Thomas Merton writes in the introduction to his book, The Wisdom of the Desert . . . “Society was regarded [by St. Anthony and the Desert Fathers] as a shipwreck from which each single individual man or woman had to swim for his life . . . These were men [the Desert Fathers] who believed that to let oneself drift along, passively accepting the tenets and values of what they knew as society, was purely and simply a disaster.”Henri Nouwen writes in his book, The Way of the Heart . . . “This observation leads us straight to the core of the problem [why we don’t love as we should]. Our society is not a community radiant with the Love of Christ, but a dangerous network of domination and manipulation in which we can easily get tangled and lose our soul.”
To care for the poor and to love each other as Christ loves us apparently goes against the very fabric of all our human organizations and structures. Domination and manipulation is the rule as Henri Nouwen so astutely points out. However, the Desert Fathers encourage us to bail out of the boat, to swim on our own and embrace a new paradigm - the merciful, forgiving, patient and compassionate love of Christ. When we do this, we will transcend the world's system and as Paul puts it, "we are above the law." Love is both above the law and the fulfillment of the law. (cf. Romans 13:8-10)
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