Reflecting on
this and other events - for me things just in my own life, small ones to larger ones, I am noticing more and more anger and resentment everywhere and I bet you are likely experiencing this as well. The world seems to be suffocating under this "air" of madness - of resentment - of having to justify myself by attacking another. One can almost feel, if one stops long enough from our own efforts of projecting-off-of-ourselves-this-same-resentment, the increase in density that this resentment has grasped us by. Listening to what René Girard teaches from his understanding of the Gospel he uses the term "ressentiment:" meaning a suppressed desire for revenge that carries over into perpetual judgment against the other describing this human tendency that so often leads us into acts of sinfulness and violence.
It becomes difficult for those who seek to understand, as they are found whirling around faster and faster in this vortex of ressentiment, especially when they self-identify with the victimizing group, to listen to and to learn from it. In countering such desire for revenge, a helpful approach is to recognize the deeper roots of ressentiment. These roots are found in our tendency to make scapegoats out of others, a tendency to project blame for the ills that afflict us onto the other. Instead of being about the activity of flinging revengeful and hurtful ressentiment we need to be about bringing a level of calm and groundedness that can only be birthed from a conversion, daily if not in each moment - a death of the self enmeshed in the swirling vortex of violence (Good Friday) to a resurrection of new life (Easter).
THIS is Easter!
At one level, Easter is a personal conversion and resurrection from a life based in self-centeredness where we are brought to a moment of recognition - where we can see the "old self" based in a false individuality linked to the contours of the scapegoat mechanism vividly displayed in our own heart. It seems to me that such recognition is what Girard appreciates about some scriptural texts like the
Joseph cycle from Genesis. This model of recognition provides an example of a preparatory step that may be necessary for our personal Easter - our personal resurrection into Christ. It starts first with the recognition of own "old self" grounded in the ressentiment of the scapegoat mechanism and then the experience of our conversion - a personal grafting of our self into the New Creation as St. Paul writes in Galatians 6:14-16
(The New Jerusalem Bible):
But as for me, it is out of the question that I should boast at all, except of the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. It is not being circumcised or uncircumcised that matters; but what matters is a new creation. Peace and mercy to all who follow this as their rule and to the Israel of God. After this, let no one trouble me; I carry branded on my body the marks of Jesus. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit, my brothers. Amen.
This is a life journey of daily conversion - it is making the personal choice - the YES of Mary - to being members of this new creation - it is living Good Friday to Easter moment to moment.
The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit.
(I)t is a good thing to belong to a Catholic Church. It keeps you from getting too provincial in your outlook ... to be a member of a Church which is as wide as mankind, and therefore to be able to remind yourself that not everybody thinks as you do; other people have their own national way of looking at things, just as you have yours. It helps you, I mean, not to be provincial-minded, if you belong to a Catholic Church.
