Over at The Catholic Thing (www.thecatholicthing.org), James Schall makes the following remark: "No students are more surprised than those who come across Chesterton for the first time. No one ever told them before that the very purpose of the mind is to make dogmas, to state the truth. Generally, they have been told that the mind exists because there is no truth, that truth is 'dangerous'. And I suppose it is in a way."
I just finished reading "The Catholic Church and Conversion", by G.K. Chesterton. If you've ever wondered where GKC's famous line about the Catholic Church being "the only thing which saves a man from the degrading slavery of being a child of his age" comes from, it's the first sentence of Chapter 5 of this book. Here's a rather lengthy quote from near the end:
"... let the convert, or still more the semi-convert, face any one fact that does seem to him to deface the Catholic scheme as a falsehood; and if he faces it long enough he will probably find that it is the greatest truth of all. I have found this myself in that extreme logic of free will which is found in the fallen angels and the possibility of perdition. Such things are altogether beyond my imagination, but the lines of logic go out toward them in my reason. Indeed, I can undertake to justify the whole Catholic theology, if I be granted to start with the supreme sacredness and value of two things: Reason and Liberty. It is an illuminating comment on current anti-Catholic talk that they are the two things which most people imagine to be forbidden to Catholics.
"But the best way of putting what I mean is to repeat what I have already said, in connection with the satisfying scope of Catholic universality. I cannot picture these theological ultimates and I have not the authority or learning to define them. But I still put the matter to myself thus: Supposing I were so miserable as to lose the Faith, could I go back to that cheap charity and crude optimism which says that every sin is a blunder, that evil cannot conquer or does not even exist? I could no more go back to those cushioned chapels than a man who has regained his sanity would willingly go back to a padded cell. I might cease to believe in a God of any kind; but I could not cease to think that a God who had made men and angels free was finer than one who coerced them into comfort. I might cease to believe in a future life of any kind; but I could not cease to think it was a finer doctrine that we choose and make our future life than that it is fitted out for us like an hotel and we are taken there in a celestial omnibus as compulsory as a Black Maria. I know that Catholicism is too large for me, and I have not yet explored its beautiful or terrible truths. But I know that Universalism is too small for me; and I could not creep back into that dull safety, who have looked on the dizzy vision of liberty."
Friday, October 9, 2009
Monday, October 5, 2009
Rhinoceritis
More good stuff from Chaput's book, "Render Unto Caesar" (highly recommended, by the way). He quotes Avery Dulles, Jesuit theologian and cardinal: "The greatest danger facing the Church in our country [anywhere in the West, really] is that of an excessive and indiscreet accommodation." Another name for this condition of accommodation, this "kneeling before the world" (Jacques Maritain's phrase), this submission to the spirit of the age, might be rhinoceritis. I'm not a great fan of theater of the absurd, and I've never read Ionesco's play "Rhinoceros", but I am familiar with Thomas Merton's discussion of it in his well-known essay, "Rain and the Rhinoceros."
The play is set in a small French village, where all the citizens contract a disease that causes them to metamorphose into rhinoceroses. All, that is, except Berenger, who witnesses his friend Jean transform before his very eyes. The last words Jean addresses to Berenger, before the mutation is complete and he loses the power of speech, are: "Humanism has expired! You are an old ridiculous sentimentalist." Berenger stands alone at the end of the play, the last human, surrounded by rhinos. And, as Merton comments, "To be the last human in the rhinoceros herd is, in fact, to be a monster."
Reverend John Hugo, an associate of Dorothy Day, described the spiritual state of too many Catholics of his time, in words that are even truer today: "Large areas of their lives are wholly unilluminated by their faith. Their ideas, their attitudes, their views on current affairs, their pleasure and recreations, their tastes in reading and entertainment, their love of luxury, comfort and bodily ease, their devotion to success, their desire of money, their social snobbishness, racial consciousness, nationalistic narrowness and prejudice, their bourgeois complacency and contempt of the poor: In all these things they are indistinguishable from the huge sickly mass of paganism which surrounds them." (Quoted from Chaput, p. 181). In other words, they've joined the herd.
Strong Catholic faith ought to immunize us from infection with rhinoceritis. We follow our Lord and Savior, not the rhinoceros herd. Are we monsters then? (I was going to entitle this post "We Monsters..."). In the world's eyes, maybe so. We certainly have to face the unpleasant fact that we'll often stand alone, and that we'll often fail. When it comes to solitary witness, we have some strong precedents to follow. I particularly like the story of Pope Liberius, who in the 4th Century defied a hostile emperor with the words, "The truth of the faith is not lessened by the fact that I stand alone." To quote Chaput once again:
"In one of their early confrontations, King Henry VIII taunted Bishop John Fisher, the great bishop-martyr of the English Reformation who remained faithful to Rome and opposed Henry's marriage to Anne Boleyn, with this remark: 'Well, well, it shall make no matter ... for you are but one man.' Catholics face the world's same taunting today: the temptation to think that society is too far gone, that our problems are too complex for any of us to make a difference. But one person can always make a difference -- IF that person believes in Jesus Christ and seeks to do his will. We're not called to get results. We're called to be faithful." (p. 196)
The play is set in a small French village, where all the citizens contract a disease that causes them to metamorphose into rhinoceroses. All, that is, except Berenger, who witnesses his friend Jean transform before his very eyes. The last words Jean addresses to Berenger, before the mutation is complete and he loses the power of speech, are: "Humanism has expired! You are an old ridiculous sentimentalist." Berenger stands alone at the end of the play, the last human, surrounded by rhinos. And, as Merton comments, "To be the last human in the rhinoceros herd is, in fact, to be a monster."
