Chapter 2

Learning Spontaneity

The point of Christianity, before anything else, is to show that there is a

point to our lives. Our Iives are pointed towards some ultimate end.
Despite all the absurdity and suffering we may endure, meaning has the
last word. We may not now be able to teli the story of our lives or of
humar:ity, but our hope is that one day all that we have lived and been
will be found to have sense. But can we show anlthing of that ultimate
meaning now? We ended the 6rst chapter with music as one of the most
fundamental ways in which we try to express that hope for what is
beyond the reach of our words. But are there other ways in which we can
make visible the end of the journey? In this and the next chapter, I will
suggest two ways in which the final purpose of our lives should break in
now. We should have a freedom and a happiness that would make no
sense if God does not exist. Christianity invites us to a peculiar freedom
and happiness, which is a share in God's own vitality. The end of the
journey is thus nade manifest now Our hope is sustained by this taste
of the goal of the journey. And we may hope to find this same peculiar
freedom and joy among people of other faiths and none. We can make
no exclusive claim to share Godt life now. But we should be aware
that the gospel invites us to a liberty and happiness which should
swim against the expectations of our culture, and may look positively
eccentric.
A few years ago, when I was visiting the Dominicans in the Czech
Republic, I spent the night in a small town called Snojmo near the Aus-
trian border. There was the usual meeting with the Dominican Family.
There were lots of young families with their noisy offspring, and we
feasted on delicious sausages and drank slivovitz. Then we had an open
discussion, and the first question was from a young wornan who asked
how she could transmit tlte Church! moral teaching to her children,
 30 What i the point of Being a Chrktian?

who seemed to be just as resistant Learning Spontaneity 3l

as children in Western Europe.
not know how to answer the quesriol I dicl
ard so I purr.a i, io iiy .o_pnn_
ion for that trip, a moral theoiogian
*rr.a w";Ji".i, Li".,r.i1
- / " , o-r*,".
rt the AngeJicum University irr r
Rome.
He went to the blackboard and
drew a smali square in a corner. ,ID
square are the commandments. that
Is that ,rtu, ,r,o.olitfi.'ofr"r,r,Ora
,Of
everyone cried course., ,No,, he said, ,God i,
commandments.'Then he drew
no, _i J
i"r1.".,"0 ,"
a square which covered alr
board and he said,,That is freedom. trre rest ofthe
Tf,u, ir r1,fr", i.,.."],, Gri.
is to teach your children to orU
the Berlin Wall has fallen, the Free Market has
triurnphed, and yet we feel
if anything less free than before. We lock up more peopl.
tiian ut uny
time h our history. America imprisons n highe, pe..entag.
ofit p"opt.
than any other society in the world except China.
W. r.l. tn" J.i,.top_
n]ent of what we in Britain call the ,Nanny Statel
the culture of controi,
and we live in dread of more curious regulations
More than that, many people feel mentally imprisoned:
from Brussels.
imprisoned by
.
drugs and alcohol, by their past or childhood, Uy
*., by their genes. It is odd that in this free ,o.i.ty
po,n .ry o.'ion.iin..r,

and ofst Thornas Aquinas.'r was

be free. Th"r i^, th;;;;.l; ro -uny p_ple feel them_
"iln"L".o",r,
so moved by this that I decided
imme_
selves to be constrained. Even wealthy ona ,rr...*fut
p"opt. oi.n feel
diately that if I ever had a sabbatical , *;;;^ilr trapped. We have become free only to find that
theology, which had somehor il.ln"",Ir; it is often an empry
skipped in my patchy theological "r..", liber ty. As Zygmunt Bauman wrote, ,There is
a nasty fly of impotence in
studies in the chaotic late 196,[.8ot the tasty ointment of freedom, cooked in the cauldronof
'For freedom Christ has i.,aViir"lir"-
set us free; stand fast tirerefore, tion; that impotence is felt to be all the more odious,
and do not discomforting and
submit again to the yoke of slavery, (Galatians up^setting in view of the empowerment that freedom _u, ."p.a"d
that, shourd be srrikirglv differerit
S.fl. Or. ,irfi.,frirg, ao
about irr.jrit"r,i'ri""rl'i" deliver.'2 At the end of the 1990 European Values
Study, Ba.t UiC.itri.t
lreedonr. people should look ar wrote.that Europeans need a .pedagogy of freedoml
Iiberty. Alas, this is unlikeJy
us and be puzzled Uy o", "". Freedom is the
to happen. The Church ;J,;;;,;:'.:l "rirn*f,ing central yalue ofmodern Europeans, but we do not
repressive insritution
;;;;;;"
*hi.i, ;, _nrru,,rl, '"'":iffi;rjri So our society is ripe for the message ofgospel
know how to enjoy it.
freedom: this shouta be
not do whar they want and musr
do what ,rr", iJr"iir*. ar'ri,,ri"_ at the heart ofour evangelization. But it cannot
be so unl.rs *e f"ce nnd
Blake wrote, overcome the timid lack of freedom which often
cripples the life of the
Church, otherwise our words will have no authoriilat
all. One luy a
Priestsin black gowns were walking their mother brought her child to see Mahatma Gandhi. She
rounds was worried that
And binding with briars my joys this_child was deeply addicted to sweets and asked
and desires.r the wise man to per_
suade her to learn moderation. Gandhi asked the
W;ster.n society is profoundly
mother to take the
.t.rnd ambiguous about freedom.
On rhe one
child away and to return in three weeks, which she
did. Gandhi then
we belong to what is called
the.F"r* ,";;: *;;;;;;;;:,,r.. talked to the child and persuaded her to cut down.
At the end the mother
doms: freedom of speech, the freedom of movement, asked him, 'But why, Gandhiji did you not say this
to vote as we wish to the girl three weeks
and so on.-The European Values ago.'He replied, 'Because three weeks ago I too was addited
Stu<ly shows ,n"ii*.a"_,
.r,i Persrrn.ri arrtonorrry, is ..O"r.ra_ to sweets.,
the rtrr r''portant varue fcrr modern Euro- We Christians too need to be liberated from whatever
holds us captive if
Pril'15. And yet our society is h",r)st we are to speak of freedom with conviction.
*::, _:, ;;.J.;;jilj:: :1""::,iini:j,:i,T:.ffT,,,,", Kant maintained that freedom cannot be explained,
';;,of Martin Lutl
rrr,rr"r,ellous spcech
on 28 August 196-t,:; 1.,nu.., We cannot offer an explanation ofChristian freedom,
only defended.l
but we can look at
,t.crrrrrl The ,tr",,,, ,.,,.
^r r , 't...^l.nt all of it_in action, at the Last Supper. This sign of hope is
.rrrJ whire, l"*.o,,0'[",-',..i!]ii'il. '"t" God s children, black
aad Cathorics, will be abte The Last Supper was a passover meal. It was the feast
the 1ieest of all acts.
,,,,,, r'",'d, u,,d.infr,;;;"';;;;::::i"nts ro of Israelt libera_

