5. Atonement – Reconciliation Fr. Thomas Punnapadam, SDB

Living together in peace and harmony with other communities is an important part of the spirituality of Diaspora existence and experience. Editorial Comment]

One of the characteristics of the modern life is that the so-called scientific world and spiritual worlds are coming ever closer, often without deliberately making an effort to establish common ground. It is indeed most enlightening that many experts in the field of theoretical physics trying to identify the origin of the universe have come to the conclusion that the core of matter is not matter but dark energy. This dark energy is beyond the ken of rational science and has even been named God particle. Science is discovering ever more deeply that the whole world is interconnected, inter dependent. Social consciousness is deepening among all peoples of the world. Deepening awareness of climate change is undebatable proof is that we are all in the same boat as Pope Francis and the Secretary General of the Nations constantly remind us. Globalization and its effects touch the lives of each and every one without exception.

No one is an outsider to the realities around. We are part of the problem and hence of the solution too. Blamegame is shameful ignorance, which slides down irreversible destruction. So, awareness of the absolute centrality of relationships is indispensable to live meaningful and joyful human lives. When relationships of any kind are broken or strained, every dimension of life suffers. When they are restored, deepened, every aspect of life is enhanced.

‘I am because we are’ so goes ancient African tribal wisdom. We are all in it together. So irrespective of the external and often superficial aspects any unpleasant situation, every painful circumstance is fundamentally a strained relationship. Authentic human relationships are essentially a two-way process. One must grow in the awareness that one is receiving no less than giving. The ultimate goal of any and every relationship is union and identification with the other. So, if one only seeks to take advantage of such relationships it can never last.

The Old Testament describes to us several feasts the chosen people celebrated. However, it would be no exaggeration to say that the feast of atonement was the greatest of them all. It was the most solemn religious festival of the Jews, known as Yom Kippur. It was celebrated on 10th of the seventh Month (September October). During a solemn assembly at the temple, special sacrifices were offered in atonement for the clergy and the people. This is the moment when the high priest entered the holy of holies, which symbolized the high point of contact with the divine. It is also called feast of expiation and the details of ceremonies are described in chapter sixteen of the book of Leviticus.

The word atonement or expiation is in a way a bad translation of the concept of the feast. The synonyms for atonement that come to our minds are compensation or reparation for wrong done or injury inflicted. This implies that the goal of the celebration is undoing something of the past; regret, sorrow, contrition are the central focus of the rituals and sacrifices. The concern seems to be propitiation of the deity and win expiation of sin by paying the penalty, making amends for the loss to appease and pacify. This is often implying a God who would punish offences unless pacified.

Here sin is understood as material action, disobeying a rule. In the true biblical understanding sin is rebellion against God, by which the divine-human relationship is strained or broken. So, expiation is not blotting out a material offence but reuniting man to God, consecrating him to God and rendering him pleasing to God. So, the external acts of expiation can have no value independent of the interior dispositions of the one who offers it. Expiation is primarily a spiritual act. The external act in no way tends to change G0d’s dispositions, but disposes humans to be open once again to experience more deeply the unconditional love of God. It is indeed to deepen intimacy after estrangement, purify after desecration, heal after being wounded, harmonies after being separated. So, the original biblical meaning of expiation and atonement is not chastisement. Positively, to expiate means to purify, to render an object place or person pleasing to the God, the concern is primarily about restoring a broken relationship, which always leads to deepening relationship.

This misunderstanding of expiation has often adulterated our understanding of what Christ has done for us through his passion, death, and Resurrection. The redemption won by Christ is not essentially a legal and juridical repayment of a debt. The expiation of sin through Christ is overcoming and destroying sin, and purifying human kind to restore the broken relationship with the divine. Christ communicated divine life once again to human beings. No wonder St. Augustine labels original sin a ‘happy fault’. So, the atonement attained by Christ is ‘AT ONE MENT’ making human kind one with God. This is inseparable from human beings brought closer to each other.

As St. Paul repeatedly and emphatically reminds us: So, we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members of one another (Rom 12/5). For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ (I Cor 12/12). So, the work of redemption won by Christ is to reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby bringing hostility to an end (Eph 2/16).

We are familiar with the parable of Jesus where he emphasises that the joy of repentance is far grater in heaven over sinner who repents than over ninety-nine who needs no repentance. The parables of the lost sheep and the lost coin climax with the parable of the prodigal sin. It is better known today as the Parable of the merciful father who kills the fatted calf to celebrate the home coming of his wayward son (Lk 15/ 7, 10, 23, 24). The son definitely experienced the love of the Father more deeply after his return than before he left home, simply because he experienced what it meant to be away.

In the Book of Revelation God’s forthright message to the Church in Ephesus is you have abandoned the love you had at first (Rev 2/4). In his well-known discourse about the diseases of the Roman Curia, Pope Francis speaks of spiritual Alzheimer’s disease. It is losing the memory of our personal salvation history of the marvelous deeds of the Lord in our personal lives. When we do, we naturally and unconsciously abandon the initial fervor of our life of faith, be it our baptism, wedding promises or ordination to ministry. Once again what is needed is atonement. This is because Relationships are never stagnant. They deepen all the time or are fading or breaking away. So understood biblically, atonement is a life-time gift and challenge. All of us without exception need to be focused on deepening one’s relationship with oneself, with God and with others. Whether one is a so-called great sinner or presumed saint does not matter. All of us are on the same journey of deeper reconciliation.

While the three aspects of human relationships are distinct, they are inseparable. We are most conscious of the relationships with others. However, it is no secret that one’s relationships with others, reflect the relationship with oneself. We can relate to each other because we are by our very existence related to almighty God, crated as we are in his image and likeness. Though divine-human relationship is the most basic and fontal relationship, it is often ignored, albeit unconsciously. This relationship is God’s inherent gift, which is always on offer. All one needs to do is, believe in it, open oneself to it and be ever transformed by it. It is primarily received and the more gratefully and consciously one is aware of the gift, one deepens one’s response to it. This transforms the person so deeply that one’s relationships with every one deepens too. While blood relationships and emotional relationships are extremely significant, without awareness of and focus on the divine-human relationships these cannot deepen and are in constant danger of fading away. Deepening of the divine-human relationship is the primary task of daily life as it is the ultimate goal of life. All religions and schools of spirituality are based on the fundamental, universal conviction that physical death is not the end of human existence. Life in this world is moving towards total union with the divine who is our origin too. To the extent we deepen our union with the divine, our union with the one self and with others deepens too. Any and every type of separation, discrimination and indifference do more harm to us than appears at first sight. We are all in it together, to bond ourselves with each other ever more deeply and ultimately with the divine for all eternity. We are one in the Spirit. We are one in the Lord… And we pray that all unity may one day be restored.

May these lines of a hymn be our heartfelt daily prayer.

*Fr. Thomas Punnapadom, SDB belongs to Salesians Don Bosco of the Sacred Heart Province of Bangalore. The Salesians live in imitation of the compassionate love of the Sacred Heart, commit themselves to the integral and inclusive development of the youth, especially the poor and the marginalized, and the other disadvantaged sections of society, in collaboration with all those who strive for the realization of a new society based on the Values of the Kingdom of God.