Reverend John Hugo, an associate of Dorothy Day, described the spiritual state of too many Catholics of his time, in words that are even truer today: "Large areas of their lives are wholly unilluminated by their faith. Their ideas, their attitudes, their views on current affairs, their pleasure and recreations, their tastes in reading and entertainment, their love of luxury, comfort and bodily ease, their devotion to success, their desire of money, their social snobbishness, racial consciousness, nationalistic narrowness and prejudice, their bourgeois complacency and contempt of the poor: In all these things they are indistinguishable from the huge sickly mass of paganism which surrounds them." (Quoted from Chaput, p. 181). In other words, they've joined the herd.
Strong Catholic faith ought to immunize us from infection with rhinoceritis. We follow our Lord and Savior, not the rhinoceros herd. Are we monsters then? (I was going to entitle this post "We Monsters..."). In the world's eyes, maybe so. We certainly have to face the unpleasant fact that we'll often stand alone, and that we'll often fail. When it comes to solitary witness, we have some strong precedents to follow. I particularly like the story of Pope Liberius, who in the 4th Century defied a hostile emperor with the words, "The truth of the faith is not lessened by the fact that I stand alone." To quote Chaput once again:
"In one of their early confrontations, King Henry VIII taunted Bishop John Fisher, the great bishop-martyr of the English Reformation who remained faithful to Rome and opposed Henry's marriage to Anne Boleyn, with this remark: 'Well, well, it shall make no matter ... for you are but one man.' Catholics face the world's same taunting today: the temptation to think that society is too far gone, that our problems are too complex for any of us to make a difference. But one person can always make a difference -- IF that person believes in Jesus Christ and seeks to do his will. We're not called to get results. We're called to be faithful." (p. 196)
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Living our Christianity
I came upon a good quote I'd like to share. It's from the Jesuit Henri de Lubac:
"In the last analysis, what is needed is not a Christianity that is more virile, or more efficacious, or more heroic, or stronger; it is that we should live our Christianity with more virility, more efficacy, more strength, and if necessary, more heroism -- but we must live it as it is. There is nothing that should be changed in it, nothing that should be added (which does not mean however, that there is not a continual need to keep its channels from silting up); it is not a case of adapting it to the fashion of the day. [The Christian faith] must come into its own again in our souls. We must give our souls back to it." (Quoted in Archbishop Chaput's book, "Render Unto Caesar", p. 108-109.)
"In the last analysis, what is needed is not a Christianity that is more virile, or more efficacious, or more heroic, or stronger; it is that we should live our Christianity with more virility, more efficacy, more strength, and if necessary, more heroism -- but we must live it as it is. There is nothing that should be changed in it, nothing that should be added (which does not mean however, that there is not a continual need to keep its channels from silting up); it is not a case of adapting it to the fashion of the day. [The Christian faith] must come into its own again in our souls. We must give our souls back to it." (Quoted in Archbishop Chaput's book, "Render Unto Caesar", p. 108-109.)
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
"Julie and Julia" and Narcissism
I saw the film "Julie and Julia" a few nights back. It was very entertaining, especially Meryl Streep's performance as Julia Child. The movie raises an issue that has often troubled me. For those who don't know the story, Julie is a frustrated author and amateur chef who decides to seek fulfillment through blogging about her project to cook her way through Julia Child's "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" in the course of a year, 524 recipes in 365 days. She gets a little too obsessed with it all. At one point her husband accuses her of thinking that she is "the center of the universe", and that the fans of her blog will commit mass suicide if she neglects to post one day. So here I am, blogging away, wondering, "Isn't there something essentially narcissistic in all this?" I mean, I try to avoid the use of the first person singular pronoun as much as possible (this post and the previous one are exceptions!), but even so there is a subtext, sometimes rising to the level of conscious thought, but often not, that says, "See how clever I am! I have such interesting insights, such original ideas!"
As I grow older I become more and more convinced that humility is the key to all the virtues and an unshakable foundation for happiness in this world and the next. By humility I primarily mean forgetfulness of self. The narcissism that infects our culture is a major reason why so many people are so unhappy today. And I'm not immune. Anyway, I struggle with that. Pray for my soul!
As I grow older I become more and more convinced that humility is the key to all the virtues and an unshakable foundation for happiness in this world and the next. By humility I primarily mean forgetfulness of self. The narcissism that infects our culture is a major reason why so many people are so unhappy today. And I'm not immune. Anyway, I struggle with that. Pray for my soul!
Monday, September 21, 2009
Christina Lake
Well, I'm back blogging again after a lengthy hiatus that included a relocation from one end of the country to the other: from St. John's, Newfoundland to the little town of Christina Lake in south central British Columbia, an area known as the West Kootenays, to be more precise. The family owns beachfront property at the southern end of the lake. Sitting on our deck, my view of the water is framed by two weeping willows. They were saplings when my father planted them, back in the fifties when he acquired the property, but they are immense things now. The trunks are close to fifty feet apart, yet the upper branches of the two trees almost touch. In front of the one on the east there is a small garden, and buried in that garden is an urn containing my mother's ashes (God rest her soul). That's where she wanted to be. For us, that is sacred ground.
I love to sit out on the desk just at the hour when evening is fading into night. That's when the bats come out. Fascinating, extraordinary creatures! Some of them spend the daylight hours under the eaves of our house or the tiles of our roof. I've never seen them up there, but they leave an unmistakable sign of their presence on our deck below, which I dutifully sweep away in the morning.