l::r ";il';ffifi HT,:':.f .".?"::i:iFjii;;::Tii::i

''fhe (;ardeD ol Lovel
cirrpfurc l,yori-i, cd. ceoifrcy
tigl frorn slavery in Egypt. )esus reclines with his disciples at the table,
with the beloved disciple resting on his breast. This was
a sign of their

Keynes, Oxford 1969, p.

215. Liqxitt Mndenltv, Canbridge 2000. p. 15.
3 Quoted by t\\a.rnre Anlhonv AppiJh, ?/r. A/,ftr d/ ,/rnr4v, prinieron
2005. p. .)0.
 32 What is the point of Being a Christian?
LearningSpontaneity 33
freedom. The jewish traciition maintained
that,whereas the slaves eat other disciples, and been unable to bear its loss. So maybe Judas is the
standing, here [at the passover]
peopie shourd recrirr. *i.r'rn.r.",,
signigr that Lhey have gone our ,, disappointed man. He is the man of dreams who feels let down. Jesus has
o[ bondaS. ,. ljb;;;y:', ;;;,
hegan a new passover inro the f*,,, betrayed his hopes and so he betrays Jesus. The irony is that at the Last
unimaginjle lr."dn; .i C;;""" ",*,n,
That final meal offers us successive Supper Jesus was inaugurating a more radical freedom than any ludas
iteps ir," .r". i.".il. f.*a"_.
Irirst ofall we shall look at the betrayal "rr had ever dreamed of.
ofJesus, his loss of ,.JJorn. ,n.n
rve. shall reflect briefly It would be wrong to think that ludas's mistake was that he was eager
on how Jesus trans.end, ui.timh".J.
is his freedom of choice, which is ii", ,n"* for political liberation whereas lesus was offering spiritual freedom.
the ordin".y u;;;;;l'i..d.'r,
lruman beings. But lhe Ldst Su offers us a freedom from all that oppresses humanity, whether this
Jesus
",
jil.ffi be mental or political, individual or social. Our hope is for a world in
i;".,yru;;;i;;"j:ii',::ld,,,.J;;::*.:ru .j:: which all that constrains humanity is finished. This is a truth that the
Church has sometimes rather forgotten, seeing our religion in solely per-
sonal terms. In Cartagena, in what is now Colombia, two heroic ]esuits,
Betrayal Alonso de Sandoval and Pedro Claver, spent years tending to the slaves
\\e beSin with ben-ayal. Why dicl who had been transported from Africa. Diarnraid MacCulloch wrote,'In
Iudas hancl over Jesus to death? We do
rrot knorv.the rnsrvr,r. When its context, their pastoral work was bravely counter-cultural, arousing
Jesrrs ntet hinr in the garden he askecl
'F'iend, rvhy are you hinr, some real disapproval among the settler population, but their efforts to
(N,tattherv
here?,
question which is repeated in
26.s0). ;r;"r:;;;,'."0,r.
ii',, u'. instil first a sense of sin (particularly sexual sin) and then repentance in
the.reproaches of Cooa r.iau.y,,;Ot,,
people, whar have I done to ,.,y their wretched penitents now seems oddly placed amid one of the great-
vorr? How have I
\Ve cannot. Evil is absurd
ani no, "fft;;;;;;;i;;"r..,
Faced with the cleath oflesus,
est acts ofcommunal sin perpetrated byWestern Christian culture.,s Lib-
rrr thar we can do is to ou, ,h.,:::"titul eration theology has helped us to rediscover the insight that Christian
,,,,, h",.?. r;;';;;;,;# ili l:nl#: freedom can neither be spiritualized into some interior state, nor can it
;,,,,
lr,the more profound mystery ofgood.
\Ve can, though, irave sorne
:."$n:,,:l#
[1,, il be leduced to a political programme.
My guess is that Judas failed to see how radical was the freedom that
ide,) as to why ltrdls nray have
bcen Jesus was inaugurating. Indeed, how could he? Presumably none of the
ycrupted b7 rhe idea of berraying lesus. His
rnr,' ludas\.mind and why he
,,"i".'rli.rr',,j"',;", nr", otJrer disciples did either. Jesus was offering'a radical revolution that
diJ thi, te.rible a.ea,lua", ir.".i.,liro.,.,
rvas a popular nationalistic reaches down to the depths ofour bodily life and which therefore means
had been. ralied Judas. And
name. vu,,y ru_ou,
J"*i;il;;";_".,. death and resurrectionl6 Judas had pinned his hopes on merely reshuf-
his nickname, ,,.;;,;;, ;;r:;;:lr;"",
,rr'assassinl He probabJy
longed lor a revolution that would fling the political counters a little bit. One ruler would replace another
tlre Romans. I suspecf that throw our This would no doubt have been good, but Jesus was offering us a share
h-e wer uP to JerLtsalem filled with
rrcrt, thinking that now was ,h" excite- in God's own unimaginable fr6edom which demands the transformation
nt'
rv,,urd, rcvear i'.,.ii,, ;; ;;:;i ff ::: ;:: ji: ;:ffiX; jil: of rvhat it means for us to be alive. Our political commitment to fight
ar rived in lerusalem. on palm injustice is good, but it is a necessary expression of what is more, the
Sunday, the crn,,.a ,"", ,..,ar]o';,1;rJ;,,,''
freeclom that is God's own life. As Herbert McCabe wrote, political
l:.:l:n.:.: .U-"t
nr,,n)enr.Vicrory
notlring happered. A
Jesus Ua ," a" ,.'riJ" lfr. action is just'the social visibility of faithl?
was within his erasp, and "", r_"r,,iJpl,"r,
he let i,rlip. fn.
l.trgued in Chaprer l, i" the Despite his disappointment, how could Judas have handed over the
mJmenr in whi.h rL._^:. -^ ,
story to be told of the future. one who called him'friend'? We do not know. The Gospel texts are not
Iudas
'ray
1 .".,.;;';;; ;;;;:ril:
I L Pe\. t0.j7b.56. cired l-y
L lcrenrias, rer'i)ed 5 Relor Mtiah: Eutope\ I{L) se Diyidt:d 1490-1700, Lo\don 2003, p. 437.
.,r(ton I904. l. edlrion / rij/raritli. lll,ril.
r
2h. ,y' /r5r/-..
