Pax Christi Metro DC

By Rev. Charles Emmanuel McCarthy

“Do Lawd, come down here and walk amongst yo people
And tek’em by the hand and telt’em
That yo ain’t hex wid’em
And do Lawd come yo self,
Don’t send yo son,
Cause dis ain’t no place for chillen.”
—PRAYER OF SLAVES, 1866
Charleston, S.C.

Tomorrow’s high-tech and low-tech brutalizers in politics and in commerce, in the military and in religion lie in their cribs today. So do those whom they shall brutalize. So do tomorrow’s saints.

The metanoia , the “change of mind” for which Jesus asks, can be a change from St. Paul’s mind of the “old man” or person to the mind of the “new man” or person. Or, it can be a change of mind that moves from the blank slate (tabula rasa) of what John Locke mistakenly thought was the infant’s mind to a mind that from the moment of birth is being nurtured and formed in conformity with “the mind of Christ,” the mind of the “new man” or new person.

Since the human brain has the structure and capacity to function mimetically (imitation), it will be what it becomes to a marked extent by the imitation of those external representations that are impressed on the brain from the external reality perceived by the brain via the senses, e.g., English is my mother-tongue because my mother spoke English to me from the moment I was born.

Said in a more precise way, the many functions of the human brain result from a complex interplay between genetic potential and appropriately timed experiences. These experiences include the relationships the child has with family members and others who participate in the care and nurturing of the child. Many of the interactions the child has with others is by nature mimetic. It is during this imitation of others’ actions that the structure of the brain changes—so much so that the brain actually becomes and internal representation of the external environment. The neural systems responsible for mediating our behavioral, cognitive, emotional, social and physiological functioning develop in childhood and, therefore, childhood experiences play a major role in shaping the functional capacity of these systems. When the necessary experiences are not provided at the optimal times, these neural systems do not develop in optimal ways. It is absolutely critical that we remain constantly aware of how important our interactions (both positive and negative) with children are—particularly during early development (the first three years) because alterations in brain structure that take place during childhood can persist for a lifetime—for better or for worse.

This means that if a Christian Family desires to raise its child to be a Christian, the primary means for achieving this is for the other members of the family to live Christlike lives in the presence of the child. Hence, Jesus New Commandment to “Love one another as I have loved you”—which “contains the entire Law of the Gospel” (CATECHISM OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH §1970) and which “summarizes the entire will of the Father” that we pray “will be done on earth as it as in heaven” (CCC §2822)—is a non-negotiable for any family that wants to raise its child to be a follower of Jesus. Without a model to imitate there can be no imitation.

No Catechism—new or old—no memorizing of Scripture passages or dogmatic definitions is a substitute for the child’s family living Christlike lives in the presence of the child in the crib and thereafter. If in the crib and thereafter a child observes a family that hates enemies, calls for revenge under the name of “justice,” curses others for whatever reason, makes some kingdom of this world more important than the Kingdom of God, glorifies some people and denigrates others—then there is a nurtured proclivity to respond the same way. He or she will then take the Scripture passages they have memorized and the dogmatic definitions they have learned and interpret them in a way that is consistent with their nurturing. So a Christian child—who from the crib onward observes that the Christian world surrounding him or her justifies homicidal violence against the king’s enemies—will not normally be conscious of any significant incongruity between killing the king’s enemies and following the command of the Nonviolent Jesus of the Gospel to “Love your enemies.”

All the books written and sermons preached on the “imitation of Christ” are rooted in the New Commandment of Jesus—a commandment, as Pope John Paul II notes in his Encyclical Veritatis Splendor—in which “The word ‘as’ requires imitation of Jesus and of His love.” Again, to the surprise and consternation of many, Jesus knows more about the “real world” than He is often given credit for! By rooting the entire Christian life and hence the entire conversion process in imitation, Jesus has rooted it in a choice, a dynamic and reality that is 100% consistent with the very structure, down to the molecular level, of the human brain—a structure that it is scientifically known to be open to “putting on the mind of Christ” from the very second it leaves the womb—if not before!

