Universal mind and heart
We have to see to it that we are moving toward developing a universal mind and heart. That's how our mind and heart are supposed to be. They are meant to cover all and everything and everyone.
We have to understand that to have a universal mind and heart is not only a matter of generics. It also is, just as much, concerned with the particulars and the individuals. Let's never think that having a universal mind and heart hinders our personalized attitude to people and things. On the contrary, it fosters such attitude.
This is the mind and heart of Christ after whom we are supposed to be patterned. While he preached to a crowd, he always managed to address to everyone. While a big crowd followed him seeking some cure for their maladies, he healed them by touching them one by one or at least keeping each one in mind.
His love and concern for all humanity did not diminish one bit his attention and care for each individual person in the concreteness of his situation. In a sense, he takes care both of the whole and of the parts, the entire thing and the details.
To be sure, our human nature is wired for this. Both our mind and heart, the seat of our spiritual powers of intelligence and will, are oriented toward the infinite. And given our material dimension, we cannot help but attend to the individual cases and specific situations.
And so, we can say that while we are meant to have an outlook that is global and universal, we also have to learn how to act in the local and personal, individualized levels. In sociological terms, we have to learn how to blend the principles of the common good, solidarity and subsidiarity, making them one organic and functioning principle of life.
God's grace extends this human potential of ours to be able to acquire a supernatural character, capable of adopting the very mind and heart of God as taught by Christ and effected by the Holy Spirit. In this, we can cite what St. Paul once said: "We have the mind of Christ." (1 Cor 2,16)
But obviously, given our weakened and wounded condition, we can have some disorder in this need of ours. We can think that to have a universal mind and heart means treating people and situations in a generic way. The personalized approach is deemed unfeasible. Or we can hide in anonymity in our actuations.
Or, vice-versa, we can think that it is impossible to have a universal mind and heart, and that we are only meant to have an individualized and particularized understanding of things and attitude toward people. We need to correct this error.
The key to developing a universal mind and heart is clearly to have a living identity with Christ who, for his part, has given himself completely to us so we can be "alter Christus, ipse Christus" (another Christ, Christ himself).
Such identification enables us to echo St. Paul' words: "I live, now not I, but Christ lives in me." (Gal 2,20) Such identification enables us to share Christ's power and wisdom that can resolve all things in their ultimate terms. That's when we can expect to have the universal mind and heart of Christ.
That's because Christ's words and ways are not simply economic or social or political or historical.in character. They obviously give due attention to these considerations, but they go far beyond these limitations. His words and ways are always creative and innovative, even if they are also rooted on tradition.
There's no human problem or world issue and predicament that cannot be handled by Christ. He is the real and ultimate solver of problems. We have to disabuse ourselves from the tendency to limit Christ to certain concerns of ours, or from relying solely on our human powers and sciences.
So, we need to develop the proper attitude and skills of being with Christ in a vital way so we can learn how to be adaptive to all kinds of situations without getting lost. We have to learn to be open-minded and tolerant of things even as we strengthen our hold of the truths already known and clearly articulated.
In facing difficult situations, not to mention, difficult people, we have to learn the art of continuing dialogue, always maintaining a humble attitude and following the law of gradualness that's meant to lead to conversion and transformation, for us and for everybody else.
With this attitude, we can expect to have the universal mind and heart of Christ.
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