Myth inspires creative vision and dynamic action. It is not a monolithic and closed system; but a beckoning forth, an opening out, within a mythic horizon which liberates the individual, integrates experience and provides a unifying paradigm for life. John Claude Colin's development of the Marist root-metaphor in terms of eschatological vision has been little understood. This is because 'the communication of a vision is not a showing (of pictures - of reality) but a communion (in seeing - the universe): in other words it is simply and profoundly a myth.
We must try to see with him ... in communion ... not to agree with all his world-bound ideas but to link up with his universe and to share his myth with his kind of passion. This seems to us a crucial enterprise for a proper - and hermeneutic -interpretation of Marist charism today. At a time when the structures are collapsing (or have collapsed) how much more important to return to drink from the purer draughts of the mythic vision.
Age of Mary
We have already seen how Father Colin takes Mary's words - 'upheld the Church at its birth; I shall do so again at the end of time' - not as some form of benign promise, but as a way of interpreting the world and in invitation to become involved in that world's redemption. Briefly, we can say, that although the world is perceived as ill there is nonetheless a powerful, albeit hidden, force at work. Appearances deceive. In God's design Mary is playing an eminent role in the cosmic unfolding of creation.
The hermeneutics of memory and hope enables Father Colin to interpret his world according to a higher perceptual reality. His starting point is neither Nazareth nor Pentecost, but Mary's hidden presence in a universe stretching from the Church's birth to the eschaton. Such presence is dynamically operative today for those who have visionary eyes to see mythically:
We are now in the age of Mary. Yes indeed, for this is an age of indifference, unbelief, an age of crime, false learning, of this earth. Nowadays the inhabitants of the earth are bowed towards the earth, stuck to it, breathing for it alone. That is why in these last days she has appeared with her hands stretched out towards the earth with her hands full of rays, which stand for grace being poured upon men ... Mary intends to cover the whole earth with her mantle.
Work of Mary
In an early Cerdon sermon, Father Colin wrote of Mary: On earth she is the glory, the honour, the restorer, the home of humanity. She is the refuge, the defence, the support, the advocate, the light, the strength, the recourse of the militant Church. (APM 241.42)
The expression 'Work of Mary' is common to all three Marist founders. What is involved here is a perspective, a starting point, that is quite prior to and infinitely surpassing all the branches of the Society. It is Mary, her work, her mission, that
provides the basis of reflection. Only then, in further reflection, can we understand why the Society of Mary exists, what its mission is meant to be and the reason for 'the gratitude we should show to Mary for having chosen us to spread her Society' (Founder Speaks 78.2). Never at any point is the Society, or any of its works, to be considered a;-end in itself - the Society is only ever a means to a greater reality, the work or mission of Mary.
We now find ourselves returning to Le Puy and to the recorded words of John Claude Courveille, those he heard Mary speak -not with his bodily ears but with those of the heart, interiorly but very distinctly: 'Here is what I want ... in this last age of impiety and unbelief, it is my wish and the wish of my Son, that there be another Society to battle against hell, one conÂsecrated to me, one which will have my name, which will call itself the Society of Mary, whose members will call themselves Marists. (OM 518.5)
As history has shown, it was through John Claude Colin rather than John Claude Courveille that these words became Word. The Society of Mary takes its name and place as the symbolic expression of Mary's own desire, intention and mission. This is why, for Father Colin, Mary and the Society which she founded, although distinct, cannot be separated. The work of Mary and the work of the Society are, in this sense, one and the same; the Society exists as true symbol of Mary (always less than her but, noneÂtheless, always participating in the totality of her work).
Consequently it is never enough for Marists to model themselves on Nazareth and Pentecost alone - this is the memory without the hope and the absence of the dialectic. Mary's work encompasses her presence-among-us now leading the Church into the future. This important and hope-filled eschatological dimension, so central in Father Colin's mythic unfolding of Marist charism, is what the Society today must seek to retrieve, reinterpret, recreate. Needless to say, this is a profound hermeneutic challenge; it means becoming involved in a process of transformation.