6 llerbert Mccabe OP,Ldv,, Lore a d Langudge, t.ondon 2003, p. 159.
7 Ibid.,p. t70.
 34 What is the point of Be;ng a Christian?
Learning Spontaneity 35
interested in
psychorogy, nor are they rnodern historical
records. But
maybe we can detect traces of a gradual may be the tragedy of a man who hides even from himself rvhat he is up
slipping into tni, ,i.,, ,i.p Uy
step, so slowly that Judas might not ev"n to until the last moment, when it is too late.
huu.-full'y g.o.p.drvhot h. *n,
doing until he did it. He goes ro see rhe chief This man who longed for freedom would in this case be one who lives
'What will you give me if I deliver him
prleJts
"na
*yrio'it._, the deepest lack of freedom. Like Paul, he might have said,'I do not
to youi, No no_.. i..u, i, lur,
'himl It is one of the first small understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the
steps that we take as we distnn.. ou.r"I..",
from someone, dropping their nante. A husband very thing I hate'(Romans 7.15). In john's account Jesus has almost to
might say,,l talked to
your.mother on the phonel 'her next door', ,thai push him to play his destined role:'What you are going to do, do quickly'
little manl Levi ( 13.27). Surely this drifting into evil was the fruit ofhis solitude. He went
describes how, when he arrived in Auschwitz,
they took
and gave him a number: ,Notlring belongs to "*uy-hir'nu_. alone to see the high priests to float the idea of betrayal. He sits at the
us any,rro.., ,h.f h"u"
taken away our clothes, our shoes, even Last Supper in the deepest solitude. We need our friends to remind us
our hair. . . They wiil even take
away our name: if we want to keep it, we what we are up to, to hold up a mirror of truth. This is painful but it
will have to find ourselves the
strength to do so, to manage somehow so that keeps us free. But is his solitude final and complete? The last time that
behind th. no_e sorr,._
thing of us, of us as we were, remains,,3 Jesus meets him, according to Mattheq he still greets him as his friend.
Then at the table, when Jesus says that one of
them will betray him, he
asks,'ls it I, Rabbi?,One might think that
he would know ,i,", i'. rv", ,n" Choices
one, and was just pretending bafflement
so as to hide among the other
p uzzied isciples. Bur perhaps he still Jesus is the innocent victim. He is the victim of hatred and fear. His life
_d
oorng. He iad taken the money but m,rybe
had not grasped ;;";;. *", is out of his hands. He has been betrayed and shortly he will be handed
he h;d not explicitly prt,nr
r\co an)ithrng. And norhing wrs done yel. There over. He stands beside us in all our experiences of being unliee and vic-
is still time fo, t iIn ro
change his mind. Leonardo da Vinci's,Last timized. But still he makes choices. His options are extremely limited,
Suppe.,catch.s
itr.of that rnomenr perfectly. Judas,recoils from
,h";;ir"- b.rt he chooses to gather his disciples for a last meal rather than flee from
the word. ;f al;;;;;"."
.rs his hrnd nloves irrevocablv toweril( the.'",- Jerusalem. He chooses to cross over the Kidron valley and go to the
^rt,"^^,r t.^.,,'",:
,,,,. u,s,,. Every on. o, u.,,u..1,
(rrlrtrng towards sonte sin that we
i1'.dijn:til,"::;::,T#'j j:r"l: Garden of Gethsemane to confront his enemies. He is not .iust a victim.
Wher.r he proclaims who he is in the garden, in John's version the soldiers
do not admit to ourselves. We set out
to sin, fooling ourselyes that we are_going fall on the ground before him.
to do something efr" i*_g
ourselves for the buried intentions The mechanisms ofvictirnization in our society and in the Gospels have
th;t we do .r", ,"
""a ".f."..f".jg.
cannot imagine Judas just coldly doing "f.lfr.r',fr. been brilliantly analysed by authors such as Rend Girard and James
::u,^.lu.r.J tn" a."i.
rcl.rglans rnstsred that all sin was a Alison.rr I have nothing to add, but I would stress that Jesus's irrepressible
fully conscious rejection of God,
r\irgustine replied that,most sins alre freedom summons us all beyond ever seeing ourselves as just victims. The
committed by people weeping and
groaningl'u Church must stand beside people who suffer victimization of any kind.
And.when Judas brings the soldiers to Even more, the Church must recognize who are the people whom she vic-
Gethsemane, has he fully
.rsped yet. *l:,.1. cioing? ln Mark's version he ask; thern';; timizes. Like St Paul on the road to Damascus, we must open our ears to
Irc\Lrs flwa)' satety. Is ]rhe still ;ake the Lord who says to us too,'Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?'
fooling himself?,Oh, the High priest
is so
angry rvith him that he needs son.re
good Roman p.ote.tioniani \{e nust dare to be numbered among the transgressors, even though
ii,"" it will do our reputation no good. I think of a French Dominican who is
hc' kisses Jesus warmly! That,s what th"e w _';;;;;;;;r;;" ;,:
"rdr";;": cl.raplain to the Roma. He has a caravan, he has learned their language
I IIT]tsisnMan,t.otrdon t979. p. ll. and he shares their life. Slowly he has come to be accepted by them, and
'r (:\irlle\Niioll.fe,,InntodaVikt:
the Higttrsof rfu Mittrl,london /004 ,r )o7
)\ 11,n.ttttra et Rtatia xxi\ JJ, ouorc,l ,,"..,"
. ,ir;f1,r",,. ir)" ,;,;;;;,,,',,';::';:;;;,,
I h wisdnat nl th? Dt,c,r. I Cirard, yiokr.e ond tht: Sacrcd,Londoi 1977 etc.;