Of course, this requires that that each person in the Christian community understands that the cognitive, social and emotional experiences of the infant are going to shape the capacities of those areas of the brain that are responsible for mediating these functions. For the child, behavioral imitation of living examples of how to “love one another as I (Jesus) have loved you.” may ultimately determine his or her temporal/eternal welfare and that of others. However, without a model to imitate there can be no imitation.

The child cannot read in these early, most critical years of neurological development—although he or she can and should be read to about Jesus. So, the primary pedagogical means available for bringing about in the child that metanoia (putting on the mind of Christ)—which Jesus calls all to participate in for as long as they live—is imitation. The sine qua non for this to take place is the Christian community, starting with but not limited to the parents, presenting to the child continuous, on-going, living examples of Christlike love in thought, word and deed of all others—friends and enemies. With this familial and communal commitment the child will begin “put on the mind of Christ” via the God-given mimetic faculty of the human brain—or more accurately the mind of Christ emerges in the mind of the child, thereby evermore completely making the mind of Christ and the mind of the child one—as intended by the Logos (Word) from the beginning.

It should, however, be clearly noted at this point that the epistemological and pedagogical statement, “I’ll let my child grow-up and make his or her own decisions about what mind to put-on,” is fatuous. The child is in this developmental process from a least the moment of birth. That option does not exist. Every child will be nurtured into a mind by the external reality he or she—moment to moment—experiences, and that external reality will structure the internal reality of the brain, that is, the very values, attitudes, beliefs, competencies, fears, pleasures, conscience, etc., that the child will now utilize to make his or her imaginary “own decision” at age twenty-one! The actual choice that is available is whether to intentionally place the child in the presence of people who are trying to “love as Christ loves,” or, by decision or indecision, in the presence of those modeling some other external behavior.

The desire and the ability to place a baby in the presence of an external reality where the people are committed to a life-long and daily effort “to love as Jesus loves” should not present a problem for a Christian community—family, parish, school or Church. It should be considered a grace. It should not be a problem because this is exactly what the individual Christian and the Christian community at every level is committed to doing and to being by Baptism. To be Baptized is to be unwaveringly pledged to following Jesus by a vigorous life-long effort to live daily His New Commandment to “Love one another as I have loved you”—which, again by the way, “contains the entire law of the Gospel” (CCC §1970) and which “summarizes the entire will of the Father,” we pray, “will be done on earth as it is in heaven” (CCC §2822).

The Eternal and Incarnate Logos (Word) of God, Jesus, has gifted humanity with a magnificently holistic, harmonious, practical, pragmatic, coherently logical, theological, psychological, sociological and pedagogical Way of “putting on that mind,” from the cradle on forward and hence thereby living that life and reaching that end for which the Father bestowed existence on each and every one of us, namely, for all to live in an Eternally graced union with Him forever. Talk about a “great grace!”

Now, “since violence and cruelty can have no part in You (God)” (SACRAMENTARY OF THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH, MASS FOR PEACE AND JUSTICE, opening prayer), and since the Jesus of the Gospel and the Apostolic Tradition is nonviolent and teaches by word and deed, unto death, a Way of Nonviolent Love of friends and enemies, this means that fidelity to living and to teaching by word and deed Jesus’ New Commandment requires that the adult Christian—who is the flesh and blood model for the child’s imitation of Jesus—must be struggling to reject in his or her own life all thoughts, words and deeds of violence, brutality, cruelty, mercilessness and enmity toward anyone and toward all—regardless of how culturally normal and acceptable such thoughts, words and deeds may be. It likewise means that from the cradle onward the Christian child must experience modeling by the adult Christian world—starting with his or her parents but not stopping there, of nonviolent, self-sacrificial suffering love (agapé) toward friends and enemies and of returning of good for evil regardless of cost, which “was made flesh” by the Incarnate Word (Logos) of God, Jesus—if the child is going to “put on the mind of Christ” and grow in “wisdom and age” in the imitation of Christ, if he or she is going to love as Jesus loves. This means that each Christian parent must carry the cross of nonviolent self-sacrificial love toward all, not only for God, not only for him/herself, not only for humanity, but for his or her child’s temporal and eternal fulfillment and well-being. Without a model to imitate there can be no imitation.

