From Here to Hope: Six Degrees of Reconciliation

Here - Home - Honesty - Hospitality - Humility - Hope - Reconciliation

La Salette Province Retreat in Attleboro, MA., June 2010

The following is the outline of the Retreat given by Fr. Joe Nassal, a member of the Congregation of the Most Precious Blood, for our La Salette Province Retreat in Attleboro, MA., in June 2010.

 

Reconciliation is about restoring relationship. Our relationship with God and with one another is revealed in the language of covenant—the covenant God made with us at the beginning of creation. From the Christian perspective, this covenant, broken because of sin, is restored and made new in the person of Jesus. Our challenge is to live this covenant of love expressed in the familiar biblical admonitions, “I will be your God and you will be my people,” and “Love one another as I have loved you,” in all of our relationships.

The six degrees of reconciliation offered here reflect the call to be ministers of healing and hope in our families shredded by secrets, in our faith communities wounded by sin and scandal, in our cities and neighborhoods divided and damaged by race, economic inequalities and violence, and in our war-scarred and weary world.

St. Paul reminds us this call to be a minister of reconciliation comes from a Divine Source: “God has made us agents of reconciliation… and commissioned us with the ministry of reconciliation. We are now Christ’s ambassadors. As though God were appealing direct to you through us. As his personal representatives we say, ‘Make your peace with God (2 Corinthians 5, 18-20).’”

First Degree: Here—A Sense of Identity

In the ministry of reconciliation, we have to start where we are, here and now. This means acknowledging one’s identity as a child of God. The first degree reflects the belief that each of us is endowed with dignity because each of us is created in the image of God. Like a distant aunt who meets you for the first time and says, “You are the spitting image of your Father” or “You look just like your Mother,” so it is with God and us. We bear an uncanny resemblance to the Creator of the Universe.

Reconciliation begins when we recognize our true identity as children of God. This makes us siblings. Though we may be different colors, shapes, and sizes; though we may profess a different creed or come from a different culture or wear a different cut of clothes, we bear a remarkable resemblance to one another. This recognition makes it possible to keep expanding the circle where all belong rather than creating separate circles that move “us” farther and farther away from “them.”

Second Degree: Home—A Safe Place

Once we recognize our true identity, the second degree moves us an awareness of our place in the world. Reconciliation, like real estate, has to do with location. First, in the sense of geography as when we meet someone for the first time and very early in the conversation the question, “Where are you from?” seeks to answer the question of location. But location also implies that the journey to find our common ground begins like any other journey—from where we are and not where we’d like or think we ought to be. This second degree engages our minds and hearts in gathering up the stories, remembering the people, and retrieving the experiences and events that have shaped our lives and given us this sense of place. On this holy ground of our being we take off our shoes and reverence our life’s journey.

During this second degree of reconciliation, we also remember those safe places in our lives where we could be ourselves without fear of rejection or ridicule. These safe places afford us the opportunity to face the world and our past, present, and future with strength, truthfulness, and a boundless spirit of curiosity, creativity, and grace. We need to remember these safe places in order to recreate them for our world today or else we will never arrive at the third degree of reconciliation, honesty.

Third Degree: Honesty—A Passion for Truth

We have probably heard the phrase popularized by police shows on television of “giving someone the third degree.” It implies a lengthy interrogation of a suspect to get at the truth. The third degree of reconciliation reflects the necessity of truth telling. Truth and reconciliation are inseparable. We cannot be reconciled if we are unwilling to tell the truth.

But truth needs a safe place to prosper and grow. We find that safe place in prayer, in our relationship with God. From this sacred center, God’s spirit invites and motivates us to find that safe place each other. This is our meeting place where our common ground begins to come into view. Since reconciliation reflects our desire to live in right relationship with God and with one another, we re-create these safe places by remembering and ritualizing the covenant God made with us as God’s beloved and reverencing the truth that the other is also the beloved of God.

Fourth Degree: Hospitality—A Welcoming Presence

When we establish safe places for one another they are identified by their open door. The fourth degree reflects how reconciliation demands an open door policy. Hospitality is the hallmark of a minister of reconciliation. We welcome one another into the sacred space of our own experience and story. We keep the door open even to those we find difficult to love.

Fifth Degree: Humility—A Modest Proposal

One of the essential characteristics of hospitality is the ability to listen to the other’s story without judgment or comment. Truly listening to another is a humbling experience. Humility is the fifth degree of reconciliation because it requires the minister of reconciliation to give the other person’s story priority. If in the second degree we take off our shoes to reverence the holy ground of our being, in this fifth degree we humbly accept the truth of the familiar adage about walking in the other’s shoes. Humility invites us to acknowledge our own mistakes, missteps, and missed opportunities as we name and claim the times in our lives we were lost even as we seek to find common ground with those we have labeled or dismissed as “the lost” today.

Sixth Degree: Hope—A Healing Heart

In seeking out the lost, we arrive at the sixth degree of reconciliation, a place called Hope. While this place may afford us some measure of healing, more than anything it gives us the courage to stand in the breach. Here we are in a “holding pattern” as we seek to hold all the contradictions that confront us daily before the presence of God. In the Christian tradition, this is the place where we believe Jesus stood. His cross became the bridge between heaven and earth. In his person and through his presence, he stood in the gaps that kept people divided.

We arrive at this place of hope realizing that these six degrees are not set in stone nor do they serve as hard and fast rules for the road to reach our common ground. Rather they are essential instincts for people who seek reconciliation and indicators that have pointed out to people the path to pardon and to peace.

Open to the Process of Reconciliation

It is humbling to remember with Paul that “all this is God’s doing,” as he wrote to the people at Corinth (2 Cor. 5, 18). Ultimately and eternally, reconciliation is the work of God. But because “God has reconciled us to the Divine Self through Jesus Christ,” those called to pursue this path to peace must be open to this grace to move through these six degrees of reconciliation to find this place of hope.