Becoming Children in the Reign of God

Abstract

This essay describes, interprets, and proposes theological conversation and performance that can actualize the experience of our encounter with the Triune God and what we were able to learn thus far from this event in which the Trinity teaches us. The phenomenology of performing spiritual exercises in clinical pastoral care leads to a systematic theology for pastoral ministry. It integrates psychological and theological conscientization, transforming the participants through the self-emptying self-giving dynamism of radical love, even for the ‘enemy’. The love for God and neighbor provides a communal ecclesial space of encounter and conversation for all to share with the Spirit. Eucharist and Reconciliation offer the liturgical ritual confirmation of commitment to self-emptying self-giving, in imitation of Christ. As receivers of wellbeing from the Father who gives, we flourish, children in the reign of God. The ideas were developed in conversation with the letter to the Phillipians, the gospel of Luke, and first letter of John, the spirituality of Ignatius of Loyola, and of Augustine of Hippo, with the theology of Jacques Haers, Bernard Lonergan, Karl Rahner and Paul Tillich, the psychology of Carl Jung, and the postmodern philosophy of Jaques Derrida, Michel Foucault, Emmanuael Levinas, Jean Luc Marion, and Paul Ricoeur.