Transformation and Utopia
To accuse Father Colin of heralding a 'process of transformation' and being a 'utopian thinker' might at first appear to be exaggerating his contribution. It immediately puts him in the same category as another of his century whose 'dialectical procedures' captured the imagination of the world. Obviously John Claude Colin was no Karl Marx from a number of points of view: his starting-point was the reality of Christian revelation; and his articulation was never systematic or, strictly speaking, intellectual. However, at the level of vision and in a Christian faith context Father Colin was a utopian thinker who advocated change according to a dialectical process.
Sociologist J. Seguy has defined 'utopian thinking' as a way of looking at a present situatign by comparison with an idealized past which becomes the model for a projected future. For Father Colin the 'idealized past' is captured in the memory of the early Church, while the projected •utopian future' will be at the parousia. This universal view of the Christian Church is in tension with the present situation. Unlike Karl Marx, Father Colin does not focus on the criticism of the present, but he does see the Society of Mary's role precisely as an 'agent of change'. His starting-point is not an intellectual process but his belief in Mary who forms one reality with the Church and is guiding it to be 'at the end of time as it was in the beginning.' Because Marists share in Mary's universal mission they are inspired by her 'dialectical' perspective.
Perhaps though it is important to allow Father Colin to speak for himself. There are many texts which we could cite. The following are selected from all the periods of Father Colins life from Cerdon to his final statement (recorded) before his death:
Our aim is nothing less than to make the whole world marist. (FS 1 & 2)
Hidden and ,unknown; that is the way to take over everything. (FS 119.9) Mary intends to cover the whole earth with her mantle. (FS 189.2) The Third Order in my eyes must be an immense association to embrace the whole world, (OM 846.18)
I have a great ambition: to seize hold of the whole universe under the wings of Mary by means of the Third Order. (OM 846.36)
... that there would be at the end of time what there had been at the beginning — 'cor unum et anima una': that by means of (the Third Order) all the faithful, all who remained in God, would have but one heart and one mind... (OM 427.2)
The Pope too; he is the one we want for our head... Our under—taking is a bold one; we intend to invade everywhere. (OM 427.2)
The general aim of the Society is to contribute in the best possible way, both by its prayers and its efforts, to the conversion of sinners and the perseverance of the just, and to gather, so to speak, all the members of Christ, whatever their age, sex or standing, under the protection of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God; and to revive their faith and piety, and to nourish them with the doctrine of the Roman Church, so that at the end of time as at the beginning, all the faithful may with God's help be one heart and one mind in the bosom of the Roman Church and that all, walking worthily before God and under Mary's guidance, may attain eternal life. For this reason, entry to the Society is open to laymen living in the world in the Confraternity or Third Order of the Virgin Mary. (AT Text 1, p.83, n.109)
Let us take courage and work hard, but always 'ignoti et occulti' ... The Society must begin a new Church over again. I do not mean that in a literal sense, that would be blasphemy. But, still, in a certain sense yes, we must begin a new Church. (FS 121.1)
Much light has already been brought to these texts and their place in the thought of Father Colin. Insofar as it is valid to make a distinction, it is not Colin the legislator but Colin the visionary who is speaking here. It is evidently a vision that encompasses the totality of Mary's work in the Church and for the world. The Society of Mary, implanted (by Mary) in this Church and world, exists only in reference to a reality—ideal that totally surpasses it: the anticipation and preparation of a Marian people — or 'nothing less than to make the whole world Marist.' We are dealing with a transformational and utopian reality.
