By Robert J. Schreiter, CPPS

Precious Blood spirituality is rooted in the great things that God has done for us in Christ. The Bible uses a variety of terms that try to capture our experience of what the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus means for us. The term "redemption" is the one most often associated with the blood of Christ in the letters of Paul and in the Book of Revelation: we have been redeemed in Christ's blood. The image that would have been vivid for those who heard the message of Christ's redemption was one of having been freed from slavery. The term "redemption" that Paul used was also the technical term for buying the freedom of a slave. Christ's blood was the means by which this freedom from sin comes. "Redemption" might also be translated as "liberation." We are freed, we are emancipated from the state we were in up to that time.

To think of the blood of Christ as that which frees us from sin and so makes us part of God's family is a time-honored part of Precious Blood spirituality. We are freed to become more than we have been. Yet there is another tem also in the Pauline letters, that is closely associated with the spirituality of Christ's blood: reconciliation. While it does not occur frequently in the New Testament, it can give us a distinctively different angle of vision on our spirituality. In Colossians we read, "For in Christ all the fullness was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile all things for God, making peace by the blood of his cross." (l, 19-20) And, in Ephesians, "But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have become near by the blood of Christ. For he is our peace, he who made both one and broke down the dividing wall of enmity." (2, 13-14) In Second Corinthians, Paul sums up the vision of reconciliation:

And all of this is from God, who has reconciled us to himself through Christ and given us the ministry of reconciliation, namely, God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting their trespasses against them and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation (5, 18-19)

What does reconciliation mean in these texts? What angle of vision does reconciliation give us on a spirituality of the blood? And what is this "ministry of reconciliation" that has been entrusted to us? This article tries to respond to these three questions.

WHAT RECONCILIATION IS NOT

In order to get at the meaning of reconciliation in the biblical texts, we need to begin by clearing away certain understandings of reconciliation that obscure its biblical meaning. Specifically, there are three ways of talking about reconciliation that we frequently encounter in our day-to-day living that can get in the way of our appreciating what it means in the New Testament.

First of all, biblical reconciliation is not about reaching a truce and make a hasty peace. Reconciliation as understood in conflict management (as, for example, in labor negotiations) is not what Paul is talking about. Similarly, reconciliation in a marital crisis, where a couple agrees to set aside their hostilities and try to live together, is not what Paul has in mind either (although the Greek word he uses was a technical legal term in the divorce courts of his day). Biblical reconciliation is not about managing conflicts. The peace who is Christ, spoken of in the Ephesians passage above, is the peace that God gives. It is more than the suspension of conflict.

Second, we often think that the evildoer has to repent before there can be reconciliation. Or, as the question was once put to me, "How can you be reconciled with people who don't think they have done anything wrong?" While repentance would seem to be the logical and necessary step to take place before reconciliation can occur, this is not the understanding in Paul's letters. As we shall see, the process is exactly reversed: reconciliation comes before repentance.

Third, we usually think that forgiveness of the evildoer has to happen before there can be reconciliation. Because Jesus' insistence on our forgiving others, people who have been victims are urged into "Christian forgiveness," usually too prematurely. Biblical reconciliation is certainly about remembering and taking into account the evil that has been done and the havoc that it has created, but paradoxically it is not about first forgiving and then reconciling. Once again, the order is reversed: first reconciliation, then forgiveness.

All three of these common sense understandings of reconciliation, then, do not fit what Paul is talking about in the New Testament. This could lead us to ask: if non of the ordinary understandings of reconciliation holds here, is Paul talking about the same kind of experiences where we see a need for reconciliation? Paradoxically, the answer is yes. Paul's understanding of reconciliation addresses the most profound experiences of alienation that cry out for reconciliation:

• When we have been abruptly abandoned by a parent, a spouse, or someone else we love;
• When our love and trust have been betrayed by someone close to us;
• When we have been abused, physically, sexually, or otherwise;
• When we have been victims of a crime against our person;
• When our lives have suddenly been altered by forces outside our control through death, accident or reversal of fortunes.

On a larger scale, situations where violent and repressive dictatorships have ended, or civil wars come to an end, or where whole peoples suddenly find themselves as refugees are all situations where reconciliation is Paul's sense is being called for. Paul is expressly concerned with the reconciliation to God, but in his sense of cosmic reconciliation (alluded to in the Colossians passage above), all the different kinds of situations just referred to here are included.

If Paul then is talking about the same kinds of situations that need reconciliation, but is presuming a different process by which it is reached, just what does he mean?

WHAT RECONCILIATION IS

Too often our talk of reconciliation is prompted by our uneasiness with the enormity of what has been perpetrated and our anxiety about the conflict that it represents. J Calls for reconciliation are a way of getting evil out of our sight and, we hope, out of our minds and hearts. But the biblical understanding of reconciliation looks the evil squarely in the face and deals with it. Just what is this kind of reconciliation?