And then full night comes on, and when the weather is clear, the sky is a panoply of cold sparks. There's Ursa Major, the North Star, Cassiopeia, a thousand thousand other stars and constellations whose names I never learned, all seeming about to break into song from sheer exuberance of being. The night sky is closer, more alive here than anywhere else I've ever lived.
I love to sit out on the desk just at the hour when evening is fading into night. That's when the bats come out. Fascinating, extraordinary creatures! Some of them spend the daylight hours under the eaves of our house or the tiles of our roof. I've never seen them up there, but they leave an unmistakable sign of their presence on our deck below, which I dutifully sweep away in the morning.
And then full night comes on, and when the weather is clear, the sky is a panoply of cold sparks. There's Ursa Major, the North Star, Cassiopeia, a thousand thousand other stars and constellations whose names I never learned, all seeming about to break into song from sheer exuberance of being. The night sky is closer, more alive here than anywhere else I've ever lived.
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Julia Lavia. Requiescat in pace.
My step-mother passed away on Monday, July 19, at 6:18 p.m., after a battle with brain cancer that was truly heroic. I felt blessed and privileged to be present at her passing. Please pray for the repose of her soul, and for the consolation of her family and friends.
O nations, hear the word of the Lord,
Proclaim it to the far-off coasts,
Say He Who scattered Israel will gather him,
And guard him as a shepherd guards his flock.
For the Lord has ransomed Jacob,
Has saved him from an overpowering hand.
They will come and shout for joy on Mount Zion,
They will stream to the blessings of the Lord;
To the corn, the new wine, and the oil,
To the flocks of sheep and the herds;
Their life will be like a watered garden.
They will never be weary again.
Then the young girl will rejoice and will dance.
The men, young and old, will be glad.
I will turn their mourning into joy;
I will console them, give gladness for grief.
The priests I will again feed with plenty,
And the people will be filled with my blessing.
O nations, hear the word of the Lord,
Proclaim it to the far-off coasts,
Say He Who scattered Israel will gather him,
And guard him as a shepherd guards his flock.
For the Lord has ransomed Jacob,
Has saved him from an overpowering hand.
They will come and shout for joy on Mount Zion,
They will stream to the blessings of the Lord;
To the corn, the new wine, and the oil,
To the flocks of sheep and the herds;
Their life will be like a watered garden.
They will never be weary again.
Then the young girl will rejoice and will dance.
The men, young and old, will be glad.
I will turn their mourning into joy;
I will console them, give gladness for grief.
The priests I will again feed with plenty,
And the people will be filled with my blessing.
Monday, June 29, 2009
Corruptio optimi est pessima
"... There's something in natural affection which will lead it on to eternal love more easily than natural appetite could be led on. But there's also something in it that makes it easier to stop at the natural level and mistake it for the heavenly. Brass is mistaken for gold more easily than clay is. And if it finally refuses conversion its corruption will be worse than the corruption of what ye call the lower passions. It is a stronger angel, and therefore, when it falls, a fiercer devil.
... But someone must say in general what's been unsaid among you this many a year: that love, as mortals understand the word, isn't enough. Every natural love will rise again and live for ever in this country [i.e., heaven]: but none will rise again until it has been buried.
... There is but one good; that is God. Everything else is good when it looks to Him and bad when it turns from Him. And the higher and mightier it is in the natural order, the more demoniac it will be if it rebels. It's not out of bad mice or bad fleas that you make demons, but out of bad archangels."
C.S. Lewis, from The Great Divorce.
I'm heading out to B.C. tonight to spend some time with my father and step-mother. The doctors are not giving her much time to live, two months at the outside. Please keep them in prayer. I may not have internet access at my father's place, so I don't know when I'll be able to post again.
... But someone must say in general what's been unsaid among you this many a year: that love, as mortals understand the word, isn't enough. Every natural love will rise again and live for ever in this country [i.e., heaven]: but none will rise again until it has been buried.
... There is but one good; that is God. Everything else is good when it looks to Him and bad when it turns from Him. And the higher and mightier it is in the natural order, the more demoniac it will be if it rebels. It's not out of bad mice or bad fleas that you make demons, but out of bad archangels."
C.S. Lewis, from The Great Divorce.
I'm heading out to B.C. tonight to spend some time with my father and step-mother. The doctors are not giving her much time to live, two months at the outside. Please keep them in prayer. I may not have internet access at my father's place, so I don't know when I'll be able to post again.
Friday, June 26, 2009
"What a fearful thing it is to be a priest!"
(This is my translation / paraphrase of the Holy Father's General Audience of June 23, 2009.)
Last Friday, June 19, the Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus and the day traditionally dedicated to prayers for the sanctification of priests, Pope Benedict inaugurated the Year for Priests, in association with the 150th anniversary of the death of St. John Baptist Marie Vianney. As a first symbolic act for this year dedicated to priests, the pope, entering the Vatican Basilica for Vespers, stopped in the Chapel of the Heart to venerate the relic kept there, the heart of St. John Vianney.
Divine Providence has brought together the two figures of St. Paul, whose year has just ended, and St. John Vianney. The lives of these two great saints were very different: Paul made a number of extraordinary missionary voyages to spread the Gospel, while St. John Vianney, a humble parish priest, received thousands upon thousands of the faithful without every leaving his small village. What fundamentally unites them is the total identification of each with his own ministry, with that communion with Christ that caused Paul to say: "I have been crucified with Christ. Now it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me" (Gal. 2,20). And St. John Marie Vianney loved to repeat: "If we had faith, we would see God hidden in the priest like a light behind glass, like wine mixed with water." One of Pope Benedict's aims in declaring this "Year for Priests" is "to help priests, and with them the entire people of God, to rediscover and reinvigorate an awareness of the extraordinary and indispensable gift of grace that the ordained ministry represents for the one who has received it, for the whole Church, and for the world, which without the real presence of Christ would be lost."
