When living brotherly love, acceptance is the highest and most difficult summit to attain. We can demonstrate the meaning of the verb to welcome by using different expressions.
I make a space within myself for the other to occupy.
To welcome is to allow the other to enter my inner sanctum.
To welcome is to accept the other in my interior with open arms of affection.
The whole mystery of love is summed up in the interplay between the two poles of openness and acceptance, Acceptance or welcoming presupposes Openness. It also presupposes forgiveness and respect. The doors of intimacy must first be opened and the way cleared so that my brother may enter into the secret precinct of my interiority.
Communion is an oscillating movement of giving and receiving, opening interior doors to one another. The immediate effect is trust, a collective phenomenon difficult to describe, impossible to define and extremely easy to feel. And the ultimate fruit is joy, the unmistakable sign of the presence of true fraternal communion.
Every person is interiority or better yet, interiorization. When two interiorities are opened to each other and project themselves into each other, intimacy is born: from two presences one presence is formed. When various interiorities are opened to one another, and project themselves, a fellowship or fraternal communion is born.
What is fraternal communion? We can speak of it but we cannot define it. It is a climate of trust that, like an atmosphere, envelops the members of a community. We “beget” it. It is the fruit of our openness-acceptance. It is our “daughter.” But, as we have already said, this daughter has somehow transformed itself into our “mother,” in the sense that it penetrates us and envelops us with its warm breath to bring us to light and lead us to a personalizing and communal fullness.
In order to welcome, we must put ourselves in a state of attentive listening, of respect for the other, whose personality will reveal itself to us insofar as we are attentive.
This attitude of attention or openness presupposes a prior and simultaneous total detachment. From what? From the many prejudices and false images that rise like walls in front of our doors, blocking the way to anyone passing in or out.
Old histories, instinctive antipathies and blind sentimental reactions have often helped to form a distorted image of the other person, quite often like a caricature.
That distorted image unleashes within us a series of obstructive mechanisms which prevent any acceptance. For the moment, this image completely blocks communication with that person.
If I make a space within myself for the other to occupy, if I allow the other to enter my inner sanctum, accept the other in my interior with open arms of affection, the ways have been cleared and the caricatures have fallen by the way-side, the members will be welcomed by their companions in the transparent truth of their personalities.
Extracted from the book “Come with Me”, fr Ignacio Larrañaga