Oxf.rtl UoO.t.p.,t+ I R. James Alison, Knowitlg lesus,
l-ondon 1993 elc.
 36 What is the Point of Being a Chrktian? LearningSpontaneity 37
finrliy rvas elected a judge of the people, someole who has power to of the Dominican Family in Manila in 2001, a young lay Dominican
arbitrate in their disputes. I do not think that a non-Roma from the Democratic Republic of the Congo berated us Westerners for
has ever
bchrre been so honoured. But this means that he also shares pillaging his country for diamonds in return for the sale of arms. The
their shame;
it means that he is regularly spat at by respectable people, harassecl oftheir suffering. Nothing could be done unless
West is growing rich out
by the
police, and arbitrarily imprisoned. we ended our oppression. He was right to accuse us, but my heart lifted
\Atestern society is soured by a pervasive sense of victimhood. when a young friar from Angola rerninded him that Africans must not
It is the
underbelly of the mentality of the Free World, the resentment think of themselves as just victims. What can be done in Angola and the
that
freedom has not always given the happiness which we had been prom_ Congo to begin walking on the wal to fteedom? That same young friar,
isccl. People feel themselves to be victir.r.rs of prejudice, Zeca, runs an organization which is helping to rebuild Angolan society
or histor 5 or their
genes, or their upbringing. A particular characteristic of modernity, after the traumas of war,
from Northern Ireland to the Middle East, is the serse of mutual Jesus chooses. Tliis is the sort of freedom that first comes to mind in
vrc-
tinrhood, where everyone claims the status of victim. people even our societ)'. lt is the freedom of the market place, to choose between
talk of
'tlrc competition of victimhood,:,l am more of a victim than you are., alter natives: Pepsi-Cola or Coca-Cola? Iror some people choices are very
This is not to den1, that there ar.e people rvho are profbuntliy victinized, reduced. In many countries women, for example, cannot choose not to
.rr.h,r. clril.lrerr ulto rrr.r,*oltl lirl sc.rrr.tl crl,loit:rtiorr,,rrr'l ,,,o,rrcn irr have sex with men who are Hlv-positive. But the Church will only be a
Iu,lll\' |.lrts ol-th(' \r.orld. llrrt th., Chrtrch airn ncvcr ircccpt
thtt iult,one is cradle of gospel freedom if we are seen to stand beside people, support-
l/i.rr .r victim. Freedom begins when ireople grasp the choices thar ing them as they make moral decisions within the range of what is
they
can rnake, even if they are extremely limited,
even if it is just to get up in possible, rather than making decisions for them.
the rnorning. If one passively accepts victirnhood then
one clies] People will not be drawn to the Church if ntoral teaching is seen as .iust
Prino Levi explained that in Auschwitz survival depended telling people what they must do. Rightly or wror,gll that would be seen
on something
as sntall as washing. For a rvhile, he gave up. What wai
the point? The water as an infringement of our autonomy. The European Values Study identi-
rvas dirty and so it was a waste of time. His life was saved by hes 'individualism' as perhaps the key characteristic of the modern Euro-
Stcinlauf, a
fcllow prisoner, who exprlained tlrat if he clid not, then
t,t. *ul; nnirt .i, pean.rJ This puts a stress on the supreme value ofthe individual's right to
take decisions about his or her life. We cherish the freedom to decide our
\Vc are.slaves, deprived of every right, exposed
to every insult, con- moral values. This implies the re.jection of excessive interference by any
clerrned to certain death, but we still possess
one power,'and we must institutions, whether the Church or the State. According to the Study, the
dcfend it with all our strength for it is ih" lust _ th.
po_". to refus;our young do look to the Church for spiritual guidance, but overwhelmingly
corsent. So we must certain]y wash our faces without
soap in dirty deny any Church any right to personal interference in people's private
rvrtcr and dry ourselves on our jackets. We must
polish our shoes, not lives. A religion which conflicts with personal autonomy will be rejected
lrcc,rusc thc regulation states it, but lor
dignity and proprl"ty. Wa n.,urt by most modern Europeans and, at least implicitly, by many Catholics.
walk crccl, without dr.agging our fect, not
in to,"A" ,o lrurriun Ultimately, our deepest freedom is to do the will ofthe Father, but perhaps
discipline but to renain alive, ancl not begin
to die.rr that is grasped at the end of the journey and not the beginning.
Secondly, the Church must accept just how complex are the choices
Our images of Africa are often of a continent
of victims, millions of that people face in the modern world. I once had the privilege of spend-
chiidren with swollen bellies and beggir.rg_bowls.
And it i; ,;; ;lr, ing a weekend with senior executives of a major petroleum company.
Afr.ica is crucified by Western ..ol,o-i.
p"oli.i"r, t.nd...i"rg.* They wished some other outsiders to listen in on their discussions about
""a
rnd even developrnent plans. Ilur lve denigrare,i.."",l
the moral decisions they faced. I had had no idea before of the complex-
.llhli:1]*'a.U,
nerl rr we rmprrson its peopls in that image of victirnhood.
At a meetirrg ity of the issues. How should one balance obligations to shareholders
