Vive la différence, say the French. Originally the concept applied to sexes, but it’s fair to say it has now been pushed a bit too far.
However, differences among us are indeed worth celebrating, if only to remind us that each person, each nation, each society is unique.
Or perhaps such reminders are superfluous. We already know we aren’t the same as even our relations, friends and neighbours. And when it comes to strangers from elsewhere, we don’t need reminding how different they are, thank you very much.
But successful families, societies and cultures coalesce not on things that set them apart but on those they have in common. However distinctive each floor in a building may be, they must all rest on a single sturdy foundation. If that foundation is termite-eaten or subsiding, the structure will collapse sooner or later.
Our culture, indeed our whole Western civilisation, was erected on the foundation of Christianity. That’s a matter of fact, not faith. And staying in the cold realm of facts, one has to acknowledge that every attempt to replace that foundation with some other has failed.
Individuals, families, societies resemble more and more atoms spinning out of their molecule. Brotherhood of men, that notorious fratérnité in the French triad, has turned into an indigestible pie in the sky concocted in a secular cooker.
Men can be brothers only if they have the same father, and such kinship is the most enduring of all. That point was made and reiterated by millions of men over hundreds of years every day, when they said the Lord’s Prayer. “Our Father…” – one for all.
Some of you still say those words every day; most, I suspect, don’t. But all of you must sense that a sense of brotherly unity is missing in the world. The misguided effort to squeeze various surrogate fathers into the space vacated by the real one has turned us into culturally homeless orphans.
Having built the edifice of history’s greatest civilisation, we’ve either walked away from it or, worse, tried to bring the structure down. We’ve succeeded in the former, failed in the latter.
For the edifice hasn’t been pulled down; it has only been obscured by a dense fog. Yet its outlines are still visible, reminding us all that it’s never too late to turn around and walk back.
Sooner or later we’ll do just that, even though it looks as if we’ve lost our way. Yet every other structure we see emerging out of the fog is a mirage. Only one edifice is real. Here in the West there can be no other – which has been proved empirically over the past few centuries in a series of experiments paid for in blood.
That one real edifice bears a superficial resemblance to the Tower of Babel in that its inhabitants converse in different tongues. But whatever their language, on this day they all say the same thing.
Christ is risen!
Le Christ est ressuscité!
Christus ist auferstanden!
Cristo ha resucitado!
Cristo è risorto!
Kristus on üles tõusnud!
Kristus er oppstanden!
Xристос воскрес!
Chrystus zmartwychwstał!
Kristus vstal z mrtvých!
Cristo ressuscitou!
Kristus ir augšāmcēlies!
Christus is verrezen!
Χριστὸς ἀνέστη!
Krisztus feltámadt!
Kristus är uppstånden!
Kristus prisikėlė!
Kristus nousi kuolleista!
Hristos a înviat!
INDEED HE IS RISEN! HAPPY EASTER!
And in one of the ancient and unifying
languages of Christendom: Surrexit Christus, alleluia!
Happy Easter, my digital friend! I hope you were able to attend a mass worthy of the day.