Lacunae
This is a brief follow up of
my papers which explored the phenomenon of a
covert narcissist priest.
There I argued that a narcissist priest (who
during the Mass is supposed to be an icon of
Jesus Christ), in the reality the antipode of
Christ, subverts and eventually erases the
presence of Christ in the minds of his
congregation and swaps it with his own,
overbearing and entirely self-centered, presence
[‘The Antipriest’,
‘The heart of the New Testament’].
The only remaining “intact”
form of the presence of Christ in the church now
is the Real Presence, in the Eucharistic
species, the Body and Blood of Christ
[‘Vectors of
the soul’].
I also argued that the
mechanics of abuse in a narcissistic church (the
ecclesial gathering which enables narcissistic
abuse by the clergy and those close to them) are
identical with abuse done by a narcissistic
mother, now being “upgraded” from the temporal
realm to the realm of the absolute (God’s
church) – hence the deadly impact of abuse in
the church for those who already were abused in
childhood [‘The loop: a
formula of the spiritual abuse in the true i.e.
with valid sacraments, Church’]. I concluded
that it was Jesus Christ in the Holy Communion,
His objective Real Presence (something that the
believer cannot obtain outside of the Church)
that keeps the believer being imprisoned in the
narcissistic church. Christ thus seems to
play the role of bait or even an enabler of the
abuse, and this impossible image, of Life and
Love used by Evil and Death, crushes the
believer’s mind.
Some things are better
grasped via a picture than via a logical
argument. A believer knows perfectly well
that Jesus Christ the Redeemer and Liberator
cannot be used by evil or collaborate with it
and yet he feels it when he is presented
with the sight of the abuser distributing that
very Christ. What he sees and experiences now
in the narcissistic church overwrites what he
knows.
I tried, via making visual
representations of the situation, to grasp the
role of Our Lord in the narcissistic church and
to solve the impossible dilemma of a believer
“staying with Christ and having no life” or
“leaving Christ and having a life”.
* * *
A typical human society
consists of individuals with [relatively] normal
psyche – i.e. capable of empathy and genuine
engagement with the others (red squares). Any
society always has some individuals with
pathologies who for some reason are unable to
empathize or to relate to others in a genuine
way (black squares). Obviously, the more devoid
of empathy/pathological individuals that are
present, the less healthy is the society.
Pic 1. The earthly
ministry of Jesus Christ
The above is what Jesus
Christ had to deal with while walking in Galilee
and preaching. His words and He Himself could be
accepted or rejected by the others but he was
never ignored, “not seen” or “walled off by
silence” (this is something that happened to Him
much later, close to Golgotha).
The Humanity of Christ here
(represented by the red square) corresponds to
the humanity of the people; His Divinity is
being expressed = made accessible = visible via
His Humanity.
Pic 2. After Ascension
Those who responded to Christ
and believed in Him would follow Him and
eventually form the Church, His Body.
This is the Church with the
Real Presence of Christ in Holy Communion.
Notice how Divinity and Humanity of Jesus Christ
[represented above the church, He is in eternity
with the Father and the Holy Spirit = the Holy
Trinity] finds its perfect reflection in the
sacrament of the Eucharist. The receiving
believers literally “incarnate” Christ, their
bodies become His and vice versa.
The “all-red” squares, here
representing those individuals with a normal
psyche, do not imply that there are no
individuals with psychopathology in the
generally healthy church – there are, just like
in any human society. However, 1) the genuine
orientation towards Christ of the majority of
those gathered and 2) the accepted healthy
(none-abusive) pattern of interpersonal
relationships between them ensure that pathology
cannot spread and overtake the church.
Eventually everyone who makes a choice to follow
Christ, with psychopathology or without, is to
be transformed by Christ into a new person.
NB: This literal
incarnation of Christ, in each believer and the
Church as a whole is missing in those churches
which do not believe that the Eucharist is the
real Body and Blood of Jesus Christ. They are
His Body in Spirit only [below].
Pic 3. A church which
believes that the Eucharist is only a “symbol”
Hence, the Churches which believe the Eucharist
is the real Body and Blood of Christ are the
literal repetition of the Last Supper.
Pic 4. Eucharist, then (Last
Supper) and now (Church with true sacraments)
The intended by God
development of His Church is theosis
(deification) of all creation. Notice how the
believers, while trying to come closer to
Christ, inevitably come closer to each other.
Their primary focus, on Jesus Christ, Who is
above any private focus or disagreements, binds
them together despite their differences (without
crushing them). Notice the perfect and happy
reflection of Christ in all. Pic. 5 conveys the
joy of the Resurrection, of Christ and of each
individual resurrected in Christ. The Cross
turns into the Tree of Life.
Pic 5. Resurrection of Christ
and theosis
There is however another
possibility for the “development” of the church
which depends purely on the human factor, namely
the accepted (fallen) mode of interpersonal
relationships within it.
Pic 6. Narcissistic abuse in
the Church: formation of “the system”
Christ is truly present here,
in the midst of severe interpersonal abuse. The
abuse, acted out by those who hold
unquestionable power (narcissistic clergy and
those close to them) and enabled by the
passivity of the rest of the church’s members,
kills the vectors of love and empathy directed
towards God (and caused by Him) and creates
vectors of fear directed inwards (within black,
entirely stationary squares). The abused human
psyche is now unable to truly relate to Christ
(and to each other, in Truth). The humanity of
the abused fearful person is now cut off from
His Humanity. The world of believers is growing
black, frozen and fragmented.
The next stage:
well-established habitual abuse eventually wipes
off in the believers any capacity of resistance,
even if only within themselves, and teaches them
to maintain habitual silence no matter what
happens to them or to others. They are numb and
practically non-existent as persons. They still
continue participating in the Eucharist though.
Pic 7. Silencing and giving
up personhood
Abuse creates the expanding
system of lacunae, in the soul of each believer
and in the congregation as a whole. Nothing of
substance can survive in those lacunae for long.
With time the eroded
believers become less real than the system of
pathological interpersonal relationships which
was imposed upon them. They are now reminiscent
of the shadows of human beings left by the
explosion at Hiroshima. The system, formed by
their imprints, does not now need them or anyone
else to support itself.
Pic. 8: Golgotha:
then and now
Pic. 9: Christ in prison,
then and now
PS
A paradox: all this – a
perverse shadowy reenactment of the Passion and
Crucifixion of Christ – could never be possible
in the church where there is no real Passion and
Crucifixion of Christ (in the Mass); it is only
possible for this to happen where He truly is.
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