Two extremes need to be avoided in our interpretation. Firstly, it would be a mistake to Bisect the Colinian world into two worlds — as if his utopian vision was limited to the Third Order (noting how history seemed to decide the impracticality of such long ago); and the implication that he had a far less visionary, less eschatological and less adventurous view of the Society proper. It is the same cosmic, mythic and eschatological world in which he situates the one Society in all its branches:
The Third Order is not an essential part of your congregation; but the Blessed Virgin entrusts it to you like a bridge (the expression is not my own) to go to souls, to sinners... At the end there will be only one kingdom, the kingdom of the Blessed Virgin. (OM 846.36)
Father Colin, in speaking his vision, constantly vacillates between the 'aim' of the Order proper and the 'reasons' for the openness of the Third Order — but they both spring from the same source, namely the mythic demands of Mary's universal—eschatological role in salvation. Since Mary's empathy, compassion and mercy must reach all, her Society —in one or other branch — must 'be open to people of every kind' (FS 2.2). Yet, no branch exists for itself, but only in relation to the new—Church—being—born of which Mary is image, model and type.
Secondly, it would be an unfortunate legalistic, literal, non—mythic and invalid interpretation of Father Colin's vision if we read it as 'outside of the Society of Mary there is no salvation', and saw our main aim in life as drumming up recruits for the Society and Third Order. There is not any intention of dismissing other redemptive paths which are outside the realm of the Society. How contrary this would be to Father Colin's insistence that we were the least, most humble and lowliest of all congregations and whose only aim must not be ourselves but the work of Mary entrusted to us, the Church we are asked to serve, and sinners to whom we are sent to be instruments of salvation. Father Colin's vision calls for a great degree of selfless—ness and a paradox by which marists, like Mary, disappear into the work of building up a new—born—Church.
In an attempt to depth our understanding of this Marist paradox at the heart of Father Colin's eschatological vision for the Society, hermeneutics directs us, once again, to a structural approach in the study of myth. We do this in the context of a utopian perspective. Structural Approach To Colinian Myth
The Marist paradox can be explained or described in terms of the polarity in Father Colin's grand—scale utopian vision and his emphasis on hidden and unknown mythic activity. In fact, close analysis reveals two sets of polarities: the first at the cosmic level of the universe; the second at the historical level of Marist activity.
Appearance and Reality
Here we begin not with Marist charism or even with Mary herself. Rather, we begin with the world as it is, or at least as it appears to be. What we find is the universe in chaos... a universe of indifference, unbelief, crime, false learning. In a certain, rather powerful, sense this is the real world and the Church as it really is 'in situation' at a time of great political, social, cultural and religious upheaval.
Though we may, today, disagree with some of the reasons or criteria by which Father Colin indicted the age in which he lived, we could scarcely be more optimistic as to the signs of chaos in our own time, including here the scientific victory which has taught us how to split the atom and to flatten-out reality for our easier analysis. Indeed, as Father Colin saw, this is only reality in this flat, 'one-dimensional sense'. Hidden behind these appearances is a deeper truth which opens us to the heart of mystery. Of course, this is the power of God at work and its reality is open to any religious believer. In the context of Mary's promise it told Father Colin that reality was tri-fold dimensional - founded on memory, built on hope and active in faith. This is the myth's structure, not the 'factual real' but the 'really real', the reality behind the appearance.
The salvation content of the myth is effected by Mary's presence. Against the 'limit experience' of the earth's chaos we are presented with the 'liminal experience' or 'faith reality' of the cosmic world: this is the age of Mary as it was in the primordial time of the Church's beginnings; 'cor unum et anima una'. The appearance of historical time gives way to the deeper reality of eschatological time where 'Mary covers the earth with her mantle'. The polarities within the universe are two world-views - one tragic, the other salvational. Their reconciliation is in the hidden, mythic power of Mary, Mother of Mercy. The world and Church take their true identity in what they are called to be - a Marian people.
Myth establishes not merely a 'world-view' which reconciles apparent contradictions, but also an 'ethos' for behaviour built upon the mythic premises. Mary's silent dynamism, her hidden and unknown mission, become the source of Marist mythic activity. Inevitably this will rehearse the paradox at the heart of Mary's own salvational role; it will also wish to embrace the 'whole world' following on from Mary's own universal-eschatological place in God's salvific plan.
