Rememberment

Didn’t like Erasmus - a fellow Dutchman - before today. I thought he was just some ruthless proto-Protestant. Today I read something about him that inspired me to greater holiness. In the book All Saints: Daily Reflections on Saints, Prophets, and Witnesses for Our Time, Robert Ellsberg gives some delicious quotes. As is the theme of the entire book, the short biography highlights the virtues of pacificism, social justice and charity to the poor and outcast.

Ellsberg specifically mentions Erasmus’ writings on war and peace, which were prophetic of the times to come: the war of Catholics versus Reformers and Lutherans, the in-fighting of the inevitable Protestant subdivisions.

Erasmus comments on Christ’s commmand “Let him who has no sword sell his mantle and buy one”: “As if Christ, who taught nothing but patience and meekness, meant the sword used by bandits and murderers rather than the sword of the spirit.”

Ellsberg writes that “above all, Erasmus could not abide the effort to reconcile violence with the spirit of Christ.” He then quotes Erasmus: “How can you say Our Father if you plunge steel into the guts of your brother? Christ compared himself to a hen: Christians behave like hawks. Christ was a shepherd of sheep: Christians tear each other like wolves.”

Protestants of today tend to look back to Erasmus as a kind of pre-reformer, but he never left the Church, meaning the Roman Catholic Church. He despised the schism that he saw happening as a result of Luther’s attempts at reformation. In this sense, he was truly Orthodox. Those called Protestant might be the same if they had not insisted on dismembering themselves and declaring war on the very body from which they came.

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It is not my intention with this short reflection to further divide. I have many friends who are Orthodox, like myself, and many who are Protestant, which I was formerly. I only wish to root out the Truth for what it is and bring harmony amongst the schism to the point of even erasing it. Perhaps this is unattainable. But one thing I know: love covers a multitude of wrongs. If only we could attain to the true love of Christ. I forget this in much of my life. It comes easiest here at home with those that are my very blood and breath: Elise, Jude, Esmé. But even here I struggle. I must remember to live at peace with all of my brethren, whomever I interact with, whether Christian or not. If I am the only “little Christ” they ever know, so be it. But let me not be accused of bearing nothing of Christ’s indelible impression.