Recently, I was talking with a friend about elements of our Catholic faith that do not get the attention they deserve. One of those is that the Catholic faith holds many apparent opposites together in a creative tension that helps us better understand and express truth.
As one wise priest said, “We are a people who have come to live with mystery, with the ‘both … and’ of the seemingly irreconcilable, able to stand there on the threshold of truth.” We cannot oscillate between the poles of “both … and,” holding first one part of the couplet and then the other, no matter how rapidly we might try to do so.
One part of the couplet is just a half truth, or, better stated, not the fullness of truth. We must hold both at the same time in the creative tension of an isometric exercise for the truth to shine through. Jesus is both God and man. Mary is both virgin and mother. The kingdom of heaven is both here and not yet.
The reality of “both … and” is not just an intellectual exercise. F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote: “The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function. One should, for example, be able to see that things are hopeless and yet be determined to make them otherwise.”
We must live and move in the liminal space between the opposites. At a recent funeral, the homilist encouraged family members of the deceased to live in that space holding both the incredible grief of an unexpected and premature loss and the hope that comes through baptism in Christ that those who die with Christ will also rise with Him. Faith and God’s grace sustain us.
Catholic social teaching has its share of “both … and” couplets. We speak of both fundamental rights and responsibilities, both solidarity and subsidiarity, both the right to private property and the universal destination of goods, both justice and charity.
Pope St. John Paul II’s definition of the common good had its own “both … and” couplet. In Sollicitudo Rei Socialis, the common good is defined as both the good of all and the good of each individual.
Our perspectives on public policy issues as well as our advocacy work must consider the full truth of “both … and.” Thus, our advocacy on immigration accepts both that a nation has the right to control its borders in furtherance of the common good and the right of human persons to migrate so that they can realize their God-given rights.
Consequently, nations should receive migrants fleeing war, famine, poverty, oppression and human trafficking to the extent possible. (See Strangers No Longer, Together on the Journey of Hope, A Pastoral Letter Concerning Migration from the Catholic Bishops of Mexico and the United States, 2003, paragraph 39.)
Justice and charity are an inseparable couplet. It has become somewhat fashionable even in certain sectors of the Church to belittle justice as an ugly stepchild in charity’s family. Pope Benedict XVI states in Caritas in Veritate that justice is the primary way of charity, meaning that giving each person what belongs to him or her by right is the first step toward showing the unconditional love and concern required by the Gospel.
Even our pastoral practice must account for living in the “both … and” space. The Gospel of Life calls us to care for both the mother and the unborn child at the same time. We reach out to both the victims of violent crime (and their families) and to the offenders with our care.
This week, let us try not to run from the liminal space between the “both … and” of apparent opposites, but rather live joyfully in that creative tension that reveals both truth and God.