t) Op. cit.,p.47.
ll p.5.
 16 l4/,hat is the Point of Being a Christian?
LearningSpontaneity 39
against those to employees? How does one balance making profit
a and to learn, and to open our minds and hearts to those who have arrived
respecting the environment? Christians in their moral Iives ar.e
faced at conclusions with which we disagree.
with tough choices for which the Church,s teaching may not have clear
St Thomas loved the Gospel text which says that we should call no one
and easy answers. If someone is divorced and they meet someone
they master, for we have one who is in heaven,I noticed that the brethren also
love, then should they marry again or not? If someone is gay, then
must seemed to like this text when I was Master of the Order, for it appeared
their lives always be lived alone? Because it is frightenilg to have to think
to crop up in the readings with suspicious frequency! Thomas under-
our way through these issues, pray about them, study them in the light
stood that it is God who teaches through grace in the depths of the
of the teaching of the Gospels and the Church, then the temptation is
human heart and mind. All that a human teacher can do is to accomPany
either to do what one likes, or for the Church to snatch at a quick answer.
people in their exploration, sharing what we know in friendship. Josef
'fhe Vatican is always being
begged to resolve noral dilemn.ras and then Pieper expresses Thomas's view in this way: 'A friend, and a prudent
being blamed if it tries to do so. Choosing is a hard but necessary part
of friend, can help to share a friendt decision. He Joes so by virtue of that
bc'coming free.
love which makes the friend's problem his own, the friendt ego his own
Lven when Christian teaching seems clear and unanrbiguous, we (so that it is not entirely "from outside").'14 We have to become that other
nrust still be prepared to enter into the complexity of peoplet lives as
person, enter their imagination and share their dilemmas, before we
they struggle to discover what is right. Let us take abortion. The whole
share our teaching.
CIr ristian tradition witnesses to the I ejection of alrortion. Accorcling
to Pope John Paul II wrote in Fidei ef R4tto: 'lt must not be forgotten that
the Letter to Diognetus, it was already recognized in the second century
reason too needs to be sustained in all its searching by trusting dialogue
.rs ()ne of the ways ir.r which Christians were strikingly different froln
and sincere friendship. A climate of susPicion and distrust, which can
tl.rcir neighbours: 'They rnarry, as do all [others]; they beget children; of the ancient philoso-
beset speculative research, ignores the teaching
bLrl they do not destroy their offspring.'It is almost inconceivable that
phers who proposed friendship as one of the most apProPriate contexts
thc Ohurch will ever regard abortion as permissible. But this does not means that one
for sound philosophical enquiry."t Friendship sees
nrciur that we Christians can simply close our ears to what those who
through attentive to their experience, takes seriously their
people's eyes, is
are in favour of abortion wish to tell us. It is precisely because we
may intuitions and their doubts. When the Church aPpears to teach from on
bc confident in the fundamental truth of our tradition that we have
n<r high, r'emote from the struggles ofordinary people, then she is not teach-
nccd to be afraid of using every effort of the mind and inragination to
ing at all. Denys Turner, a Cambridge professor of divinity, wrote:
Lrnderstand their position and see what we can learn from it. As the
great Bishop Butler said at the Council,'Ne timeamus quocl veritas ter_
I cannot imagine what else a teacher, or for that matter a Preacher,
ilati noceat', 'Let us not fear that truth can endanger truth., If we are
should do, except to remind people of their capacity for the infinite . . .
attcDtive to the truth ofwhat thev say, that can only help us to see more
Jesus told us that we are not to call oarselveJ teachers, and God help us
clearly the truth of what we belir ve. Novels like Ciler House Rules by
if, in our teaching and preaching, theologians should add anything of
lohn Irving and films hke Vera Drake help us to enter into the com_ our own which does not contribute to that evincing of memory, that
plcxity of the lives of those who make choices about abortion. The
eliciting of nostalgia, that desire for the Spirit. All teachers know this
truth is simple, but unless it is the simplicity that has passed through
humility, this diffidence in practice, for they know that when they have
the complexity of hunan experience then it is a childish sinplicity a
tauSht well the students will spontaneously say: 'Of co urse' - they rec-
str ident and inhuman simplicity, rather than the simplicity that we
ognize, as if recalling, a truth no longer the teachert, because now
dinrly glin.rpse in God. Those who feel that the truth of our teaching
commonly possessed and shared,r"
nrust be protected with denigration and violent attacks on others may
rvell be ilsecure in their convictiot.rs, ti-ightered to hear the other side
in clse they begir.r to doubt. It is precisely when \,ve are n)ost con6dent 14 The Four Carrlitral yirtles, Nolre Ditme I966, P. 29.

