A Man Motivated By Love

Image by Francesco Nigro from Pixabay

First, a word about the 1988 movie The Truman Show starring Jim Carrey. 

In the said movie, the main character, Truman Burbank (played by Carrey) lived in the biggest studio ever, which he thought was the real world, since he was the baby. Basically, everything around him is fake. He would interact with other people in his "island" not knowing they were simply paid actors. In short, he is living a life ruled by deception. 

But there was a moment in his life where he met a woman named "Lauren" (whose real name is Sylvia), and fell in love with her. Lauren was also the first person in the whole show to tell Truman that he was living a lie, because in reality, she is a member of the "Free Truman" movement. Unfortunately, so that Truman would not know the truth, "Lauren" was taken off the show. To make the long story short, she became the motivating factor for Truman to leave his Island, a voyage which would ultimately bring him to the real world. 

As a reminder of her, Truman would rip off pictures of women in magazines and use them to reconstruct her "face." It was his love for Lauren/Sylvia, it was his desire to see her face in reality again, which made him overcome his fear of sailing (a fear "infused" to him by the makers of the show so that he won't escape the island/studio) and to go on an expedition by sea, which ultimately brought him out of the studio. It was Truman's love that broke the deception. It was his great craving to see his beloved's face that led him to the truth. 

The fact that Truman, in his love for someone he no longer sees, tried to reconstruct Sylvia's face and not her hand, shoulder, or other body parts reveals something about the nature of love. The face, it seems to me, is the body part which is connected the most to one's identity. When you look at your school ID, you don't have a picture of your elbow. No, you have a picture of your face. When you try to imagine someone, you don't first and foremost imagine his/her fingernails. No, you primarily try to imagine someone's face. When lovers want to see each other, they don't mean that they want to see each other's backs. No, they mean they want to see each other face-to-face. Simply put, one's face is the bodily representation of one's uniqueness and personal identity. If I love someone, I will desire to see their face. I would be lying if I say I love someone but I always think about another person's face. Just like Truman, my love for someone is expressed by my yearning to see his/her face. 

In the first volume of his three-part series of books on Jesus Christ, Pope Benedict XVI wrote in the foreword that the book "is in no way an exercise of the magisterium, but is solely 𝐚𝐧 𝐞𝐱𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐨𝐟 𝐦𝐲 𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐥 𝐬𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐜𝐡 '𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐟𝐚𝐜𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐋𝐨𝐫𝐝' (𝐜𝐟. 𝐏𝐬 𝟐𝟕:𝟖)." What does this say about him? This shows us that, as a theologian, Pope Benedict XVI is not motivated by a mere "search of the facts." No, he learned about Christ and was happy to share such learning to us because the power that moves him is the power of love, a love that led him to want to behold the face of Christ, the face of Truth. It was this same love that allowed him to fly away interiorly from this world, a world full of deception, and to rest into the very arms of the Logos Himself. As St. Teresa of Avila has written, "Fix your eyes on the Crucified and nothing else will be of much importance of you." Pope Benedict XVI's theological vision was nothing but the gaze of love, a gaze at the Crucified Jesus, a gaze that expressed his God-oriented disposition. 

It is indeed revealing that his last encyclical was called "Veritas in Caritate," CHARITY IN TRUTH. It goes without saying that, if one believes in Christ, he/she cannot have one without the other. Charity without truth is just another name for fake love. Truth without charity is just another name for gossip, or hateful propaganda. Charity in truth was what defined Pope Benedict XVI's theological journey. He sought the truth about Jesus because he loved Jesus. He sought the truth about the liturgy because he loved the worship and adoration of God. He sought the truth about the Church because he loved the people of God. He sought, and he found, because God does not hide Himself to those Who truly seek Him. In fact, He was the first to seek, and people like Pope Benedict XVI were the ones who responded with love. 

He was called many things: rigid, archconservative, the "Panzer Cardinal," and many other things. But when this same "rigid" theologian, as pope, revealed to the world what the outlook of his papacy would be through his first encyclical, he didn't write about the rules, he didn't write about the punishments that await disobedient Catholics. Rather, he chose to write an encyclical about love. Deus Caritas Est, "God is Love," was the title of his first encyclical. In it, he says that "Being Christian is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the encounter with an event, a person, which gives life a new horizon and a decisive direction" (Deus Caritas Est 1). In other words, to be Christian is not primarily like accepting the terms and conditions of a club in order to join it, the breaking of which merits punishment. Rather, to be Christian is more like meeting your beloved; it is more like Truman breaking all barriers to encounter Sylvia, the woman that stole his heart. Christianity is, first and foremost, an "encounter with a Person," an encounter with a face, with THE Face. 

To conclude, allow me to quote Pope Benedict XVI once more. In one of, of not the, last of his books, co-authored with Robert Cardinal Sarah, called From the Depths of Our Hearts, Pope Benedict XVI reflects on Psalm 16:5-6, particularly on how it reveals the nature of the priesthood. The verse says, "The LORD is my chosen portion and my cup; you hold my lot. The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; yes, I have goodly heritage." As he pointed out, a sign that a person is a sharer of God's promise to Abraham is that he (or his family) owns a portion of the Promised Land. Such portion is not just some piece of land, therefore; rather, it has a great existential and religious significance. This was the case for all, except for the priestly tribe of Israel, the Tribe of Levi: 

"The Levite remained without land and was therefore deprived of an immediate subsistence derived from the land. 𝐇𝐞 𝐨𝐧𝐥𝐲 𝐥𝐢𝐯𝐞𝐝 𝐛𝐲 𝐆𝐨𝐝 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐆𝐨𝐝... This Old Testament prefiguration is fulfilled in the priests of the Church in a new and deeper way... To enter the clergy means to renounce a self-centered life and to accept God alone as the support and guarantee of one's own life... (T)he earth or 'land' of his life, is God Himself." (p. 45-6, emphasis added). 

Pope Benedict XVI's life, particularly his intellectual formation, is a concrete expression of this. He chose not to be an 'expert' in the "lower sciences," though he did not set them aside or saw them as unimportant, but rather he chose to dedicate his life, his priestly life, to the study of God and thus to see the world through God. God, and only God, was his intellectual portion. God dictated his preaching, teaching, and writing. He aimed to "Love God... with all (his) mind" (Mt 22:37). Because of this, his thought will forever be a source of illumination for the Church, because it was first illumined by the Divine Light. Thank you, Pope Benedict XVI. Because of your search for the Face if the Lord, I see Him better. Because of the charity that empowered your search for the truth, I love Him better. Because of your emphasis on the importance of encountering Christ, I am more appreciative of the blessings He give me. Because of your focus on Jesus, I aim to know Him more, so that I can serve Him more.

Rest in Peace, dear Pope Benedict XVI. There's no need for theological speculation anymore. I pray that now, you truly see the God that you love... 𝐟𝐚𝐜𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐟𝐚𝐜𝐞. 

Pope Benedict XVI, Ora Pro Nobis!