There is no doubt that historical and social conditions have changed since the time when St. John Vianney carried out his work. The sense of the sacred dimension of life is being lost more and more in our time, replaced by an idea of "functionality". Even in the thought of theologians, pastors, and those responsible for the formation of seminarians this occurs, as two conceptions of priesthood confront, even oppose each other. "On the one hand, there is a social-functional view that defines the essence of priesthood as "service", service to the community through the fulfillment of a specific function.... On the other hand, there is the sacramental-ontological conception, which of course does not negate the service character of the priesthood, but sees it anchored to the being of the minister and which believes that this being has been determined by a gift granted by the Lord through the mediation of the Church, a gift called sacrament" (J. Ratzinger, Ministry and Life of the Priest). This latter, sacramental-ontological conception, is linked to the primacy of the Eucharistic sacrifice, the other, social-functional conception, to the primacy of the word and of proclamation of the Gospel.
Pope Benedict stresses that the apparent tension between the two conceptions of priesthood can be resolved internally. As the Vatican II decree Presbyterorum ordinis asserts: "It is through the apostolic proclamation of the Gospel that the people of God are called together and assembled so that all ... can offer themselves as 'a sacrifice, living, holy, pleasing to God' (Romans 12,1). And it is by the ministry of the priest that the spiritual sacrifice of the faithful is made perfect in union with the sacrifice of Christ, the one and only mediator."
What does this primacy of proclamation actually mean for the priest? Jesus spoke of the proclamation of the Kingdom of God as the true object of his coming into the world, and his proclamation did not just consist of words. It included at the same time his actions: the signs and miracles that he performed indicate that the Kingdom is coming into the world as a present reality, a reality which ultimately coincides with his own person. In this sense it is proper to recall that also in the primacy of the proclamation, word and sign are indivisible. Christian preaching does not proclaim 'words' but the Word, and the proclamation coincides with the very person of Christ, ontologically open to the relationship with the Father and obedient to his will. Therefore, an authentic service to the Word asks from the priest that he aspire to a profound self-abnegation, to the point where he can say with the Apostle: "it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me." The presbyter cannot consider himself proprietor ('padrone' in Italian) of the word, but its servant. He is not the word, but, as John the Baptist declared, he is the 'voice' of the Word: "the voice of one crying out in the wilderness: prepare the way of the Lord, make straight his paths."
Now to be the voice of the Word does not constitute for the priest a mere functional aspect. It presupposes a substantial 'losing of oneself' in Christ, participating in the mystery of his death and resurrection with the whole of his being: intelligence, freedom, will, and the offering of his own body as a living sacrifice. Only the participation in the sacrifice of Christ, his kenosis, makes the proclamation authentic. And this is the path that he must follow with Christ to arrive at the point where he can say to the Father along with Him: "may it be done, not as I will, but as You will." The proclamation, then, always implies the sacrifice of self, the condition that makes the proclamation authentic and efficacious.
An alter Christus, the priest is profoundly united to the Word of the Father, Who took the form of a slave. The priest is a slave of Christ, in the sense that his existence, ontologically configured to Christ, assumes a character that is essentially relational: he is in Christ, for Christ, and with Christ in the service of humanity. Exactly because he belongs to Christ, the priest is radically at the service of his brothers and sisters and the minister of their salvation, their happiness, their authentic liberation.
The saintly Cure of Ars often used to repeat with tears in his eyes: "What a fearful thing it is to be a priest!" And he would add: "How greatly to be pitied is a priest when he celebrates the Mass as if it were something ordinary! How unfortunate is a priest without an interior life!" Let us pray for all priests, that they totally identify themselves with Christ crucified and resurrected, and that they, like John the Baptist, may always be ready to "decrease" so that He might increase; that, following the example of the Cure of Ars, they might be constantly, profoundly conscious of the responsibility of their mission, sign and presence of the infinite mercy of God.
Last Friday, June 19, the Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus and the day traditionally dedicated to prayers for the sanctification of priests, Pope Benedict inaugurated the Year for Priests, in association with the 150th anniversary of the death of St. John Baptist Marie Vianney. As a first symbolic act for this year dedicated to priests, the pope, entering the Vatican Basilica for Vespers, stopped in the Chapel of the Heart to venerate the relic kept there, the heart of St. John Vianney.
Divine Providence has brought together the two figures of St. Paul, whose year has just ended, and St. John Vianney. The lives of these two great saints were very different: Paul made a number of extraordinary missionary voyages to spread the Gospel, while St. John Vianney, a humble parish priest, received thousands upon thousands of the faithful without every leaving his small village. What fundamentally unites them is the total identification of each with his own ministry, with that communion with Christ that caused Paul to say: "I have been crucified with Christ. Now it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me" (Gal. 2,20). And St. John Marie Vianney loved to repeat: "If we had faith, we would see God hidden in the priest like a light behind glass, like wine mixed with water." One of Pope Benedict's aims in declaring this "Year for Priests" is "to help priests, and with them the entire people of God, to rediscover and reinvigorate an awareness of the extraordinary and indispensable gift of grace that the ordained ministry represents for the one who has received it, for the whole Church, and for the world, which without the real presence of Christ would be lost."