Disappearance and Creativity
The polarities operative in the Marist world of action can be summed up by the use of the terms 'Disappearance' and 'Creativity'. On the one hand there is the emphasis on the hidden values and an unassuming approach in the apostolate; on the other, the challenge to renew the whole Church and to build the kingdom by preparing the Marian people. This is the paradoxical basis upon which Father Colin must have confused poor Archbishop de Pins of Lyon when he wrote to him that 'the Society will be at once both universal and diocesan' (OM 264.4).
The ambivalent attitude that Father Colin seemed to have towards bishops all his life is finally explicable only in terms of the mythic demands by which Marists must be always and simultaneously fully immersed in the local Church and people with a dynamic sense of mission doing Mary's work. For Marists the utopia will not come about through rousing speeches or a noisy revolution; and yet a revolutionary trans-formation of the Church is equally what they are about.
Marist creativity is of this disappearing kind and explains Father Colin's insistence on self-effacement. His terminology may be out of vogue today relying, as it seems, on a fairly negative understanding of human nature which would make us the 'refuse of the world' (1872 Const. N.50) - we should, however, remember that he is only agreeing with St. Paul whose phrase it is. What is more important is to see the total picture. The Colinian insistence is on the radical voting out of greed, pride and the desire for power - 'The Three 'No's' Of Father Colin' - in order to 'remove all obstacles to the bearing of greater fruit in the vineyard of the Lord' (AT h.5). What may seem a negative is in fact a positive, enabling the dynamic, if secret, power of grace and transformation to be the cornerstone of our lives and ministry; our mission demands it.
The disappearance-creativity paradox is equally present as tension in the Colinian insistence on Marist life being a life of prayer and a life of action. They are not two separate activities, but one mode of being. Henri Nouwen captures this in his sculptor analogy: The image of the sculptor offers a beautiful illustration of the relationship between contemplation and ministry. To contemplate is to see, and to minister is to make visible; the contemplative life is a life with a vision, and the life of ministry is a life in which this vision is revealed to others.
Father Colin, as Henri Nouwen, would have us be Michelangelos: to go beyond the appearance of the block of stone to see the salvational reality of 'David' or 'Moses' within; but we need work with care, constancy and creativity, in a selfless and disappearing way, so that the true reality will be unveiled, disclosed. Perhaps the 'Pieta' is a better image, for there behind the stone the truth-power of God's salvation is imaged in the death of Jesus as in the compassionate eyes of his mother, Mary.
It is especially the memory-hope dialectic that reveals the true, if hidden, structure of reality - the operative power of God's grace and mercy. It is Mary who symbolizes (fully participates in - but the reality, of course, being greater than her) in a most profound way this hidden power of God at work - and despite all appearances to the contrary. God's work, Mary's work and Marist work exist in dynamic inter-relationship beckoning forth and opening out towards the silent centre of the world's mystery. This is the reality behind the appearance and the creativity through dis-appearance that the Marist myth rehearses in Marist mythic activity. Hopefully, this is illuminated by our structural method. Perhaps though the myth can even tell us more about the 'silent centre'.
Mercy Is The Structure Of The Real
The Marist universe of John Claude Colin's mythic vision, symbolized (and begun) in the Jerusalem community and reaching fulfillment at the eschaton, is based on the principle of mercy. Myth's claim is to go to the heart of reality, what we have called the 'silent centre': the Marist myth says its ultimate structure is mercy, not justice. In Father Colin's words: 'This is the kingdom of mercy; mercy here is boundless. Justice will take its course in the next world.' (FA 385.2). There is no need to linger here on the theological inadequacy of Father Colin's thought with regard 11 to his notion of Kingdom of Mercy and its discrepancy with God's Justice. In fact, Father Colin's mythic-poetic perception of a distinction between mercy and justice, although expressed crudely by him, has a profound scriptural and theological basis to which we will return.
Before proceeding to a hermeneutics of mercy we must try to see it, as best we can, through the vision and actions of Father Colin himself. The attempt is to allow ourselves to be taken into his myth which tells us that, here and now, it is boundless mercy which saturates the heart of reality. Mercy is the basis of reality.
