Empathy, Holiness and Resurrection

Week of 4/14-19/2025:

Empathy, Dark Nights,
Holiness & Resurrection

4/20/2025

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April 14, 2025: Rabbi Heschel & Hildegard of Bingen on Dark Nights & Holiness

Reflecting on the dark night of the soul that our country and world is enmeshed in, it can be helpful to read the wisdom of the mystics. Rabbi Heschel said: The Biblical answer to evil is not the good but the holy. It is an attempt to raise humans to a higher level of existence, where humanity is not alone when confronted with evil.

Mitzvah is one way to experience the holy. Mitzvah is “a prayer in the form of a deed.” Meanwhile, Hildegard of Bingen inspires with words, paintings, and music. One former student wrote to Matthew after his recent DM about one of Hildegard’s painting: “Here is the one sentence that may indeed change my life again forever: ‘They become other Christs, other anointed mountains of God.’”

April 15, 2025: Two Brilliant Pieces on Passover & Palm Sunday in the “Secular” Press
Matthew exults in two substantive articles in the secular press on two of our most holy days. One was written by Jennifer Rubin who, out of conscience, quit the Washington Post recently.

It was titled: “Active Empathy is life-changing: A word about ‘the stranger.’” * She says that the “central message” of Passover is empathy. She cites the late Rabbi Jonathan Sacks. “You shall not oppress a stranger, for you know the heart of a stranger: You were strangers in the land of Egypt.” (Ex. 23:9)

On the Christian side, Episcopal priest Andrew Thayer tells us that “Palm Sunday Was a Protest, Not a Procession.”** Whereas Caesar ruled with coercion, domination, and the threat of violence, Jesus’ entrance into Jerusalem on a donkey was quite the opposite. The cry “Hosanna!” meant “’Save us!’ from imperial rule.”

April 16, 2025: The War Against Empathy (in the Names of Trump & Christ)

Empathy is not only the central message of Passover, it’s integral to Christianity as well. Jesus taught: “Be compassionate as your Creator in heaven is compassionate.” In contrast, we have this recent article in the Guardian: “Loathe thy neighbor: Elon Musk and the Christian right are waging war on empathy.”*** Author Julia Carrie Wong underscores how “Trump’s actions are irreconcilable with Christian compassion. But an unholy alliance seeks to cast empathy as a parasitic plague.”

The goal of the rightwing movement against empathy is to squash “our capacity to recognize and respond to suffering” and is “a flashing red light warning of fascist intent.” Among other things, it makes room for mass deportation without due process. According to Susan Lanzone, author of Empathy: A History, “The disparagement of empathy is…a deliberate effort to set up a permission structure to dehumanize others.”****

Response of “Christian husband and father, pastor” Ben Garrett to Bishop Marian Budde’s admonition to the newly-installed White House tenant. X.com

April 17, 2025: America Beware: Opus Dei Is Back in the News Again

Reflecting on empathy and the lack thereof in the current administration, we find that 43 Argentinian women are suing Opus Dei. They claim they “became like a slave.” One woman said that at the age of 12, her parents brought her to Opus Dei, hoping she could escape the cycle of poverty.

Instead, Opus Dei gave her a schedule “that detailed every task for every minute of her day.” She said, “They treated me like a slave without any capacity to think or act or do.” Women were expected to cook and clean 12 hours a day without any pay. At 16, they were given a cilice to wear 2 hours a day as “penance for their sins” and a whip to flagellate themselves during prayer.***** What makes this story especially relevant is that Project 2025 was overseen by Kevin Roberts, a close ally of Opus Dei (along with Leonard Leo who almost single handedly created our current Supreme Court).

April 18, 2025: Good Friday, 2025

The crucifixion is an archetype about empires who torture and kill those who dare to challenge those in power with alternative views of society. People found in Jesus and his truth-telling a hope that energized them. His parables offered an invitation to form one’s own conscience.

Those in positions of power found this a threat, and so they silenced him (or so they thought). Fortunately, his story and his teachings live on. The experiences of Awe (the sacred) and the Awful (evil) run parallel in our lives. Hildegard is one person who paints both the ecstasy of the Divine and the horrors of evil.

Good Friday is an invitation to not shrink from evil, but to acknowledge it and fight it.

Hildegard of Bingen, “The Crucifixion and the Mass: Cosmic Events.” Scivias.

April 20, 2025: Easter 2025: Resurrection of the Body, Body Politic, Mother Earth?

One of the more interesting reflections on resurrection comes from Otto Rank, a Jewish psychologist, who says that the resurrection was the “greatest revolutionary idea” in human history because it democratized immortality. Resurrection is for all of us. Rank believes the fear of death has impacted human history profoundly. Humankind’s search for immortality plays out in the creation of pyramids, dynasties, empires, etc.

We still have the potential of resurrecting both democracy and the human race, not to mention the Earth herself. May we rise to the occasion!

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* Jennifer Rubin, “Active Empathy is life-changing: A word about ‘the stranger.’” The Contrarian, April 14, 2025

** Andrew Thayer, “Palm Sunday Was a Protest, Not a Procession.” The New York Times / Opinion, April 13 2025.

***Julia Carrie Wong, “Loathe thy neighbor: Elon Musk and the Christian right are waging war on empathy,” The Guardian, April 8, 2025.

****Susan Lanzone, Empathy: A History. Yale University Press, 2018.

*****Harriet Barber, “‘I became like a slave’: why 43 women are suing the secretive Opus Dei Catholic group in Argentina.” The Guardian, April 14, 2025

Banner image: Sunrise on Easter morning at a cemetery in Pt. Pleasant, PA. (The sun rose after the sunrise service was complete and everyone had wandered off.) Photo by Cynthia Greb. Used with permission.

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