The art of “accompaniment” is a pastoral effort to bring others into a conforming and abiding relationship with Jesus. However, a little theology can help us navigate accompaniment as the middle position between two extremes: 1) Enabling and 2) Condemning.
When I say condemning, I mean in regard to the person being definitively cut off, in this life, from the hope of salvation. No one has the right to even think that to be the case in this life, since grace can always work. So long as we draw breath it is important for the evangelist to not think someone is too far gone to be saved by the Cross of Jesus. To do this would be to empty of the Cross of its power. Typically this doesn’t exist except perhaps latently in the hearts of others, and so those whose sin is considered unredeemable, are never pursued. Why pursue a lost cause? Or perhaps it comes about by suggesting the offer of grace on the condition of repentance, in such a way that suggests that God does not love us, while we are sinners. We put repentance as a condition or mechanism that causes God to love us, rather than repent being the natural response to God’s love. This is called moralism.
And when I use the term enabling, I mean in regard to weaponizing ambiguity or even speaking error in order to leave a person where they are, and not to walk with them towards Christ.
I’d like to speak to the latter for a moment. St. Thomas Aquinas makes a distinction here that I find incredibly helpful. I will speak to that shortly.
Authentic accompaniment does not involve the endorsement of sin or even a passive indifference towards sins (breaking a relationship with God). Yet sometimes we “meet people where they are” and yet don’t know how to walk with them forward towards a new, healed, and healthier relationship. Aquinas, not using the language of accompaniment, speaks to something similar when he distinguishes “the law of gradualism” versus the “gradualism of the law.”
The “Law of Gradualism” is the orthodox position. What it asserts, fundamentally is that the law is internalized by a sinner (that’s all of us) in a gradual manner. It takes time, for us to wrestle with it. This why St. Paul said that he at times had to feed the beginners with milk rather than solid food. I think all of us can relate to times in our own life where a gentle approach was helpful, and change occurred over time. This subsists in the teaching that “grace builds upon nature.” To summarize, “sanctification is a process.” This is often a great frustration to those who already “know” what perfection is, yet struggle so much to attain to it. Often we’d prefer conversion to be like a switch being flipped – to one day be as holy as the Immaculate Virgin. But the reality is, via providence, the path to sanctity is long and arduous, which is why St. Teresa of Avila suggested sometimes people wrongly hope to be martyrs to escape the daily penances asked of us.
The Law of Gradualism also needs to be understood as not “suspending immutable moral precepts.” The law always applies to the person, as does God’s offering of mercy. Nonetheless, we as we walk with that other person do not condone the sin, but patiently understand that they are moving forward towards overcoming it. Its so important therefore that we not endorse sin in this regard. but speak the truth about it, especially if questioned, while nonetheless not cutting them off from a relationship in the process. I believe that this level of commitment is where love in the truth is often internalized and proven. Not wanting to make a commitment towards a person…might suggest an absence of love.
Gradualism of the law is really an endorsement of evil. Whereby we tell them that ‘this law doesn’t apply to you right now.’ I think this occurs often because its seen as a mercy. But its actually the absence of mercy. Mercy pertains to the forgiveness of sins. Telling a person that a sin isn’t a sin, may have the same effect (subjective relief from guilt), but it nonetheless remains a counterfeit. In this regard, we are no longer offering a path towards the law and God’s mercy, but instead a different path, a wide one. We also don’t seem to have confidence, ourselves, in the importance of God’s law, as a revelation of Love itself, and our very Salvation when internalized through grace. If that is the case, perhaps we are the ones who need to be accompanied?
Photo: PD-US