'Hidden and Unknown: that is the way to take over everything' (FS 1.2). Immersion and Mission. Disappearance and Creativity. Whatever name we call it by, such a paradox is at the centre of the Colinian eschatological vision - and not simply because Father Colin found it an effective apostolic principle, nor even because his scriptural exegesis reveals this to be the mode of Mary's historical role in the Jerusalem community. These aspects become important, even central to Marist life -but only because they flow from the deeper reality-principle of Mary's universal, salvific role. The eschatological vision places Mary's presence among us now preparing a new type of Church and a transformed people where God's kingdom is already-now breaking through. For Father Colin, Marists cannot rest until this time fully arrives - they will, like Mary and with her, labour for its completion while always realising that they must do so, as Mary, 'ignoti et quasi occulti'.
In an early Cerdon sermon Father Colin spells out Mary's creative and universal mission in context of his mercy—principle:
She is the haven of salvation, safe and forever open, wherein the soul, tossed about in waves of tribulation, recovers its calm, he who despairs, confidence, the afflicted soul, peace, the sinner, mercy, the just, a shelter against all the storms that would jeopardize his integrity... She is a mother who in her tenderness is more of mother than all mothers on earth, the mother of all Christians for whom she underwent at Calvary all the pain of child—bearing, whose motherly heart is forever open to all, and whose boundless charity extends to all the ages of the new covenant, to all nations and to all peoples, comforts all miseries, meets all needs, grants all prayers. (APM 241.42)
The mythic application is succinctly expressed by Father Colin: Mary as the 'Mother of Mercy'; marists as 'instruments of Divine Mercy'. But the mercy—principle is bigger than the Society of Mary; rather, it stands as a powerful, provocative and integral re—formulation of the Colinian eschatological vision of reality. Mary, as the Mother of Mercy, is intimately involved in the world's redemption because the structure or silent centre of the real is the mercy of God.
The implication for Marists is that the mercy—principle must not only saturate their apostolic activity, but must structure their consciousness and mould their whole way of thinking and being. To feel, think, judge and act as Mary is to think, feel, judge and act as a bearer of God's Mercy. It is a deeply mythic reality to which we are called: 'Ah', says Father Colin, 'How I long for this notion of mercy to take root in all our men' (FA 206.9). The meaning of the mercy—principle, for Father Colin, is shown in the actualization of the Society.
Mercy—Principle And Actualization Of The Society of Mary
Approaching the Colinian myth in terms which give priority to his eschatological vision enables us to give prior place to the mercy—principle as the integrating point of marist life. In fact, the historical beginnings of the Society have already bTsn interpreted in this light: 'marists on an errand of mercy in the name of Mary'. Whatever else, it is most inadequate to limit the mercy—motif to just another Colinian theme or nuance. In our chosen mythic terms mercy is the foundational reality and prime Word at the living heart and open centre of Father Colin's whole eschatological 'world—view' and 'ethos'.
Because Mary symbolizes the Divine mercy, the Society (symbol of Mary) participates in and identifies with her salvational, merciful mission. The incarnation of Marist charism, or the realization of the Marist project, is the incarnation and realization of mercy. The dimensions of mercy are evident in the very structures of the Society of Mary; the contrast with the structure of the Jesuits (at least to Father Colin's mind) is illuminating: The congregation of Jesus is a simple body. With the Jesuits you must have talents and many other things. In the congregation of the Blessed Virgin it is not so. She is the Mother of Mercy. Her congregation will have several branches. It will be open to all kinds of people. (FS 2)
At this level of a multi—branched Society we have been faithful to the Colinian mercy—insight. Of course, the image of the Society as a 'many branched tree' precedes Father Colin (it is in various recorded accounts of the Le Puy disclosure and central in the seminary discussions in Lyons before Fourviere). It is, however, Father Colin who enunciates the link with the mercy—principle. Likewise, his approach to the Society's internal system of government shows how the very structures of the Society must take their measure in the divine mercy.
