The third group in the world who need to feel the impact of the Cross are the selfish.
By the selfish is here understood all those who feel that salvation is either an individual matter or else the concern of a particular class; that religion has no other right to exist than to remove the impediments of a selfish existence by slum clearance, social security, more playgrounds; and that all else, such as the regeneration of man from sin, or the culture of the soul, is a snare and a delusion.
When the selfish become learned, they define religion, in the language of a contemporary philosopher, as “What a man does with his own solitariness.”
When the selfish are in distress, they ask, “Why should God do this to me?”
When the selfish sin, they say, “What harm does my sin do to anyone else?”
The selfish were on Calvary’s hill in their representative, who was the thief on the left. He had heard the blasphemy and pride of his companion thief broken when, out of a consciousness of sin, he called to the Lord for mercy, but the experience left him untouched. One can be so close to God physically and yet miss Him spiritually.
Turning to the Lord on the central Cross, the thief on the left, in the supreme expression of selfishness, cried out with bitterness of soul:
“If thou be Christ, save thyself and us” (Luke 23:29).
“Save thyself and us”: how modern! Salvation is for a class! Not everyone! Communism speaks only for the proletariat: “Save thyself and us.” Fascism speaks only for the nation: “Save thyself and us.” Nazism speaks only for the race: “Save thyself and us.” The rich speak only for their class: “Save thyself and us.” Not a word about the salvation of the world; about His people, whom He loved; about the Gentiles, to whom He would send His Apostles; and above all else, not a word about His Beloved Mother, beneath His Cross, whose heart was already pierced by seven swords.
Our Lord did not answer that selfish thief directly, but He did answer Him indirectly when, looking down from the Cross, He addressed Himself to the two most beloved creatures on earth — Mary, His Mother, and John, His disciple. But He did not address them as “Mary” and as “John.”
If He had called them by their names, they would have remained what they were; representatives of a certain class. If He had said “Mother,” she would have been His Mother and no one else’s. If he had said “John,” he would have been the son of Zebedee, and the son of no one else. So He called Mary “Woman” and John “Son.”
“Woman, behold thy son. . . . Son, behold thy mother” (John 19:26–27).
He was saying that religion is not what a man does with his solitariness, but what he does with his relationships. And as if to prove for all time that religion is not selfishness, either of an individual or a “set” or a class, He called Mary and John into a relationship as wide as the world. In a certain sense, He de-classified them.
She was no longer to be His Mother alone. As He was the new Adam, she would be the new Eve. He had told her, about a year and a half before, that there were other ties than those of flesh and blood — namely, the spiritual bond among those who do the will of God. “Behold my mother and my brethren. For whosoever shall do the will of God, he is my brother, and my sister and mother” (Mark 3:34–35).
Now He establishes that new relationship. As she was His Mother by the flesh, she would now be the mother of all “who are born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God” (John 1:13).
To herald her in this new relationship as the Mother of Christians, He calls her “Woman” — it was a high summons to universal motherhood.
And John, who up to this point is the son of Zebedee, is not called John — for that would have been to keep the ties of blood. He is addressed as “Son.”
“Son, behold thy mother.”
Jesus was the firstborn of Mary’s flesh, but John was the firstborn of her spirit at the foot of the Cross; and perhaps Peter was the second, Andrew the third, James the fourth, and we the millionth and millionth born.
He was setting up a new family, a new social relationship. In that context, economic and social questions would be settled, and not otherwise.
Religion is not an individual affair! A man can no more have an individual religion than he can have an individual government or an individual astronomy or mathematics. Religion is social — so social that it is not limited to the criminal class, as the thief believed, nor to any class, race, nation, or color.
This word of Our Lord furthermore reveals that all social duties flow out of these spiritual relationships. He did not say: “John, take care of my Mother,” nor did He say: “Mary, look after John as you would me.” No! Having established a new relationship between Mary and John — namely, that of motherhood and sonship — the duties flowed quite naturally. Religion is made the sharing of responsibilities. Mary had raised her Child, but now she was to adopt others and love them as sons, poor indeed though they were in comparison.
John had fulfilled his sonship to Zebedee, but now he was to take on new duties as Mary’s son and so live that he would never do anything of which his Mother would be ashamed. Mary continued her duty of bearing the burden of others, for we find her on Pentecost in the midst of the Apostles, mothering the Infant Church as she mothered the Infant Jesus. John, too, could never forget that word son, which he heard from the Cross, as we find him some years after the Ascension writing to the Infant Church: “Behold what manner of charity the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called, and should be the sons of God” (1 John 3:1).
Someday someone will read the Gospel: “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself ” (Matt. 19:19); that is, love the other’s interest as you do self-interest. Not until all groups see themselves as bound in a new relationship to the common good, will they sacrifice their own special interests. So long as every individual exists for himself, we shall have social discontent; so long as every class seeks only its own interest, we shall have class warfare; and so long as each nation seeks its own interest exclusively, we shall have war.
The author of Peer Gynt writes of the inmates of an insane asylum: “It is here that men are most themselves — themselves and nothing but themselves — sailing with outspread wings of self. Each shuts himself in a cask of self, the cask stopped with the bung of self and seasoned in a well of self. None has a tear for the other’s woes or cares what any other thinks.”
Our Lord spoke to the hating, raging, anti-Christian Saul on the Damascus road: “Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? It is hard for thee to kick against the goad” (Acts 26:14). He used the figure of an ox hurting itself by kicking against the sharp nails of the cart. He was saying in effect: “When you rebel against me, you are rebelling against yourself. You persecute me, but you — you are perishing.”
Men, nations, and systems always destroy themselves by seeking an order other than that based on the brotherhood of all men under the Fatherhood of God! Class consciousness must be transformed into “brother consciousness,” or the world will perish. Freedom from God is really the freedom to destroy ourselves. To the selfish comes the lesson from the Cross! Begin to live for others, and you will begin to live for self. Religion implies social relationships.
There is no personal religion. You can no more have your personal religion than you can have your personal sun.
When we go to a concert, do we not give attention to the music, that is, do we not allow ourselves to be determined by something outside ourselves? Do we think that when people attend concerts, each one should do whatever he pleases, call out his own selections, take the baton from the conductor, or whistle his own tune? Then why, when the subject is religion, where the Conductor is God, should we insist on our own individual ideas, or say religion is “what I think about God.” Rather, religion is what God wants it to be. Hence, I must seek His will, not mine, discover His truth, not my opinion.
Prodigal Catholic 
Leave a comment