There is no doubt that historical and social conditions have changed since the time when St. John Vianney carried out his work. The sense of the sacred dimension of life is being lost more and more in our time, replaced by an idea of "functionality". Even in the thought of theologians, pastors, and those responsible for the formation of seminarians this occurs, as two conceptions of priesthood confront, even oppose each other. "On the one hand, there is a social-functional view that defines the essence of priesthood as "service", service to the community through the fulfillment of a specific function.... On the other hand, there is the sacramental-ontological conception, which of course does not negate the service character of the priesthood, but sees it anchored to the being of the minister and which believes that this being has been determined by a gift granted by the Lord through the mediation of the Church, a gift called sacrament" (J. Ratzinger, Ministry and Life of the Priest). This latter, sacramental-ontological conception, is linked to the primacy of the Eucharistic sacrifice, the other, social-functional conception, to the primacy of the word and of proclamation of the Gospel.
Pope Benedict stresses that the apparent tension between the two conceptions of priesthood can be resolved internally. As the Vatican II decree Presbyterorum ordinis asserts: "It is through the apostolic proclamation of the Gospel that the people of God are called together and assembled so that all ... can offer themselves as 'a sacrifice, living, holy, pleasing to God' (Romans 12,1). And it is by the ministry of the priest that the spiritual sacrifice of the faithful is made perfect in union with the sacrifice of Christ, the one and only mediator."
What does this primacy of proclamation actually mean for the priest? Jesus spoke of the proclamation of the Kingdom of God as the true object of his coming into the world, and his proclamation did not just consist of words. It included at the same time his actions: the signs and miracles that he performed indicate that the Kingdom is coming into the world as a present reality, a reality which ultimately coincides with his own person. In this sense it is proper to recall that also in the primacy of the proclamation, word and sign are indivisible. Christian preaching does not proclaim 'words' but the Word, and the proclamation coincides with the very person of Christ, ontologically open to the relationship with the Father and obedient to his will. Therefore, an authentic service to the Word asks from the priest that he aspire to a profound self-abnegation, to the point where he can say with the Apostle: "it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me." The presbyter cannot consider himself proprietor ('padrone' in Italian) of the word, but its servant. He is not the word, but, as John the Baptist declared, he is the 'voice' of the Word: "the voice of one crying out in the wilderness: prepare the way of the Lord, make straight his paths."
Now to be the voice of the Word does not constitute for the priest a mere functional aspect. It presupposes a substantial 'losing of oneself' in Christ, participating in the mystery of his death and resurrection with the whole of his being: intelligence, freedom, will, and the offering of his own body as a living sacrifice. Only the participation in the sacrifice of Christ, his kenosis, makes the proclamation authentic. And this is the path that he must follow with Christ to arrive at the point where he can say to the Father along with Him: "may it be done, not as I will, but as You will." The proclamation, then, always implies the sacrifice of self, the condition that makes the proclamation authentic and efficacious.
An alter Christus, the priest is profoundly united to the Word of the Father, Who took the form of a slave. The priest is a slave of Christ, in the sense that his existence, ontologically configured to Christ, assumes a character that is essentially relational: he is in Christ, for Christ, and with Christ in the service of humanity. Exactly because he belongs to Christ, the priest is radically at the service of his brothers and sisters and the minister of their salvation, their happiness, their authentic liberation.
The saintly Cure of Ars often used to repeat with tears in his eyes: "What a fearful thing it is to be a priest!" And he would add: "How greatly to be pitied is a priest when he celebrates the Mass as if it were something ordinary! How unfortunate is a priest without an interior life!" Let us pray for all priests, that they totally identify themselves with Christ crucified and resurrected, and that they, like John the Baptist, may always be ready to "decrease" so that He might increase; that, following the example of the Cure of Ars, they might be constantly, profoundly conscious of the responsibility of their mission, sign and presence of the infinite mercy of God.
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Dialogues of the Carmelites 3: Blanche and the Prioress
...
Prioress: Whenever you like … But will you answer me now if I ask you what idea you have about the first obligation of a Carmelite?
Blanche: It is to conquer one’s nature.
Prioress: Very good. To conquer and not to force, the distinction is important. When one tries to force nature, one only succeeds in losing what is natural, and what God demands of his daughters is not to play act every day for His Majesty, but to serve him. A good servant is always where she ought to be, and never makes herself conspicuous.
Blanche: I only ask to pass unnoticed …
Prioress: Smiling, with a hint of irony.
Alas, one only reaches that stage after a long time, and to desire it too strongly in the beginning does not make it any easier to obtain … You are of a noble family, my daughter, and we do not demand that you forget that. Just because you have renounced its advantages, you ought not to think you can escape all the obligations that such a birth imposes, and they will seem to you, here, heavier than elsewhere.
Blanche makes a gesture of dismissal.
Oh, yes, you burn to take the last place. Distrust that feeling, my child … In wishing to descend too much one risks exceeding the measure. In humility as in everything, excess engenders pride, and that sort of pride is a thousand times more subtle and dangerous than that of the world, which is more often than not mere vainglory …
A silence.
What drives you to the Carmelites?
Blanche: Does Your Reverence order me to speak with complete frankness?
Prioress: Yes.
Blanche: Well, then, the attraction of a heroic life.
Prioress: The attraction of a heroic life, or that of a certain manner of living that appears to you – quite wrongly – to make heroism easier, to put it so to speak within arm’s reach?
Blanche: Reverend Mother, excuse me, I have never made calculations of that sort.
Prioress: The most dangerous calculations we make are those which we call illusions …
Blanche: I may well have illusions. I would ask nothing better than that I be stripped of them.
Prioress: That you be stripped of them … (she repeats the words slowly, with emphasis).