in the teaching of the Church that we should be most fr-ee to listen and 15 Section 33.
l6 li?i//r .srcftirg, I-ondon 2000, xi.
 40 What is the Point of Being a Christian?
LearningSpontaneity 41
When God does give commandments, then they are
given in the beautiful about this story is that the wonan makes of him a victim.
context of friendship. When Moses encounters God on
the mountain to Instead of denying it he embraces the accusation and claims the child as
receive the Ten Commandments, then he is not meeting
the cosmic law_ God's and his own. He is free.
giver but the Lonl used to speak to Moses face to facelas
one speaks to
a lriend' (Exodus 33.11). And when lesus gives the disciples
iis new
coramandment, it is because they are his friends: ,you are my
friends if Spontaneity
yoLr do what I command you'(John 15.14). Friends
have obligations to 'This is my bodl given for you.'This was Dot just a solitary action which
each other that do not so much constrajn as bind them
togeth; It is the lesus might or might not have done. The Synoptic Gospels show that
obligation of love rather than law.
everything that tesus had done before was leading up to this. The calling
So it is only in friendship and proximity tltat the
Church can be with of the discipies, those meals with pr.ostitutes and publicans, the multi-
tus l.s we face moral dilemmas and nrake ci.roices.
It is only thus thal plication of the loaves, all those events are seen to culrninate in this
people may hate the confidence to make choices tl.rat are
creative and creative act, the foundation of the community of ChrisCs Body. Without
libcrating, which go beyond the obvious alternatives and
discover what it, all the preyious story of his life would make no sense. All the freedom
is_ncrv. On that last night Jesus hacl few options open
to him, and nole which Jesus had showr.r in forgiving sins, touching lepers, transcending
of them seemed good. He could rvait and die or fjee and
be humiliated. the laq all culminate i,r this act of utter freedom. When one reads the
In either case his life rvould appear to be a f-;rjlure. There seemed
to be no whole story of the Gospel, then there appears to be a certain inevitabil-
coorl choices to ntake. But he:rcted creatively. He grasped
tltis betrayal, ity about it, that one could never have guessed beforehand. It is both
anil nade of it a gift. He transformed the disintegration
of the comrrru_ what he rn ast do and what he mostteely does.
nity into the gifi of the new covenant.
Many of us find that we have few options. But choosing Ifone thinks, as our society tends to, that freedom is just about choos-
is more than ing between alternatives, then one's life becomes just one choice aller
hovering between alternatives. With Godt grace invigoraing
our imag_ another. If one makes the wrong choice, then one can just go to Confes-
ination, we can choose creatively, opening up possibllities
oi which we sion and have it erased. Three murders and two impure thoughts this
hild never drermed. We can grasp our fate and make
it a blessing. We can week no problem! Start again. Ofcourse we all stagger to the sacrament,
discover freedom when it had seemecl impossible.
I -.t u *o."un in th.
I)hilippines who suffers from leprosy. She has asking for our sins to be wiped away, and emerge feeling cleansed: and
spent nost of her life in
one of the leprosaria that the Dominican brothers so we should. But if we remain stuck at that level, thinking of our moral
of St Martin run. lives as just successive good or bad acts, then we shall remain morally
lndeed, many of the brethren are themselves
leparr. Euan *h.r, ,fra *o,
cui ed, she did not dare to go out and see infantile. Our personal history is not, as Henry Ford said of history in
in people,s .y., th.i. f*i una
disgust she was imprisonecr by her scars. And general,'just or.re damn thing after another'. As we saw in the last chapter,
trren she discovered that
Ircr ,.lrsease could become her nrission. Slre we make sense of our lives by finding a story to tell of them. The story
began to travel around Asia,
visiting leprosaria, encouraging people to leave that we tell shows who we are. Our identity is grasped as we rewrite our
their prison, u,Jir.'fr...
'l he story is personal autobiography as we grorv older. So when we make major deci-
told of a medieval German Dominicon ,,.,y.,i,,.ul.a
13lcssed Henry of Suso. A woman sions, then we are deciding the direction of our lives, and the story that
who had an illegitimate;i;i;;;
may ultimately be told of them. We are making decisions about who we
hi-s doorstep and spread the rumour
that l.,".,rurih" fo,h;;;;r;;"..",,
all this without a word. He saicl to the child:,My ale and not just what we do.
U."utif,,t .t,liJ,'l .r"ltt If one thinks that morality is about submission to rules, then one will
talc r:are of you, for you are God's child and
rrine too.,,, f ,t;;;; k"rrv
rvhrrt the brethren made of itl Neeclless tre able to assess the quality of a moral life by how many times the rules
to say, the wo'ran wl-i ;;;;;O
by this that she revealed his innocence before have been obeyed or broken. But the older tradition which we 6nd in
she died. What is so
theologians like Thomas Aquinas thinks in terms of the movement of
i7 l),)nald Nicholl, H{,/i,ess, l_ondon t98t,p.35. onei whole life. The story that we are invited to tell of ourselves is of the
journey to God fror.n whom we come. Ethics is about becoming strong
 12 What is the Point of Being a Christiad
lor the journey home. The virtuous life is one that helps us to keep on
moving in the right direction. 'Virtus' means literally 'strength', strength
for the journey. The cardinal virtues - courage, temperance, prudence
ancl justice - help us on the way. The theological virtues - faith, love and
lrope - give us a foretaste of our arrival.
The typical modeln way ofbeing religious is, as I have suggested, to be
a pilgrim, like Momo and Oscar. Modern people are searching, travel-
ling, not quite sure what is at the end of the journey but, at least inter-
nrittcntly, on the wa)'. We nrust be with them, helping people to discover
t hc tleedom of the road and glimpse the goal of all our journeying. The
Church must offer a pedagogy of freedom which is about nore than
mrking the right choices. It is becoming a moral agent whose life is dis-
co\ !.red to have a shape and meaning. We wlll only be able to do this if
$'t irrc rvith people rvhere they arc, not telling them u,here they ought to
bc. \\re cannot be like the person who rvas asked the way to Dublin and
rvho repiied,'If I wanted to go to Dublin, then I rvould not start here.'
\\lherever we are, in whatever confusions or messes we find ourselves,
I h is is the starting point of the journey home. It is no good telling
people
thirt they slrould not be divorced or remarried or livir.rg tvith a partner or
whele tl']ey are now. When the good Don.rinican, St Anton-
girv. We treglin
inus, Archbishop of Florence, asked Cosimo de Medici to ban all priests
frlnr gambling, he replied wisely,'First things first. Shouldn't we begin
iry banning them from using loaded dice?'r3 Samuel Beckett wrote; ,To
find fbrm that accommodates the mess, that is the task of the artist.'r,
That is also the task of a pastor. In whatever mess we may be living, a
stoly can be told that will make some sense of it, and a story that leads
to the Kingdom.
\\then 5t Thon.ras looked at the moral life, he began by asserting that
rve ale ntade in God's own image, and so we are intelligent ancl free, and
thc source of our own actions.zo Becoming virtuous, then, is not about
suirmifting to external constraints. It is about acting from the very core
of one's being. It is being auto-mobile, self rroving. We rnay begin life