Father Chin's approach to the religious vows is based on St. Ignatius. As Father Coste has shown, Father Colin develops a directly apostolic perspective centred on the mercy—principle so that marists, imitating Jesus and Mary, would be 'completely empty of themselves... (that) they may be filled with graces and become in the hands of God worthy instruments of divine mercy towards their neighbour.' (Const. N.420). The origin of the expression 'instruments of divine mercy' is unclear — but the fact that it is to be found neither in scripture or St. Ignatius verifies the importance given to it by Father Colin.
Similarly, we find Father Colin, though in every sense a man of his time, publicly promoting the less restrictive moral theology of St. Alphonsus Ligouri: 'in the Society we shall profess all those opinions which give greatest play to the mercy of God.' (FS 37.2). At another time he states: 'I am very fond of those principles: all for souls and salvation before the law.' (FS 95.3). Of course, one needs to make a distinction between the vision of the founder and the doctrine he followed7 —after all, we would not wish today to be tied to many points of Father Colin's theology. However, in terms of the Colinian vision these are valid expressions of the mercy—principle which our structural approach has revealed as being at the heart of marist existence.
It is at the level of action — as well as in pastoral admonition — that Father Colin's insistence of 'mercy' is most evident (even if he did not always use the specific term). While being stationed at Puylata Father Colin involved himself in ministry to the young, those he feared would be otherwise lost to the Church: Ah, yes, there is a great good to be done among these men. But you have to offer them a helping hand, go along with what is needed and not be too demanding... I take a broad path; I wait till their faith grows. (FS 40.4)
Other admonitions are penetrated with this spirit of mercy: If I cannot save him with the law, I shall try to save him without it. (FS 163.2)
Let us have compassion on poor sinners... always show mercy to sinners. (FS 26.2, 163.1)
To a group of missioners: If a great sinner comes to you be full of charity and patience with him. Yes, even if you have to stay all day to console and encourage him and bring him back to the fold. Do not begrudge your time. That is what the rule tells us, that is the work of the missioner: the conversion of sinners. If a soul comes who is already on the right path, then, you can be brief... (FS 132.21)
From this it becomes clear that at the level of Marist mythic activity, mercy dictates not only the broad manner of fulfilling one's apostolic task, but it even singles out those who should be given the most attention. We are not bound by the exact applications, but the principle stands: we must especially go to those who are in most need of God's mercy.
These examples show how mythic activity affects values, influences consciousness, suggests behaviour. As with all myths there is an inbuilt tension: mercy as a mythic principle of apostolic discernment must give priority to the needy and 'sinners', but it must also be non—exclusivistic. Father Colin himself was led to challenge a one—sided notion of mercy because of its exclusivistic tendency:
There are those who think that Marists must devote themselves only to works that are hidden, unknown, neglected. Messieurs, the Society does not refuse them, it greatly prefers them... But the Society does not shrink from any ministry, from any task. It is called to do anything, it is like a soldier who goes wherever there is danger, wherever there is need of his services. (FS 141.19)
The mercy—principle, in true mythic fashion, is no blueprint for action. In this sense it is not an immediate and authoritative code for decisions and behaviour. There is, however, the call for constant discernment and interpretation according to the mercy—myth. Mercy is our way in and through the Marist myth. It does not explain the myth, but mediates its power by encouraging merciful attitudes and behaviour based on Mary's eschatological mission. For Father Colin, Marist activity is evidently a ministry of merciful activity measurable only in the mystery of the divine mercy and Mary's compassionate heart.
Because the notion of mercy has been lost for so long to the mythic consciousness of the Society (at least in an explicit way), it will be valuable for us to expose ourselves to a reinterpretation of its meaning in the context of our world. The encyclical Dives in Misericordia (1980) is a timely document which will guide our reflection.