You will have to take charge of that yourself, my daughter. Everyone here already has their hands full with their own illusions. Do not imagine that the first duty of our way of life is to come to one another’s aid so as to make ourselves more agreeable to the divine Majesty, like those young people who share their powder and rouge before appearing at the ball. Our business is to pray, just as the business of a lamp is to give light. It does not come into anyone’s head to light a lamp in order to illuminate another lamp. “Every man for himself”; such is the law of the world, and ours resembles it a little: “Everyone for God!” Poor little thing! You have dreamed of this house like a timid child whom the servants have just put to bed dreams in her dark room of the salon with its light and warmth. You know nothing of the solitude to which a true religious is exposed to live and to die. For one finds a certain number of true religious, but much more often mediocre and lukewarm ones. Come, come! Here as elsewhere, evil remains evil, and the fact that it has been made from pure milk does not make cream that has turned any less nauseating than rotten meat … Oh, my child, it is not in keeping with the Carmelite spirit to grow soft and emotional, but I am old and sick, here I am very near my end, so I can well afford to be emotional on your account … Great trials await you, my daughter…
Blanche: What does it matter, if God gives me strength?
Prioress: What He wants to put to the trial in you is not your strength, but your weakness …
Silence.
The scandals of the world have one good thing about them, that they revolt souls like yours. Those that you will find here will disappoint you. All in all, my daughter, the state of a mediocre nun seems to me more deplorable than that of a brigand. The brigand can convert, and that would be for him like a second birth. The mediocre nun, though, she cannot still be born, she already has been, she has missed her birth, and except for a miracle, she will always remain an abortion …
Blanche: Oh, Mother, I would not wish to see anything but good here …
Prioress: Whoever voluntarily blinds herself to the faults of her neighbor, under the pretext of charity, often does nothing other than break the mirror so as not to have to see herself in it. For the infirmity of our nature demands that we discover first of all in others our own wretchedness. Take care that you do not let yourself be overcome by some sort of naïve benevolence which makes the heart soft and the spirit false.
Silence.
My daughter, people wonder what good we serve, and after all they can well be excused for wondering. We believe that, thanks to our austerities, we bring them proof that one can perfectly well do without the things they think indispensable. But for the example to have any meaning, they must still be sure that when all is said and done, these things are as indispensable to us as they are to them …
No, my daughter, we are not in the business of mortification, nor are we conservatories of virtue. We are houses of prayer, prayer alone justifies our existence, whoever does not believe in prayer can only consider us imposters or parasites. If we were to say this openly to unbelievers, we would make ourselves better understood. Are they not forced to recognize that belief in God is a universal fact? Is it not a very strange contradiction that humanity as a whole can believe in God, and yet pray to Him so little and so badly? They scarcely give him the honor of fearing Him. If belief in God is universal, should not prayer be just as universal? Well, my daughter, God has wished that it should be so, not by making prayer, dependent as it is on our free choice, a need as imperious as hunger or thirst, but by permitting that we are able to pray for others, ourselves in the place of others. So every prayer, be it that of a little shepherd boy who watches over his flocks, is the prayer of all mankind.
Short silence.
What the little shepherd does from time to time, at the prompting of his heart, we must do night and day. Not by any means that we hope to pray better than he does, not at all. That simplicity of soul, that tender abandonment to the divine Majesty that is for him an inspiration of the moment, a grace, and like an illumination of the spirit, we consecrate our life to acquiring, or to recovering if we had experienced it before, for it is a gift of childhood which more often than not does not survive childhood. Once childhood has been left behind, one has to suffer a long time to return to it, as at the very end of the night one finds again another dawn. Have I become a child again?
Prioress: Whenever you like … But will you answer me now if I ask you what idea you have about the first obligation of a Carmelite?
Blanche: It is to conquer one’s nature.
Prioress: Very good. To conquer and not to force, the distinction is important. When one tries to force nature, one only succeeds in losing what is natural, and what God demands of his daughters is not to play act every day for His Majesty, but to serve him. A good servant is always where she ought to be, and never makes herself conspicuous.
Blanche: I only ask to pass unnoticed …
Prioress: Smiling, with a hint of irony.
Alas, one only reaches that stage after a long time, and to desire it too strongly in the beginning does not make it any easier to obtain … You are of a noble family, my daughter, and we do not demand that you forget that. Just because you have renounced its advantages, you ought not to think you can escape all the obligations that such a birth imposes, and they will seem to you, here, heavier than elsewhere.
Blanche makes a gesture of dismissal.
Oh, yes, you burn to take the last place. Distrust that feeling, my child … In wishing to descend too much one risks exceeding the measure. In humility as in everything, excess engenders pride, and that sort of pride is a thousand times more subtle and dangerous than that of the world, which is more often than not mere vainglory …
A silence.
What drives you to the Carmelites?
Blanche: Does Your Reverence order me to speak with complete frankness?
Prioress: Yes.
Blanche: Well, then, the attraction of a heroic life.
Prioress: The attraction of a heroic life, or that of a certain manner of living that appears to you – quite wrongly – to make heroism easier, to put it so to speak within arm’s reach?
Blanche: Reverend Mother, excuse me, I have never made calculations of that sort.
Prioress: The most dangerous calculations we make are those which we call illusions …
Blanche: I may well have illusions. I would ask nothing better than that I be stripped of them.
Prioress: That you be stripped of them … (she repeats the words slowly, with emphasis).
