W dniu dzisiejszym byłem dość zajęty. Przed południem po raz pierwszy odprawiłem mszę w domu opieki społecznej dla grupy kilkorga starszych ludzi, którzy stanowią w tym ośrodku niewielką katolicką mniejszość. Uczestnicy tej skromnej liturgii, choć w mocno podeszłym wieku i zmagający się z różnymi dolegliwościami, byli jednak wyjątkowo pogodni i bardzo wdzięczni za możliwość uczestniczenia w Eucharystii. Przy tej okazji przypomniała mi się moja niemal dziesięcioletnia posługa kapelana w Zakładzie Opieki Leczniczej na Tarchominie. Sprawiła ona, że mam w sobie dużo szacunku i sympatii do ludzi starszych. Stosunkowo łatwo przychodzi mi nawiązywanie kontaktu z nimi, choć w dniu dzisiejszym odbywało się to w języku angielskim. Tuż po obiedzie miałem spotkanie z Betty, emerytowaną nauczycielką angielskiego, która dzisiaj uczyła mnie, a przynajmniej próbowała uczyć, wymowy dwuznaku "th" w jego wersji soft i hard. Chwilami było zabawnie. Betty twierdziła, że sobie dobrze radzę, ja miałem jednak odmienne odczucia. Nie da się ukryć, że wymowa to moja pięta achillesowa. Po lekcji fonetyki angielskiej spędziłem kilka godzin na poprawianiu tekstu o humanizmie chrześcijańskim, który na prośbę ks. Tadeusza wygłosiłem wieczorem na spotkaniu modlitewnym, które odbywa się w parafii regularnie, w cyklu miesięcznym. Prowadzi je ks. Tadeusz wraz ze świeckimi animatorami RRN. Niestety, nie nauczyłem się tego tekstu na pamięć, dlatego co chwila musiałem zerkać do kartek, przez co zabrakło w mojej wypowiedzi pewnej płynności i spontaniczności. Bardzo nie lubię korzystać z notatek, wolę mówić z głowy. Dziś jednak nie było to możliwe, dlatego trochę się męczyłem, gdy wygłaszałem ten, wcale nie taki prosty tekst. Moi słuchacze chyba nieco też, zwłaszcza, że kilka razy zaplątał mi się język przy wymawianiu takich słów, jak np. "unilaterally" czy "irreversibly annihilated". Dla tych, którzy znają angielski, zamieszczam poniżej obszerne fragmenty mojego tekstu.
Christian humanism
On the Ash Wednesday, during the rite of the
imposition of ashes on
the foreheads of the faithful, the
participants of the liturgy hear the words: "You are dust and to dust you
shall return". These are the words that can be found in the third chapter
of Genesis. How should we understand the meaning of these words? Well, I
believe that we cannot understand this sense without citing other words that
appear in the second chapter of the same book: "Then the Lord God formed
man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of
life, so that man became a living being". As we can see the sign of ash
refers us to the wonderful image of creation which shows that a human being is
a magnificent unity of matter and spirit. To this special human status of man pointed
many Christian thinkers who,
recognizing his metaphysical
"involvement" in the matter,
saw in man something much more than
merely a collection of material atoms. One of them was certainly Blaise Pascal, who wondering
about the nature of human existence,
wrote these important and famous words:
“Man is only a reed, the weakest in nature; but he is a thinking reed”. So, according to Pascal
and to the whole Christian thought
spiritual dimension gives special value to man, is the source of his personal dignity. In the history of human thought,
however, appeared two extreme tendencies that treated human person unilaterally, degrading either the value of
his bodily dimension or his spiritual dimension. One of them was a notion, sometimes called spiritualism,
who belittled human body. Proponents of
this view alluded, not always consciously,
to the doctrine of Plato, who argued that man's soul
is trapped in the body and that the primary objective of man is to free himself from the bondage of the body. The main way of expressing of this idea
was and still is the contempt for
what is material and temporal. This contempt was manifested
in various manners, ranging from an almost grotesque behavior,
such as in the attitude of some of the
Greek cynics who
were advocates of extreme forms of
abnegation, to the behaviors directed against human body,
treated almost exclusively as a source of sinful desires.
They included radical methods of mortification, which in fact was quite drastic
forms of self-mutilation, for
example, medieval flagellants processions. The other extreme
view which looked at man witch one-sided
perspective was materialism. According
to materialism, man is only
matter, just the
body. For supporters of materialism
with the death of a man follows the total destruction of human existence - a
specific person ceases to exist,
is irreversibly annihilated.
Life and death of a single man is,
according to them, just small episodes
in the development of matter. In the entire universe they
are actually events of no great
importance. It is hardly surprising that followers of this materialistic worldview, such as, for example, Stalin
and Hitler, such a small value granted to the existence of individuals, and so easily justified the extermination of millions of people. Of course, neither materialism nor spiritualism
are compatible with the Christian
vision of man, according to which
a man is not only
a body or only
a spirit, but the unity of spirit and matter. Integral human development requires that
for the sake of higher values we are not allowed to neglect the care of lower values.
This is evident in the attitude of Jesus, who on the one hand emphasizes the primacy of
the spiritual values over the material
ones, for example, when he says: "But seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things will be given you
besides", but on the other hand also
shows concern for
material things, for example,
when seeing the fatigue of his disciples, encourages them to give rest to their body: “Come away by yourselves to a deserted place and rest a
while.” About this concern also testifies the miracle of the multiplication of the loaves and fishes that Jesus did in order to feed hungry people. The whole teaching of Jesus and his
attitude testify to the fact that
the Christian doctrine about man
is an integral vision of man, which takes into account both the spiritual dimension of his existence and its physical dimension
as equally significant and important. All the more, the coming to the full knowledge of the truth about man
is not possible without Jesus Christ.
He said, "Without me you can do
nothing". I believe that in the context of efforts
to know the truth about human nature we can understand these words as
follows: "Without me you cannot understand yourselves." This is the premise of Christian humanism which we were
repeatedly being reminded by John
Paul II. Let me quote
now a passage from his homily, which he delivered in 1979 in Warsaw, during his first pilgrimage to
his homeland. At that time Poland was still in the
dark period of communism.
In my country this sermon is considered a life event, a groundbreaking
moment in our history, because it
awakened in us, the
Poles, the will to fight for
freedom, for the right to the presence of religion in the public space “Man cannot be fully understood without Christ. Or rather, man himself
cannot fully understand himself without
Christ. He cannot understand who he is, nor what is its proper dignity, nor
what is his vocation and ultimate
destiny. He cannot understand
anything without Christ”. At the end I
would like to cite also another quote
highlighting that the truth about man we can discover
only in relationship with God, only turning to Him. This quote is taken
from an interview with Fabrice Hadjadj, French writer
of Jewish descent, philosopher and former atheist, who in 1998 experienced
the strong religious conversion and
was baptized in the Catholic Church. In this interview he said, among other things, these words: “By the very
fact of the Incarnation, Christianity is focused both on man and on God. Turning to God,
we come to the mystery of man. In Christianity there is no competition
between God and man. Because God is the
Creator. The closer we approach the Creator, the closer we approach His creation”.