Hermeneutics Of Mercy
The encyclical begins with the acclamation that it is God who is 'rich in mercy' (Eph.2:4) and the 'father of mercies' (2 Cor.1:3). Christ, in revealing the Father, makes mercy incarnate and personifies it; in a powerful sense Christ is mercy itself. In Christ's own consciousness, making the Father present as love and mercy is the fundamental touchstone of his mission as Messiah. This is one of the principal themes of his preaching as is evidenced in the parables of the Good Samaritan and the Merciless Servant. The Beatitude — 'Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy' (Mt.5:7) — shows the challenge of the 'Gospel—ethos' which Jesus demands of his followers. We may express this as: the mercy—myth demanding merciful activity through which God reveals himself in his mercy to Man.
The people of the Old Testament are distinguishable by their radical experience of the mercy of God: such experience is social and communal as well as personal. Mercy here is directly linked to the infidelities and betrayals of a people God continued to 'choose' as his own. Indeed, with the prophets, mercy signifies a special power of love which prevails over sin and infidelity with pardon and forgive—ness calling the people back to conversion and grace. All the subtleties of love are manifested in the Lord's mercy towards those who are his own.
Two biblical expressions, in particular, describe the hidden depths of mercy. 'Hesed', also meaning 'grace' and 'love', moves beyond the legal connotation of 'Covenant' to express God's enduring fidelity. 'Rahamim' adds a particularly feminine dimension symbolized in the deep and original bond between mother and child. This image of 'anxious love' includes the notions of goodness, tenderness, patience, understanding, readiness to forgive. Mercy is then not just a notion of God, but something that characterizes the entire life of Israel involving its experience of intimacy with the Lord.
While Father Colin tends to leave us with something of an awkward opposition between mercy and justice, he was nonetheless trying to probe a distinction which is real and recognized in the encyclical. Here we are told that the primacy and super—iority of love vis—a—vis justice is revealed precisely through mercy; and that mercy, as contrasted with God's justice, is scripturally presented as more powerful and more profound. In fact, though there is no opposition, there is a difference. The Parable of the Prodigal Son can be seen as an analogy for expressing the essence of divine mercy which depths God's love far beyond the notion of justice.
What is at stake in this parable is not simply the father's 'forgiveness' and the 'just' reinstatement of his son as a 'hired servant'. Love is itself trans—formed and celebrated through mercy which necessarily extends the precise, 'narrow' norm of justice. What is returned to the son is 'the fulness of lost dignity'. Forgiveness includes the 'saving of the son's humanity' which has been 'lost' and is 'found again'.
How different this is from the evaluation of mercy 'from the outside' with its stress on a 'relationship of inequality' — from giver to receiver — which be—littles the receiver offending the dignity of Man. In contradistinction, the experience of God's merciful love connotes the 'full reality of conversion' including the 'total restoration to value' without the incumbent sense of humiliation.
Mercy is, therefore, something far greater than a moral or moralistic principle. In the words of John—Paul II: The true and proper meaning of mercy does not consist only in looking, however penetratingly and compassionately, at moral, physical and material evil: mercy is manifested in its true and proper aspect when it restores to value, promotes and draws good from all the forms of evil existing in the world and in man. Understood in this way, mercy constitutes the fundamental content of the messianic message of Christ and the constitutive power of his mission.
This reality of mercy is beautifully expressed in a Marist Constitutions Workshop Paper by Father N. Rowe:
We must locate God's mercy not in the enormity of his redemptive plan, but in the fragility of his surrender to us, not in the strangeness of his forgiveness, but in the familiarity of his compassion, not in his transcendence, but in his immanence. Mercy is something more immediate and creative than benign forgetfulness.
The encyclical further guides us to the Pascal Mystery of Christ's death and resurrection as the definitive revelation of mercy; here, God's love for Man is supremely revealed and actualized as mercy. Mary, as the Mother of the crucified, risen one, is the 'Mother of Mercy'; she both experiences and merits divine mercy in an exceptional way. Mary's maternal heart, her particular sensitivity and fitness, enable her to reach all those 'who most easily accept the merciful love of a mother'.
