Love and be killed
The Gospels insist upon two antithetical truths which express the tragedy of the human condition: the first is that if you do not love you will not be alive; the second is that if you do love you will be killed. If you cannot love you remain self-enclosed and sterile, unable to create a future for yourself and others, unable to live. If, however, you do effectively love you will be a threat to the structures of domination upon which our human society rests and you will be killed.
Herbert John Ignatius McCabe (1926 – 2001), an English-born Irish Dominican priest, theologian and philosopher. From a 2002 collection of his articles.
Oil painting, study for The Crucifixion, by Thomas Eakins, 1880. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Sketch_for_the_Crucifixion.jpg
