cain, but because of the blood of all the Abels of the world, and because of the blood of all the Cains shed by other Cains. We are faced with a situation in which the whole of creation dreads us because we are predators. We have no claws, but we have swords and weapons that give us the power to destroy thousands of those whom God created with so much love.

We are called, then, to come to our senses. It is not just a matter of being reconciled with one another, but of remembering, individually and together, what our true vocation is. We are called to be lords, but not as tyrants - rather as guides. St Maximus the Confessor says that man has two natures, that he is rooted in two worlds: on the one hand in the created world, the material world, and on the other - by his calling and by the Spirit that comes from God - in the spiritual world. Our vocation is to grow to fullness and to become capable of leading all creation beyond its materiality, so that it too may share in the world of the Spirit. We must properly understand Paul's words when he says that a day will come when God will be everything to every one (1 Cor 15:28) - not present in a few, but filling all things.

Called to become partakers of the divine nature

When we reflect on the act of divine creation, we see that God, in an act of self-giving love, called into existence what did not exist. We are called to become partakers of the divine nature, and everything we touch - everything that is created - should enter into that mystery of complete and profound communion with God. Man is created from the earth, and this makes him akin to everything God has created. We are akin to every atom of matter. We are akin to all the elements of the evolution and development of the created world, and that is why everything created can recognise itself in us. We are created in the image of God, and God has given us the commandment to be leaders and the link that will join everything created to the spiritual world and to God himself, so that one day God may be everything to every one.

The created world has not sinned against God - so say St Paul and the Fathers of the Church - but suffers discord because of human sin. Creation is like a thoroughbred horse ridden by a drunken rider. The rider drives the horse mad, yet we do not blame the rider, but the horse. If we think of the brutality of wild animals - they are as they are because we have turned away from God, who is the key to harmony for humanity and all creation, and that is why we cannot offer the created world any solution. We are not capable of leading it, of governing it, of being teachers - of those who guide creation towards its fulfilment.

Servants, not tyrants

When we look at the world around us, is it not frightening to realise that the only reason everything does not tend towards God is the fact that we stand between the created world and God, when we ought to be the bridge, the teachers, the lords, the guides, the high priests of this world, who ought to sanctify all creation, to make it holy. We behave towards the created world as though it had no vocation of its own, as though it were dead. How do we treat the animals entrusted to us? Is it not terrible that we treat the whole created world as our prey, instead of sanctifying it? The world we build should be such that its first citizen could be Jesus Christ, true God and true man. Are we building such a world? No, and because of that we do not even feel guilty, but make excuses for ourselves. If we go on like this, humanity could perish, but that is not the real problem. Let it perish, if we can be nothing other than crude and godless brutes! Here I am not speaking of believers and atheists, but of all of us.

We have no right to call ourselves believers if our faith amounts merely to believing that we have a good God whose duty and function is to take care of us, while we do not take care of the billion things He created out of love. We must acknowledge our guilt; we must acknowledge it actively, not in order to save our own skin, but in order to become what we are called to be. If we recognise that we must do this, then we must do it.

We must treat everything God has created with humility, in the way that servants treat their masters. The Lord did not tell us to be domineering tyrants, but servants.

Seeking forgiveness and putting right what is wrong

This, then, is what reconciliation is: seeking forgiveness by putting right what we have done wrong, for there is no forgiveness that costs nothing. Forgiveness begins by acknowledging our sin before the offended party, asking their forgiveness, and actively putting right what was wrong. This may cost us, but we must pay the price, whatever it is. As long as we have not done this, there can be no peace among us, for - if everyone seeks only their own interest - humanity will never be able to unite around the common good. Predators cannot build a single kingdom, and that is exactly what we are trying to do: remain predators, cruel beasts of prey, successful only to the extent that our deadly technology allows, remain selfish, live in dread of one another, be greedy and covetous, cruel to one another. Predators know nothing of love.

It is not enough to repent; it is not enough to ask forgiveness from God: we must attain forgiveness by becoming active, true servants of God and God's messengers in this world.

 

Taken from: Glasnik Mira, Međugorje, 2013.

Edited and translated by Lidija Paris