The Holiness of Our Neighbors

I have recently been reading the Weight of Glory, a series of essays by C.S. Lewis and I have a revelation in our reading. I don’t know if it was a new thought or if it has just come alive in a new way. But Lewis’ understanding of the holiness and the eternality of our neighbors have struck a chord in me. “Nature is mortal; we shall outlive her. When all the suns and nebulae have passed away, each one of you will still be alive. Nature is only the image, the symbol; but it is the symbol Scripture invites me to use. We are summoned to pass in through Nature, beyond her, into that splendor which she fitfully reflects.” I love how Lewis can point out our superiority over nature without questioning its importance. Nature is a powerful place to find evidence of God’s power, knowledge, gentleness, and beauty. And through nature God reveals glimpses of who God is. Nature, to God, works similarly like the wardrobe in Narnia. It allows us to enter something beautiful, something bigger than ourselves. But, nature lacks one thing, eternality. And that is something we have been given. Don’t be mistaken. Humans are not eternal beings, however we are made eternal through our union with Christ. “The Church will outlive the universe; in it the individual person will outlive the universe. Everything that is joined to the immortal head will share His immortality.” We are not eternal on our own. We cannot forget that. We must know that we are who we are, only because of whom we know. We were nothing but Christ made us something with him. And so with the great honor of being an eternal being, we must also have the humility that we cannot reach that honor on our own. However, when made part of this beautiful union with Christ Lewis paints the most beautiful picture. “But as organs in the Body of Christ, as stones and pillars in the temple, we are assured of our eternal self-identity and shall live to remember the galaxies as an old tale.” We don’t have to fear this honor being taken away; in fact we can look forward to the day that we talk about the galaxies, the stars, the earth as if it were a fairy tale. A myth, so far out of sight it is as if it never happened.
So, Lewis has covered that we are holy in our eternality. In fact we are so holy that, “Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbor is the holiest object presented to your senses.” I think with that statement comes an enormous responsibility. We are holy beings interacting with holy beings every day. In fact Lewis believes these interaction to be so powerful he is lead to say this, “It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a night mare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our deals with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ordinary people.” If that doesn’t push us into a new way of living I don’t know what does. Lewis would say that we make people more beautiful or more hideous with every interaction. We are called to love one another, to make one another better. It is a burden given to us by our Lord. It is the greatest commandment after all to love God and love our neighbors. And I would say that it could be inferred that we are called to leave people (just like we are to the environment) better than we found them. We are a society of people who have met the risen Lord and been made better by Him, and it is now our duty to be a witness to that meeting and that transformation every day. So how will this impact you? How will this change your interactions with your neighbor? What name is laid on your heart as someone you’ve wronged? Someone you’ve pushed a little closer to nightmare potential? I know these essays have been a heart check for me. So with that I will close this saying that there were no original ideas in this essay, this was basically a regurgitation of C.S. Lewis, but maybe this will cause some original ideas to come out of your life.
(*All quotes taken from “The Weight of Glory” and “Membership”)