You will have to take charge of that yourself, my daughter. Everyone here already has their hands full with their own illusions. Do not imagine that the first duty of our way of life is to come to one another’s aid so as to make ourselves more agreeable to the divine Majesty, like those young people who share their powder and rouge before appearing at the ball. Our business is to pray, just as the business of a lamp is to give light. It does not come into anyone’s head to light a lamp in order to illuminate another lamp. “Every man for himself”; such is the law of the world, and ours resembles it a little: “Everyone for God!” Poor little thing! You have dreamed of this house like a timid child whom the servants have just put to bed dreams in her dark room of the salon with its light and warmth. You know nothing of the solitude to which a true religious is exposed to live and to die. For one finds a certain number of true religious, but much more often mediocre and lukewarm ones. Come, come! Here as elsewhere, evil remains evil, and the fact that it has been made from pure milk does not make cream that has turned any less nauseating than rotten meat … Oh, my child, it is not in keeping with the Carmelite spirit to grow soft and emotional, but I am old and sick, here I am very near my end, so I can well afford to be emotional on your account … Great trials await you, my daughter…
Blanche: What does it matter, if God gives me strength?
Prioress: What He wants to put to the trial in you is not your strength, but your weakness …
Silence.
The scandals of the world have one good thing about them, that they revolt souls like yours. Those that you will find here will disappoint you. All in all, my daughter, the state of a mediocre nun seems to me more deplorable than that of a brigand. The brigand can convert, and that would be for him like a second birth. The mediocre nun, though, she cannot still be born, she already has been, she has missed her birth, and except for a miracle, she will always remain an abortion …
Blanche: Oh, Mother, I would not wish to see anything but good here …
Prioress: Whoever voluntarily blinds herself to the faults of her neighbor, under the pretext of charity, often does nothing other than break the mirror so as not to have to see herself in it. For the infirmity of our nature demands that we discover first of all in others our own wretchedness. Take care that you do not let yourself be overcome by some sort of naïve benevolence which makes the heart soft and the spirit false.
Silence.
My daughter, people wonder what good we serve, and after all they can well be excused for wondering. We believe that, thanks to our austerities, we bring them proof that one can perfectly well do without the things they think indispensable. But for the example to have any meaning, they must still be sure that when all is said and done, these things are as indispensable to us as they are to them …
No, my daughter, we are not in the business of mortification, nor are we conservatories of virtue. We are houses of prayer, prayer alone justifies our existence, whoever does not believe in prayer can only consider us imposters or parasites. If we were to say this openly to unbelievers, we would make ourselves better understood. Are they not forced to recognize that belief in God is a universal fact? Is it not a very strange contradiction that humanity as a whole can believe in God, and yet pray to Him so little and so badly? They scarcely give him the honor of fearing Him. If belief in God is universal, should not prayer be just as universal? Well, my daughter, God has wished that it should be so, not by making prayer, dependent as it is on our free choice, a need as imperious as hunger or thirst, but by permitting that we are able to pray for others, ourselves in the place of others. So every prayer, be it that of a little shepherd boy who watches over his flocks, is the prayer of all mankind.
Short silence.
What the little shepherd does from time to time, at the prompting of his heart, we must do night and day. Not by any means that we hope to pray better than he does, not at all. That simplicity of soul, that tender abandonment to the divine Majesty that is for him an inspiration of the moment, a grace, and like an illumination of the spirit, we consecrate our life to acquiring, or to recovering if we had experienced it before, for it is a gift of childhood which more often than not does not survive childhood. Once childhood has been left behind, one has to suffer a long time to return to it, as at the very end of the night one finds again another dawn. Have I become a child again?
Monday, June 22, 2009
Saints Cyril and Methodius
(This is from the Pope's General Audience, given Wednesday, June 17.)
Cyril and Methodius were brothers by blood as well as in faith. They have been called the "apostles to the Slavs". Cyril was the youngest of seven children, born to an imperial magistrate in Thessalonica in 826/827. He learned the Slavic language while still a boy. At the age of fourteen he was sent to Constantinople to be educated and to serve as a companion for the young emperor Michael III. Later, having decided against marriage, though a brilliant one had been arranged, he received holy orders and became librarian for the Patriarch of Constantinople. A little later, his desire for solitude led him to embrace the monastic life, but, his intellectual gifts being in demand, he was not allowed such repose, and was called to teach subjects both religious and secular. He fulfilled this task so well that he became known as "the philosopher". At about the same time his brother Michael (born around 815), after serving as an administrator in Macedonia, retired to a monastery on Mount Olympus in Bithynia. He took the name of Methodius (the monastic name had to begin with the same letter as the baptismal name).
Attracted by the example of his brother, Cyril withdrew to the same monastery to meditate and pray, abandoning his life as a teacher. But a few years later (around 861) Cyril was entrusted by the imperial government with a mission to the Khazari who lived around the Azov Sea. They had requested that a learned man be sent to them who could debate with the Hebrews and Saracens. Cyril, accompanied by his brother, went to Crimea and remained there a long time. While there, he learned Hebrew. He also sought out and found the tomb of Pope Clement I, who had died in exile there. When the time came for their return to the empire, they carried with them his precious relics. After they reached Constantinople, the two brothers were sent off once again, this time to Moravia by the Emperor Michael III. The Moravian prince Ratislao had directed a very specific request to him: "From the time when we first repudiated paganism, our people have observed the Christian law, but we do not have a teacher who is able to explain the true faith to us in our own language." The mission would soon prove to be a tremendous success. By translating the liturgy into the Slavic language, the two brothers would gain the confidence and affection of the people.