fecling that physically we are sports cars and end up feeling like ancient
lolrics, but in the mor al life, hopeful\, it is tlre other way arouncl. When
wc lhink of freedom as choice, then it is something that we have. We
nrLrst identifr a deeper heedon, which is being who we are. Rabbi Hugo
l8 l)iul Slrathern, ?Jr. h4edici: GoLllalrcrs of th. Rc,rdirsdr.(, Lonc]on 2003, p.
l9 (luoled in ?i?,r.i /.;r'nry S
lplotrcnt, 15 t.I.It cl1 2OO2.
l(l Sl', Prologus 1i.2ae.
LearningSpont^neity 43
Gry.n wrote that in Auschwitz there was a radical transformation of some
ofhis keyvalues, including that offreedom. He wrote,'Freedom is some-
thing you and I consider that we haw, and if you are imprisoned, it is
taken away. But in the camps, freedom became what you were, and, this
shaped the attitudes you formed to your situation and your destiny.'2'
The virtues are roads to freedom, and our deepest freedom is spontan-
eously to do what is good, because it is what we most deeply desire.
Often one is given the impression that an action is especially virtuous if
it is hard work. That the person who manages to resist having another
bottle of wine by an immense effort of will is rnore virtuous than the
person who happily knows that he has had enough. But that is not what
Aquinas thought. The virtues help us towards the freedom of easily and
effortlessly doing what is good, as a good player can spontaneously
snatch a goal without having to calculate all the angles and trajectories.
His whole body knows what to do. A top-class footballer bends the ball
without hardly thinking about it.
Of course we need rules and commandments, iust as a pianist needs
scales. But they are only there to teach us freedom, and to remind us of
what we most deeply desire. Herbert McCabe wrote, 'Ethics is entirely
concerned with doing what you want, that is to say with being free. Most
of the difficulties arise from the difliculty ofrecognizing what we want.'22
The Ten Commandments are not an external constraint on our freedom:
they tell us who we are. If I feel myself being carried away by a sudden
desire to murder the Prior, then'Thou shalt not kill'reminds me that I
am his brother, and I do not really want to kill him, much. I would only
feel remorse if I did. Regret is being sorry for what one did in the past.
Remorse is discovering that one never really wished to do it at all.
Spontaneity is the fruit of being single-hearted.
So spontaneity is not doing the first thing that comes into onek head.
lt is acting from the core of one's being, where God is, sustaining one in
existence. Think of the utter spontaneity of fesus. He sees the disciples
on the shore and l.re calls them. He had not made a mental note to find
some disciples, and then considered whether these men might be suit-
able candidates. He sees the rich young man, and he loves him without
hesitation. I{e sees Zacchaeus up the tree and immediately he says,
'Zacchaeus, nake haste and come down; for I must stay at your house
today' ( Luke 19.5). lesus often acts with speed. Like Captain Jack Aubrey,
124.
2l llugo Gryn with Naorni Gryn, C/rnsirg Sfiddows, London 2000, p. 233.
22 Low,l.ave a d Lang age,p.61.
 44 lMhat is the Point of Being a Christian?
LearningSpontaneity 45
in the novels of Patrick O'Brian,,There is not a nroment to be lost., ln
is fieer than if one had just two brands. But when one has grown into
Pasolinit'The Gospel According to St Matthewl lesus is in a perpetual that deeper freedom which is spontaneity, it may become the other way
bustle. It is not that he is hurried, but that his actions are unh.rituting
around, There are just a few cleep and fundamental choices to be made,
and sure. Think of the contrast between Judas, whom l imagine waver_
and these are concerned with becoming free and happy in God. There
ing in confusion, drifting into evil, arrd lesus who is utterly in every act, is
one single long-ter m goal, which shapes one,s life and gives it coherence.
incarnate in the deed. He is fully in what he does. Cl.rrist in us makes all
So one has to opt for certain choices because they are simply part
our actions ours.'The just man justices; keeps grace: that keeps all his of
being oneself. Think rgain of /esus. Rowan Williams argues briiliantly
goings graces."'
tlrat his deepest freedon wirs that he could do no other than the Father's
For us, such spontaneity is the fruit ofa deep travail, of rebirth. Think
will.
of the Franciscan in Auschwitz, Maxirliliarn Kolbe. One day in the
summer of 1941, three prisoners escaped from the concentration camp,
There nay be turmoil at the level of feelings, a keen awareness of the
so the Gestapo decided to kill ten prisoners in return. When these were
cost, a shrinking from what lies ahead, but there is no ultimate uncer_
lined up, Father Kolbe suddenly stepped forward and pointed at one of
tainty. And this does not mean that Jesus is somehow spared the awful_
thc' men, who was mar ried and had children, ancl took his place.
Kolbe ness of human decision in the face of terrible risk and agony only that
wls cxecuted. It rvas the spontaneous act of a deeply ti.ec person. It tool<
who he is is what settles the matter once and for all. He is completely
years of small good acts to learn to do that, making mistakes
and trying free to be himself As a matter of fact, it is unthinkable that he should
again, practising the scales of spontaneity.
refuse his calling - it is only abstractly possible in so much as any
Donald Nicholl, then director of the Ecumenical Institute of Tantur,
human beir.rg can, in the abstract, say yes or no to anything. But this
tells a story of how one day he was out jogging near
Jerusalen, and as he does not reduce his freedom; instead it establishes what is the most
wcnt around a corner he met a group ofyoung Muslim workers. He was
important freedom of all.,s
past them in just a couple of seconds but one of them had
the spontan-
eous reaction of popping into his hands a bunch of raisins,
shouting,you Mark tells us time and again that the Son of Man must go to
.rlc thirsty.' Nicholl gives this as an exanple of ,that cleep sponta-neity ferusalem,
where he must suffer and die. In embracing this necessity
characteristic of holy people who do not simply react, Iesus is
suier.hcially, but supremely free, because what he must do expresses who he most deeply
lather.respond immediately from the depths of their being,
from the is.
heart'.ra WhenI read that, I realized that same morning I hJ done the Entering into that freedom, which is Christ,s own gift, requires that we
opposite. While I was in the church for my time of meditation
before be liberated from the wrong idea of God. We must destroy the idol of
Mass, a very dirty old man came up to me and produced from his pocket
God as a big, powerful person, usually thought ofas male, who bosses us
rr glLrbby okl digestive biscuit, which he attempted
to give me. I was so around and tells us what we must do if he is to like us. We must get rid
irritrrtcd at.being disturbed at my prayers thai immedlately
I said ,No, of the God who opposes our freedom, and keeps us trapped in iniantile
llr;rrrl, you.' llc tltcn gave it to a Dominican sister
beside nte rvho zubrnission. So many peoplet lives have been crucified by worship of
.rcc cptcd it graciously. I was dceply
ashamed, He had come with his small
tiris alien idol. We must discover the God who is the source of freedom
gilt ;rnd I had refused it. I used to wait for him
to come and hope that I bubbling up in the very core of our being, and granting us existence in
might bc given another chance. I was not,
every moment.
It is usLrally
assuned iu our consuiler world that the more
choices one Paul Murray OP wrote a poem called ,The Space Between':
has, the fieer one is. Ifone can choose
between telt rort, ofb"". tha,l on"