It begins not so much at the deed as at the damage it has wreaked upon the victim. All of the situations mentioned above damage us by cutting us to the very core of who we are. They all abuse the two things that do the most to make us human: our ability to trust and our ability to love. To abuse these is to tell a very different story about ourselves as to who we are. The ability to trust and to love are built up over a lifetime. To have these stunted deforms us as human beings. We close ourselves partly off from others. We bury those memories deeply because they are too painful to face ourselves because they shout a different story about who we are. They say, "You are not worth trusting. Your are not worth loving. You have failed in trust and in love."

In situations of sexual or physical abuse, this story is inscribed on our very bodies. Victims of torture experience this most profoundly. To eradicate ourselves from this mire of misery can seem a hopeless task. And sadly, many people are never able to arise from it.

Paul says rightly that it is God who brings about reconciliation, not us. Only God can truly understand the enormity of what has been done to us. And so our attention must remain on the consequences of the deed for the victim. God restores the humanity that has been ripped away from us. Victims experience this as a welling up of grace in their lives, a graciousness of trust and of love. It seems to come from nowhere. And it is a trust and a love with no strings attached. It says at once "You are worth trusting with this grace. You are worth loving." Although there has been betrayal in the past, a new beginning has been made. Often victims at this point find a new point of reference in their lives, outside themselves. Being able to trust and to love again, they can also care again. They can call upon God, who alone grasps the enormity of the evil done, to forgive his torturers from the cross (Luke 23,24). Note that Jesus does not forgive them: they have done something that only God can forgive. Stephen does the same, no doubt in imitation of Jesus (Acts 7, 60).

So it is God who forgives, and through the restoration of the humanity of the victim, makes it possible for the victim to forgive. The reconciled victim then is empowered to be an agent of that reconciliation in the world. It is remarkable how these reconciled person, now no longer victims, both exude a peace and carry on a healing work among those around them. It is best summed up in the words of Joe Seramane, a South African. He struggled against apartheid in his native country, for which he was imprisoned and tortured. He underwent such a process of reconciliation, and has now served as the director of the Justice and Reconciliation program of the South African Council of Churches. He says, "It is through reconciliation that we regain our humanity. To work for reconciliation is to live to show others what their humanity is."

One of the chief tasks becomes the restoration of the humanity of the evildoer, whose humanity has been deformed and diminished by evil deeds. It is the forgiveness that the reconciled victim can now show that might dray the evildoer to repentance, a repentance that shows that God has now touched the evildoer and offered the grace of reconciliation.

So Paul's understanding of reconciliation means that God is the agent, not ourselves. God--the same god who consistently cares for the little ones, the marginalized -- begins with the victim, who can in turn become the agent of God's reconciliation in the world. Such agents of reconciliation embody the peace of God -- not nervously arranged truces, not repression of unsettling memories -- which the Bible describes as the experience of God's presence as graciousness, as love, as trust. This is one way of describing the word the Bible uses, shalom.

What results out of God's reconciling work is not a return to how things were, but to what Paul and others in the New Testament call "a new creation." Reconciled persons and societies are different now. They are literally "magnanimous," "big-souled." There is something very different and very special about them. They have a transfigured view of the world that allows them to see things that are obscured for the rest of us.

As on might conclude from this, reconciliation is more of a spirituality than it is a strategy. This is often hard for people to hear who thin learning the right technique can solve any problem. For people who have come back to the truth about themselves (and have therefore not stayed with the lies foisted upon them), and so live an abide in truth, reconciliation becomes a way of life, a mission, and a vision of the world.

RECONCILIATION AND PRECIOUS BLOOD SPIRITUALITY

What does a spirituality of the blood look like when viewed through the experience of reconciliation? To go back to the Scripture passages cited earlier from Colossians and Ephesians, God has reconciled the world through Christ, making peace through the blood of his cross. It is in Christ that god offers us reconciliation. It is reconciliation inscribed on Jesus' own body. He experienced abandonment by the Twelve, he was tortured and cruelly executed. Yet in the vision of Luke he experiences God's presence, his Father's presence, and calls upon his Father to forgive, and then commends his spirit to his Father. The reconciliation that Christ offers to us, as the peace of God, Jesus gives us through his own experience. In asking God to forgive and engaging in an act of trust, we find Jesus himself within the circle of reconciliation. The tender heart of grief, disappointed and abused, becomes, in John's version of the story, the source f new life: water and blood, baptism and eucharist.

The peace who Christ is for us comes through the blood of the cross, Colossians tells us. That blood carries two profound meanings that open up the view for us upon our spirituality. First, it is the blood of suffering. Through the suffering of Jesus, who knew no sin, the enormity of all the evil in the world is taken up. Thus the pain we undergo in betrayal and abuse is taken utterly seriously by God. It is not forgotten. But it is transformed. Again, the body of Jesus, in John's account, bears witness to that. The risen Jesus appears to the disciples utterly transformed, but the wounds of his torture are still there. They are not discounted or glossed over. But the become for Thomas a source of life, of faith in Jesus. They are no longer just wounds.

