The Common Good. A phrase often used but frequently misunderstood. What does the common good mean? Well depending on whether you’re looking at it from a philosophical perspective, theological perspective, or a very personal perspective you can end up looking at three very different animals.
In many respects, in Christianity at least, the common good is the result of loving God and each other. The great commandment of the New Testament is to love God and love one another as you love yourself. This can be tricky.
Sometimes it’s good to find definitions by looking at their opposing definitions. I would say the opposite of the common good, or rarely coincidental, is looking after #1. The common good is rarely served by just doing what you want, what benefits you, what pleases you, and what does not hurt you. Now there may be variables to that last sentence of meandering thought, but I would say it’s rare.
When we look after #1 that usually means someone around is going to be number two, three, or lower on the scale of importance. So perhaps the beginning of the common good is thinking of your fellow man or woman ever before you finalize that decision or take that action. The common good is inclusion. And its inclusion of what is best for all. Even if others don’t consider that. One example of the common good would-be law and its execution. When we have problems in the world, when someone crosses the line, at least in civil society, the law steps in. We determined that the common good is served by people not taking each other’s goods, by not hurting each other physically, or financially. And the law is there to protect us, some sort of guide for the common good.
However the common good means more than this. The common good means making decisions and doing things with compassion, with kindness, with Care for each other. It has a particular emphasis on those who cannot help themselves easily. The needy, the sick, the troubled, the helpless. Some parts of the common good are very obvious. For example raising a child. A child cannot feed itself, at least not initially, cannot look after itself, pay for itself and therefore the expectation, in the vernacular of the common good, it’s for parents to raise the child into adulthood. And often beyond. Because our closest relations, children and siblings in particular are considered to be an obligation to practice the common good, we don’t think about it too much. We just do it.
However when we start considering those outside the fold. Those outside our family. Outside our political beliefs, outside our race or gender, Then we may not be thinking about it in the same way. It says our common good is not quite so common. But rather more specific. It is this ability or willingness to think about others, even those we don’t like, within the constraints of the common good. By having the guardrails of the common good in our society we treat each other with some consistency, some compassion, some kindness, even when we don’t feel like doing so.
Caring about those who don’t care about you can be difficult. While we don’t deliberately want to put ourselves in harm’s way, we do want others to have the same rights as we do, otherwise what sort of society would we have?
The common good is also greatly served in our relationship with God and with others. It’s hard to be mad with others and in love with God. Our heart strives for resolution, or at least in a change in the others.
As we enter into contemplative prayer we are opening our heart to God, but can we have it be open if we have already determined that some should have more of the common good than others? Just as we don’t want to deny others their rights or opportunities, we don’t want any limits for ourselves. As I mentioned early in this reflection the common good can be tricky. But there is an open doorway. The doorway we have found in contemplative prayer. What if others could see it? Could experience it? Now that would be something for the common good. Where we all were treated equal and there was no number one. Or if there was one, it was not me.
Photograph and Reflection Copyright 2024 Michael J. Cunningham OFS