Christocentrism of Charism – Buggert - CarmelStream

change it." clxxxv
Hence the obsequium of the Rule demands today commitment to the land, the here and now
of history with all of its sin-riddled conflicts. In the context of the developed, industrialized nations
of the first world, this insertion into history, this commitment to the land becomes specified by
prophetic denunciation of the commodity form and annunciation of the personal form. The idol of
the commodity form, with its reduction of the person to an expendable "thing" and human experience
to the quantifiable, with its enslaving values of marketability and consumption, with its ethics of
rugged individualism and its offsprings of violence, domination, manipulation, alienation, racism,
chauvinism, sexual mechanics, abortion and the dissolution of family life, has become the new
Satan, the new adversary who prowls around as a roaring lion seeking those whom he can devour.
To take up Jesus' Reign of God praxis in our day means to enter into battle with this roaring lion of
the commodity form, to stand on the side of the intrinsic worth of persons, freedom, detachment,
generosity, justice, peace, forgiveness, healing, compassion and the empowering of those who are
least.
Third suggestion: to walk in the footsteps of Jesus demands entering into spiritual combat
with the roaring lion of the commodity form. In what might this spiritual combat consists? I
propose three elements: the vows, silence- solitude-prayer, and community.
Poverty, chastity and obedience themselves are counter-cultural; they are opposed to the
commodity form, for their purpose is humanization and freedom, freedom from powers within which
drive us to the commodity values of power, domination and possession, and freedom to empower
others as persons. Likewise, there is an economics to the vows. They are not very helpful to
financial growth. clxxxvi
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