City of God
What is a city? When we think of cities like London or New York, we have an image of lots of buildings, heavy traffic, high population densities where people generally don’t even know their next-door neighbour. But this is not the essence of a city. These are what our cities have become over the centuries. The word ‘city’ comes from the Latin ‘civitas’, with its root in the word ‘civile’, meaning ‘kindly’. A city in its essence is a gathering of people living in close proximity to one another, acting in a kindly manner. We think of these situations more as ‘towns’, but even here people have generally become alienated from one another. The town of Poundbury, near Dorchester, built in the 1960s, was designed by the architect and master planner, Leon Krier from Luxembourg. A friend of King Charles, he designed a town, following the ideas often expressed by the King, particularly in his book ‘Harmony’. It is the first traditional town built in England in centuries. Krier showed that it is possible to build a town in which people feel at home with one another, where you know your local butcher, baker and neighbours generally as real people.
People often feel, though not always, that a city where they work in or live is a place they want to escape from. St Benedict in the sixth century had similar feelings towards the city of Rome and the pagan culture of his time. He first lived as a hermit, but eventually he built a monastery, gathering around him a community of monks, to live lives totally dedicated to God. St Antony of Egypt in the third century escaped to the desert to live as a hermit. After 20 years or so, having learned to combat against the Devil through his intense life of prayer and ascetical practices, others gathered around him because they wanted to emulate his life. They forced him to come out from his hermitage. St Athanasius, his biographer, wrote that “Antony came forth as though from some shrine, having been led into Divine mysteries and inspired by God’ – literally ‘bearing the might of God’. Antony persuaded them to repent of their old ways and to become hermits. Many hermitages were established around him in the mountains. St Athanasius wrote that “the desert was made a city by monks, who left their own people and registered themselves for the citizenship in the heavens.” A city, therefore, is simply a gathering of people who live as a ‘communio personarum’, a ‘communion of people’. This is precisely what God was doing throughout the OT establishing a series of covenants. The People of Israel gathered around Moses, God’s chosen mediator, in obedience to the commandments of God, established a covenant, a communion of people, with God at the very heart of their lives. Moses, like St Antony, bore the very Might of God, the Radiance of God. A covenant is a city of Divine Mercy.
Today we have St Matthew quoting a text from the Prophet Isaiah, from the Book of Emmanuel: “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light.” By claiming this is a fulfilment of Isaiah’s prophecy, St Matthew is indicating that Jesus is the Messiah, that He is truly God-with-us as the name Emmanuel signifies, that He is truly God. His nature is Light, Divine Light, as St John tells us, for in Him there is no darkness at all. He not only bears the Might and Power of God, He is Truly God. Prior to this, Jesus also was in a desert where he was tempted by the Devil. He comes forth from the desert having been victorious over Satan’s attempts to ensnare him, to gather disciples around Him. He is not building hermitages or monasteries. But he is going to establish the New Covenant, a new ‘communion of people’, to which all are invited to enter, to become an integral part of, to be transformed by. This is the Church.
How do we live this new life? What is different about it compared to that of Moses and the Israelites? St Paul learned this the hard way. Today we would be celebrating his feast day, if it was not a Sunday. He was Saul, the devout Jew who was totally dedicated to God – or thought he was. On his way to Damascus in an attempt to stamp out this new strange religious movement, he felt the force of the Divine Light so much that he was blinded and knocked off his horse. “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me”, a voice cries. “Who are you?” “I am Jesus, the one you are persecuting.” He was not just persecuting the early Christians. He was attacking the very Person of Jesus. Unknowingly, he was trying to rupture the ‘Communion of Persons” that Jesus had established and was building up, rooted in His very Person. Later, from this experience, Paul was to develop His theology of the Church as the very Body of Christ. The disciples had already been instructed into this theology by Jesus: “Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me.”
Jesus calls us all to repentance, a radical change in our lives to where we become transformed by Divine Mercy. Our souls must be living tabernacles of Divine Mercy. Mary bore Jesus in her womb but also in her soul. This was the first profound communion of persons – that between Jesus and Mary – mirroring that of the Blessed Trinity. This is our calling too. The prophet Micah said:
“He has showed you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?”
God’s Love, Mercy and Justice must permeate, dwell in our souls so that we can walk humbly with Him. Keep in mind our ultimate goal: the Heavenly Jerusalem, where the Communion of Persons is perfected, souls completely united to Jesus, in the most perfected City, not a gathering of unban flat-dwellers! In fact, in the description of this City in the Book of Revelation, no buildings are mentioned. The emphasis is on relationships – between Jesus and people, described as a Marriage. We begin in hope of entering this City not just when we die, but how we live our lives today.