At the heart of the encounter, springs the truth

To assert oneself by agreeing to step aside, such is the secret of these encounters where the truth springs forth. Pastor of the parish of Saint-Eubert in Lille, Father Benoist de Sinety discovered a meditation that expresses well the jubilation of these roads where brothers in humanity, so similar and so different, cross.

Will we run out of energy when every day we are told of the possibility of collapse? There again, not to flee, but to remain. To remain at the heart of this humanity tossed about by the pride of those who think they know and the cynicism of those who want to reign. Once again, like Mary and Joseph, walking through the twists and turns of the roads where the cohorts intersect, without requiring any treatment other than that of the common. Without losing sight of the One who drives desire within them, they make their way. They are only what they are because they are there, surrounded, immersed, surrendering. We never affirm what we are so much as by agreeing to step aside. Erasing oneself, not disappearing, but allowing oneself to be confused. Because it is at the heart of this encounter that all singularity springs, that the Truth is revealed: not what I am, but what is revealed in, by, with me.

“With our brothers in humanity…”

A text found on a bench, at the end of a session, one summer in Greece, where philosophy, theology and scripture meet, and written by a hand that remains anonymous, expresses this well:

“We can recognize that each of our Churches confesses the same living God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. With our Christian brothers and sisters, we confess that the one God is Father, beyond everything and everyone, Son approaching everything and everyone, and Holy Spirit, within everything and everyone. In all our Churches we celebrate the one and thrice holy God as a mystery of infinity and closeness, of communion and communication, of tenderness and justice. For the common faith that dwells in us, we rejoice.

With our Jewish brothers in humanity, we confess that God is the Creator of the universe and that he is the Holy. And unlike them, we confess that the Creator became a creature and that the Saint became incarnate.

With our Muslim brothers and sisters in humanity, we confess that God is the Almighty, the Perfect, the Immortal. And unlike them, we confess that the Almighty accepted to be fragile, that the Perfect bore our imperfections and that the Immortal, through the death and resurrection of Jesus, transfigured our mortality.

With our Hindu brothers and sisters in humanity, we confess that God is the indescribable One. And unlike them, we confess that his Unity is multiple and that the multiple world is not reabsorbed into the One.

With our Buddhist brothers and sisters in humanity, we confess that ultimate reality is inexpressible. And unlike them, we confess that the inexpressible has expressed itself, not as an impersonal “emptiness” but as a personal being that has “emptied” itself of itself. »

With, and differently

Thus, with the religions of the East, we confess that God is Silence and Breath. With the Jewish and Muslim religions, that God is Word. And differently from all, we confess that God is at the same time Silence, Word and Breath, that the silent Source became word, that the Word became flesh and that by the Breath of the Word, all flesh can become an animated word in praise of God beyond all.

With our brothers and sisters on the African continent whose religion of ancestors and various animist cults shape and direct the relationship to the world, we confess that mineral, vegetable, animal and human are animated in a common creation. And unlike them, we believe that this can be lived, not in any law of defiance but in a daily alliance of benevolent freedom.

With our brothers and sisters in humanity without religion and goodwill, we confess that human rights are inalienable. And unlike them, we confess that the human is the image of the divine.

With the Apostle Paul and all Christians of all times, we confess the divinity, incarnation, death, resurrection and elevation of Jesus, Son of God, recognized as Messiah, come and coming. And this common confession rejoices us intensely. »

Yes, to walk in the heart of the world, in search of this jubilation which is born from the encounter: jubilation of being with, intimately with, deeply with.