Second in a series
REFLECTING LAST semester on the insights of personalist philosophers such as Martin Buber, Gabriel Marcel, Emmanuel Mounier, John Macmurray and Father W. Norris Clarke, S.J., in a course entitled “Personalism” at St. John’s University, I came to see in a new way how inspiring some of the insights are. I think the insights have helped me to see more deeply into Christian mysteries by helping me to see more deeply into the mystery that a human person is.
I have also come to see in a new way that a person’s self-image can greatly influence that person’s image of God, and a person’s image of God can greatly influence a person’s self-image.
If I were asked to make some kind of summary statement about the dignity of a human person, specifically what makes a human person so special and unique among the creatures on earth, I would say that there are two truths that reveal how special a human person is to God. I think of these two truths as two of the most profound insights we have into the mystery of person.
The first truth is that every person is infinitely loved by God. A person does not have to win, earn or merit that love. It is pure gift. We don’t even have to ask for it. No matter what we do, God will not stop loving us. That is one of the most awesome truths that I know. Believing this truth should enable people to experience profound joy and profound freedom. The Creator of the universe desires a love relationship with every person. God wants this relationship not only with Catholics or Christians or theists, but also with every person, even agnostics and atheists. I think this truth is mind-boggling.
The second profound truth is that every person is called to be a gift-giver. The main gift that a person is called to give is the gift of himself or herself to God and to others. A person has no choice whether to be called or not to be called. Every person is called. This is the way that God has made us. Because every person is called, every person is irreplaceable.
No one can make the gift that Robert Lauder is called to give except Robert Lauder. This is true of every individual. There are no substitutes. So if I do not give the gift that I am called to give, namely myself, then that unique gift is not given. No one can replace me.
Let me make this as strong as I can: If I do not give the gift of Robert Lauder, not even Jesus can replace me or stand in for me. Jesus can make His own gift – and thank God because His self-gift redeemed the human race – but He cannot give my gift. If I do not make my self-gift, then that gift is not given. It is irreplaceable.
In his book, “Person and Being” (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1993, pp. 119) Father Clarke quotes a wonderful statement from the great Thomistic philosopher, Jacques Maritain:
“To be an actualized human person, then, is to be a lover, to live a life of inter-personal self-giving and receiving. Person is essentially a ‘we’ term. Person exists in its fullness only in the plural. As Jacques Maritain puts it with profound metaphysical and experiential insight in one of his most luminous passages:
“Thus it is that when a man has been really awakened to the sense of being or existence, and grasps intuitively the obscure, living depth of the Self and subjectivity, he is discovers by the same token the basic generosity of existence and realizes, by virtue of the inner dynamism of this intuition, that love is not a passing pleasure or emotion, but the very meaning of his being alive.
“Thus subjectivity reveals itself as ‘self-mastery for self-giving…by spiritual existing in the manner of a gift.’” (pp. 76-77)
Jesus of Nazareth is the perfect example of someone living spiritually and “existing in the manner of a gift.” Whatever our role might be – whether as a priest, doctor, lawyer, secretary, laborer or any other role – the basic vocation of every person is the call to be a gift-giver. The rich and the poor, the geniuses and the intellectually challenged, those who are healthy and those who are sick, the young and the elderly, fetuses and the senile, all are called.