Parent, families, Churches and Christian friends, who place before a child by their words and deeds the external reality that war, mercilessness violence, cruelty, revenge, retaliation, brutality and enmity are sometimes good or valuable or right or of God or in conformity with following Jesus, are not serving the child by helping him or her “put on the mind of Christ” regardless of how much Scripture or dogma they pour into him or her cognitively. They are not serving the child by helping him or her grow “in wisdom and age” in how to “love as Christ loves.” They are not serving God by helping one of the Father’s little sons or daughters not be what the Holy One with all His heart wants him or her to be today, tomorrow and forever—like Him, like Jesus, Agapé without limits and without reserve.

Acts small and large in the imitation of God, acts small and large in the imitation of Jesus the Christ, what a—practical, simple, intelligent, effective, straight-forward, natural, universally available to all at all times—Way to live, to evangelize and to proclaim the Nonviolent Jesus of the Gospel and His Way of Nonviolent Love of friends and enemies to one or to many simultaneously. Indeed, what a straight-forward realistic Way to evangelize the entire world today and tomorrow.

But, without a model to imitate there can be no imitation. “There’s the rub,” as Hamlet would say. Seemingly almost no one in the Constantinian Churches from popes to patriarchs to bishops to priests to ministers to pastors to deacons to laity wants to risk being the living model of the Nonviolent Jesus of the Gospel and His Way of Nonviolent Love of friends and enemies! Seemingly all want to keep and justify in the name of Jesus his or her own, little or big, bailiwick of violence. Few leaders and laity, for obvious reasons, even want to acknowledge or teach that the Jesus of the Gospel was and is and always will be Nonviolent and that the Way of discipleship He teaches is a Way of Nonviolent Love of friends and enemies.

Yet, tomorrow’s high-tech and low-tech brutalizers in politics and in commerce, in the military and in religion lie in their cribs today. So do those whom they shall brutalize. So do tomorrow’s saints. The Christian Churches and their leaders will have much to say about how many of these little babies will become brutalizers, how many will become saints—and how many will be brutalized! They will have almost nothing to say today or tomorrow, as they have had almost nothing to say for the last 1700 years in this regard that will affect, to any significant degree, making accessible the grace for that metanoia that Jesus teaches is essential for participation in the peaceable Kingdom of God, if they continue teaching Christians and all the people of the world that a Christian in good faith can be a part-time follower of Jesus and a part-time brutalizer of His brothers and sisters.

If your bishop or pastor will not commit to building a Christian Community dedicated to the imitation of the Nonviolent Jesus and His Way of Nonviolent Love of friends and enemies, then you will have to begin to build one within your Church. Why? Because, what the Constantinian Churches presently have available to nurture and support children and adults in the “imitation of Christ,” in “loving as Christ loves” is radically less than pastorally satisfactory. It is utterly disrespectful of Jesus’ gift of faith to your children, your children’s children and to all humanity, to permit these Churches to nurture values, attitudes, beliefs, ways of perception and interpretation of life, that are logically, theologically, psychological, sociologically and economically operationally contrary to Jesus and His explicit teachings. A committed dissenting voice, experience and community are absolutely required within the moral monstrosities that are the Constantinian Churches—whether they are international or domestic. For as they are “dis ain’t no place for chillen”—children that God gave the gift of Faith in Jesus to in order to put on the “mind of Christ.”