( ie'rard Mirnley ltopkins, As kingfishcrs

catch fi re,, Cotilplett poen$, Oxfor(l tg4.,
1'. 95.
or..ir., note t4, p. 149.
25 Sile cc rrfid llotiey Criftcs, Oxford 2003, p. 55.
46 What k the Point of Being a Christianl Learning Spontaneity 47

What happened was for me
A kind of miracle
Like being suddenly able
To breathe under water
The astonishment at finding
It possible again to believe
And at firding the space
To breathe and breathe deep
Between the word'freedom'
And the word'God126
'l hcn our acts can be coutpletely ollt' owr.l, utterly with external con-
straint, what we most deeply wish and delight to do, and also most
Lrttcrly God'.s acts, because all that I do springs from being rooted in
(lod. There is no competition.
The freedom to give away one's life
At the Last Supper Jesus performs the freest act in hun.ran history. He
gives away his life:'This is my body, given for you.' It appears an almost
recl<lc'ss act, placing himself in the hands of his disciples, the very people
rvho will betray and deny him, and run away from him. It ever.r looks like
the loss of all freedom. The various levels of freedom tl.rat I have
described trace a path like a boonerang, curving around the freedom of
choice and coming back again. For the freedom of choice is the most
obvious sort of freedom, the ordinary model which we immediately
understand. Spontaneity looks like a loss of choice; it is being free to do
what mrlst be done. And he began to teach them that the Son of man
rrr.rsl suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders and the chief
prirsls and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again'
(N1ark {t.31). But his deepest Eucharist freedon, giving us his body,
brirgs us back to fudas and his betrayal, which is grasped firrnly and
gcnerously.
llo\v cilt we dare to throw .twily oLrr livcs? Might they not just be
wasted on some silly cause, or trampled upon as without value? Will
even the Church always respect the gift we make ofourselves to her? The
test of whether this self-gift is free is whether it makes others free. Does
it build the communion of the liberated? Jesus gives away his life so that
we might be liberated.'For freedom Christ has set us free'(Galatians
5.1). Freedom is never just individual, the consurrer hesitating between
alternative products. Freedom is the space in which we flourish together.
The freedom of spontaneity is founded on the communion between
God and humanity which is the foundation of our existence. The
freedom of giving our lives away aspires to the communion of all
humanity in the Kingdom.
James Mawdsley is a remarkable young man who went to Burma to
protest against the tyranny of the government. He chained himself to a
building in Rangoon, distributed pamphlets and played tape recordings
denouncing the reginle. He was imprisoned for a short while until the
British Ambassador came and negotiated his release and put him on a
plane home and told him not to be a silly boy. But he came back again
and again, and each time spent longer in prison in solitary confinement.
He wrote, 'Mankind is one body. We cannot move forward except
together. We cannot leave Parts of our body behind. None of us is free
rrntil we all are free.'27
No one can be really tree if anyone remains a Prisoner' Nelson
Mandela is a man who gave away his life. He let an ordinary married life
slip through l.ris hands fol the sake of the whole peoPle. If he were to
become free himself, then he had to work for the liberation of all South
Africans, black and white. He wrote in The Long Road to Freedom,
In that way my commitment to my People, to the millions of South
Africans I would nc ,er know ot meet, was at the exPense of the people
I knew best and loved most. It was as simple and incomprehensible as
the moment a small child asks her father,'Why can you not be with
us?'And the father must utter the terrible words: 'There are other chil-
dren like you, a gr€at many of them . . .' and then one's voice trails off
. ..1 found that I could not even enioy the Poor and limited freedom
I was allowed when I knew that my peoPle were not free. Freedom is
indivisible; the chains on any one of my people were the chains on all
of them, the chains on all of my people were the chains on me.23

27 '1
fu l-leott Must lJrtdk: Bto nd - I)etlnt:racy drrl 7irlrr, l,ondon 2001' P l16.
lar Trfrc B/ark Sro^, Dublin 2003, p. 52. 28 'l lrc Larywalk k) Irr*/orrr, l-ondon 1994,p.750.
 48 V/hat is the Point of Being a Christian?

This sort of freedom costs. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the great

Lutheran
theologian who was hanged by the Nazis, wrote in the introduction
to
his Etlzics: 'Not in the flight of ideas but only in action
is freedom. Make
up your mind and come out into the tempest of living. Freedom,
we
sought you long in discipline, actions and suffering. Now
as we die we
see you and know
you at last, face to face.,2e Handing oneself over to
others includes daring to'come out into the tempest of
l-ivingl It includes
throwing oneself into the issues and the questi,ons that prloccupy
our
peopie, and being with them in their struggles
to act righi. lt is ,efusing
the saf-ety of hanging back. It means taking the risk
of"wading into the
ocean and getting out of one,s depth. This is dangerous.
It lost Bon_
hoeffer life, and it will at the very least cost us o."ur sleep sometimes.
hi.s
If we are free with this freedom, then people will ask whai might
be its
secrct root-

29 [:lri.s, ed. Eberhard Bethge, London 1955.