Which brings us to the second meaning the reconciling blood offers our spirituality. It is the blood of new life, the new creation. As a symbol of the very life of god within us, of the shalom of God, it both points to and nourishes the vision of a reconciled humanity. Best envisioned in the cup of blessing, it praises God and looks to the fulfillment of all things in Christ, when all will be reconciled in and through him (Ephesians 1, 17-20; II Cor 5, 17)

In Precious Blood spirituality, reconciliation marks out the space between the covenant and the cross, between the center of our lives and its margins. A spirituality of the covenant emphasizes themes of belonging: God has made us a special people through Christ's blood. Covenant is about commitment, about care, about hospitality. It creates a life-giving center where people are valued and celebrated. It is a true sanctuary in our lives: a holy place a place of refuge.

A spirituality of the cross begins "outside the gates," in the garbage dump where only the marginalized, those who do not belong are found. The cross marks the place of their suffering and their exclusion. A spirituality of the cross is a spirituality of solidarity and witness: solidarity with the victims and witness to the injustice that is being perpetrated. It is a spirituality of waiting and attending to those who suffer.

The twofold meaning of the reconciling blood as the blood of suffering and the blood of the new creation give shape to a spirituality of reconciliation. We have seen how God's reconciling activity takes place in, first, the life of the victim, and the life of the evildoer. But what is a ministry of reconciliation? What is it for those of us who may not have suffered deep harm in our lives, yet know God's love?

THE MINISTRY OF RECONCILIATION

Not everyone has been wounded so deeply as to have the full experience of reconciliation described above. But Paul's point in his writing is that, in sin, we have all undergone it. The experience of God's loving and gracious presence in our lives is an epiphany of that reconciling grace. We all share in that, through baptism. We live it out in spiritualities of the covenant, the cross and the cup. But what does a spirituality of reconciliation bring to all of this? And how is the ministry carried out?

It must be remembered that it is God who brings about reconciliation, we only assist in it. To that end, in the same passage from Second Corinthians, Paul calls those who exercise the ministry of reconciliation "ambassadors" on behalf of Christ. Our ministry, then, just be a witness to what God is working toward in and through the world. The ministry of reconciliation takes place in the space between covenant and cross, between the sanctuary and desolate place outside the gates. It is fund on that pathway from sanctuary to cross, the Way of the Cross, the Via Dolorosa, the path of sorrow.

There are so many people in our world that are being driven along sorrow's pathway, bearing the burdens of their humiliation and anguish. Ministers of reconciliation, like the women disciples in the passion story, accompany those so burdened, realizing that they cannot lift away their sorrow. But like those women, they can be with them all along the way, offering small comforts, sharing their grief. And once outside the gates, the victims are not abandoned.

Similarly, if we, as ministers of reconciliation, go the entire way in solidarity and care like the women who did not abandon Jesus, we also know the way back to the sanctuary, to the center. We can accompany those have suffered on their journey back to the center. By having stayed with the victims in their time of desolation, we can be part of their finding their sanctuaries.

What does such accompaniment mean concretely? While we cannot bring about reconciliation ourselves, we can help create the conditions that make it possible. Along that Way of the Cross we can create stations of listening and care. Part of the healing process of many victims is repeating over and over the story of what has happened to them. It is as though that is the only way to break the grip of the lie on their lives. Their story must be repeated over and over until it can be told a different way. By listening, we help create the conditions for experiencing trust and, in turn, trusting once again.

Another way of engaging in this ministry is creating communities of covenant where belonging and trust are visible and celebrated. Victims welcomed into such communities get a glimpse of the reconciliation that awaits them.

Struggles for justice are part of this ministry. To acknowledge the wrongdoing done and to lament it, like the women along that first Way of the Cross, is to recognize the enormity of what has been done, and not let it be twisted into a lie that presents itself as the truth.

The ways of the Cross in our world are many. They run not just from Jerusalem to Calvary, but through the streets of our cities and towns. They run through our very homes. As ministers of reconciliation under the sign of the blood of Christ, we move between covenant and cross, between the place of the sanctuary and the desolate place outside the gates. Without the cross, the sense of belonging in the sanctuary can wither to a mere coziness. The vision of reconciliation, and the ministry along that way to the cross and back into the city, grows out of a deep conviction that God is reconciling the world, even though it is apparent that there is still so much deeply wrong with it. Those who were far off can be brought near. Those who have been deeply alienated from themselves and others once close to them can regain the most precious elements of their humanity that have been taken from them. There is a new creation, flowing from the wounded side of Christ. (John 19, 34)

The Wine Cellar: An Anthology of Precious Blood Spirituality
October 1994, Volume 1, Number 2. Pp 5-15
Printed by Trojan Press, Inc, North Kansas City, MO

Permission to copy by the Kansas City Province, Society of the Precious Blood

KCPov@aol.com