.png)
At our Parish, we are encouraged to enter into a culture of invitation. On one level, it’s about welcoming and bringing people into the family of the Church, at a social and interpersonal level. At a deeper level, though, God himself has his own culture of invitation that beckons us to a more private and silent place. In the Old Testament book, The Song of Songs, God is described as a lover who gently woos his beloved into the place of intimacy, the bridal chamber, where the beloved freely and unashamedly unveils herself in his presence. The Christian mystic, Saint Catherina of Siena, longed for the consummation of her mystical marriage to Christ and the pure joy that would ensue from that union.
There is another culture that lurks in the shadows, it is a culture of coercion. In this coercive culture, our feelings are not innocently invited, but are purposely provoked in order to make us manageable. It is a devious parody of the enticing love of God. Saint Paul alludes to this when he says in Ephesians 6:12, “For our wrestling is not against flesh and blood; but against principalities and power, against the rulers of the world of this darkness, against the spirits of wickedness in the high places.” Jesus ran into this situation when the Devil tried to coerce him, to sweet talk him during the three temptations of turning stones into bread, bowing to Satan, and putting God to the test. Temptations are usually quite well-packaged sales pitches and are designed to appeal to our vanity. Coercion can be so subtle.
The final place that the culture of coercion wants to lead us into is not to the place where we are free to be intimate and express our love for our beloved, but to the place where the coercer can rub his hands with glee and hear his words coming out of our mouth. Our freedom has been leached out of us and has been replaced by the talking points we’ve been fed.
At our Parish, the culture of invitation has a goal of rescuing people from the various cultures of coercion that they find themselves mired in, and introducing them to Christ, their beloved, who longs for them to experience the true freedom of an intimate life in God.
Authors
Adele's Photography