In Mary's words — 'His mercy is from generation to generation' — we have every right to believe that our age is equally embraced by the mercy of God. Such mercy defines the mission of the Church according to Christ's own messianic programme:
that is the programme of mercy, the programme of the people, the programme of the Church. In the eschatological fulfillment this programme of mercy will be definitively revealed as love; but in the temporal sphere, love is manifest as mercy.
In the Church's programme and practice of mercy, merciful love is creative love. The emphasis is firmly located in the reciprocal nature of mercy: the one who gives is also the beneficiary; we are at the same time receiving mercy from the people who are accepting it from us. Thus it is stated: 'Mercy is the most perfect incarnation of equality and justice between people.. In our task of shaping a more human world, justice alone is inadequate; for mercy confers on justice the 'new content' of tenderness, sensitivity, the deepest respect for all that is human, as well as forgiveness. Mercy is, therefore, an indispensable element in the shaping of all human relationships. Consequently, in the face of all the worldly manifestations of evil, the Church and all people must seek to introduce and incarnate mercy, to implore, to cry, and to pray for it.
Our reflections, based on John-Paul II's encyclical, have taken us beyond Father Colin's own conceptions of mercy, as indeed they must. This is our hermeneutic challenge and responsibility. The validity of our engagement in a hermeneutics of mercy for today rests in the mythic reality which tells us that, for John Claude Colin, mercy is the structure of the real through which Mary's eschatological mission - as ours - is defined. This is to say that 'mercy' was not just a 'term' which Father Colin plucked the air, giving it a precise, clinical and limited meaning; rather, it is a 'word' with its own integrity reaching out to (but never possessing or limiting) the heart of the mystery of God and, for Father Colin, expressing the reality of Mary's and Marist life. We must move beyond the Colinian 'world' with its time-bound notion of mercy to embrace the Colinian 'universe' where the richness of the mercy-principle calls for ongoing exploration, mediation, transformation. This is creative-fidelity in being truly Marist.
Conclusion
Myth and mythic activity are an attempt to relate to the heart of reality in the totality of its mystery. There is no question of possessing that reality, or capturing it cognitively, but (only!) relating to it authentically.
Father Colin, through reflection and action, has attempted to fill-out the 'mythic space' already implicit in the Marist root-metaphor. Traditional Marist spirituality has tended to shy away from this eschatological-utopian vision with its implicit criticism of the present situation and its call for transformational action. The creative remembrance of Nazareth and Pentecost must be linked dialectically with a vibrant, utopian hope of a Church and world far different to our own. Our typical Marist oversight has been to concentrate on the symbols of Nazareth and Pentecost without reference to the myth that empowers them.
By approaching the Colinian eschatological myth in a structuralist way we have attempted to demonstrate a 'deep structure of meaning' and a manner of relating to the Mystery of the Universe as the 'silent centre of boundless mercy'. The mercy-principle, as a mythic vision of reality, establishes the theocentric and christ-ocentric bases at the heart of marist life; Mary and the Society of Mary are seen as symbols of the merciful-salvational reality hidden in God. Marist vision and life have meaning only in connection with, and context of, the reality-myth of the revealed Christian universe, It is the mercy-principle that provides that connection and context. Mary's mission, as the Society's mission, is at the service of the Word, revealed (and concealed) in Christ as mercy itself.
The Colinian vision emphasizes a proleptic hope and a powerful sense of mission—for—change without which personal asceticism and an unassuming apostolic approach lose their real vigour and final meaning. On the other hand, Nazareth and Pentecost are just the symbols which, in context of the eschatological vision, stress the dialectical power of memory through which we are shown how to incarnate the Marist mission of mercy — doing Mary's work as hidden apostles. And here we are shown more clearly how doing Mary's work is to do a work in and for the Church. It is to this discussion of Mary as Symbol that we will now turn, but hopefully with our sense of Marist mission — and vision — more intact.