This, however, stirred up hostility among the Frankish clergy, who had arrived there earlier and considered the territory as under their own ecclesial jurisdiction. To argue the case, the two brothers were summoned to Rome in 867. Stopping in Venice, they became embroiled in a dispute with those who held the "three languages" heresy, as it came to be known. These people held that the only languages appropriate for the praise of God were Hebrew, Greek, and Latin. The brothers, of course, had a different view, which they vigorously defended. When they arrived at Rome, Pope Adrian II met them in a formal procession to receive with appropriate dignity and decorum the remains of Pope Clement. The Pope was well aware of the great importance of the brothers' mission. Tensions were already developing between the two halves of the Roman Empire, the western and the eastern, and the Pope envisaged the Slavs, who were very numerous in the territories in between, as a kind of bridge between the two, maintaining the unity of the Christians living on either side. Consequently he did not hesitate to affirm the mission of the two brothers to Moravia, accepting and approving the usage of the Slavic language in the liturgy. The liturgy in Slavic was celebrated in the Basilicas of St. Peter, St. Andrew, and St. Paul.
But while in Rome, Cyril became gravely ill. Sensing the near approach of death, he wanted to consecrate his remaining time to prayer in one of the Greek monasteries in the city (probably at Santa Prassede), where he assumed the monastic name of Cyril (his baptismal name was Constantine). He pleaded with his brother, who had since become a bishop, not to abandon the mission to the Moravians, and to return to that people. Cyril turned to God with this prayer: "Lord my God ... hear my prayer and watch over your faithful flock which you had entrusted to my care ... free them from the heresy of the three languages, gather all into unity and grant to the people you have chosen concord in the true faith and the right confession." He died on February 14, 869.
Faithful to the task imposed on him by his brother, Methodius returned to Moravia the following year (870) and also went on to Pannonia (now Hungary). Here once again he met with a hostile reception from the Frankish clergy, who imprisoned him. Even so, he did not lose heart, and when he was liberated in 873 he devoted himself with great zeal to the organization of the church, seeing to the formation of a group of disciples. It was owing to these disciples that the crisis that burst out following the death of Methodius on April 6, 885 was overcome: imprisoned, some of them were sold as slaves and were brought to Venice, where they were ransomed by an official from Constantinople, who allowed them to return to the lands of the Balkan Slavs. Received in Bulgaria, they were able to continue the mission started by Methodius, spreading the Gospel into the "land of Rus'". God in His mysterious providence had thus availed Himself of their persecution to preserve the work of the sainted brothers.
Cyril was passionate about the writings of St. Gregory Nazianzus, having learned from him the importance of language in the transmission of the Gospel. He introduced his own work of translation with the following solemn invocation: "Listen, all you Slavic peoples, listen to the word that comes from God, the word that nourishes souls, the word that leads to the knowledge of God." In fact, already some years before the request came from the prince of Moravia for a mission to his land, Cyril and his brother Methodius had been actively engaged, together with a group of disciples, in the project of gathering Christian dogmas into books written in Slavic. At that time the need was clearly seen for new written symbols, more closely attuned to the spoken language: thus was born the glagolitic alphabet [l'alfabeto glagolitico], which after modification, became known as the "Cyrilic" alphabet in honor of the one who inspired it. This was a decisive event in the development of Slavic civilization in general. Cyril and Methodius were convinced that a people could not believe they had fully received divine revelation unless they heard it in their own tongue and read it in their own alphabet.
Pope Pius XI, in his apostolic letter Quod Sanctum Cyrillum, said of the two brothers that they were "sons of the East, Byzantines according to their homeland, Greeks by birth, Romans by their mission, Slavs by their apostolic fruit". Their historic role was next officially proclaimed by Pope John Paul II in the apostolic letter Egregiae virtutis viri, where he called them co-patron saints of Europe together with St. Benedict.
Cyril and Methodius were brothers by blood as well as in faith. They have been called the "apostles to the Slavs". Cyril was the youngest of seven children, born to an imperial magistrate in Thessalonica in 826/827. He learned the Slavic language while still a boy. At the age of fourteen he was sent to Constantinople to be educated and to serve as a companion for the young emperor Michael III. Later, having decided against marriage, though a brilliant one had been arranged, he received holy orders and became librarian for the Patriarch of Constantinople. A little later, his desire for solitude led him to embrace the monastic life, but, his intellectual gifts being in demand, he was not allowed such repose, and was called to teach subjects both religious and secular. He fulfilled this task so well that he became known as "the philosopher". At about the same time his brother Michael (born around 815), after serving as an administrator in Macedonia, retired to a monastery on Mount Olympus in Bithynia. He took the name of Methodius (the monastic name had to begin with the same letter as the baptismal name).
Attracted by the example of his brother, Cyril withdrew to the same monastery to meditate and pray, abandoning his life as a teacher. But a few years later (around 861) Cyril was entrusted by the imperial government with a mission to the Khazari who lived around the Azov Sea. They had requested that a learned man be sent to them who could debate with the Hebrews and Saracens. Cyril, accompanied by his brother, went to Crimea and remained there a long time. While there, he learned Hebrew. He also sought out and found the tomb of Pope Clement I, who had died in exile there. When the time came for their return to the empire, they carried with them his precious relics. After they reached Constantinople, the two brothers were sent off once again, this time to Moravia by the Emperor Michael III. The Moravian prince Ratislao had directed a very specific request to him: "From the time when we first repudiated paganism, our people have observed the Christian law, but we do not have a teacher who is able to explain the true faith to us in our own language." The mission would soon prove to be a tremendous success. By translating the liturgy into the Slavic language, the two brothers would gain the confidence and affection of the people.
This, however, stirred up hostility among the Frankish clergy, who had arrived there earlier and considered the territory as under their own ecclesial jurisdiction. To argue the case, the two brothers were summoned to Rome in 867. Stopping in Venice, they became embroiled in a dispute with those who held the "three languages" heresy, as it came to be known. These people held that the only languages appropriate for the praise of God were Hebrew, Greek, and Latin. The brothers, of course, had a different view, which they vigorously defended. When they arrived at Rome, Pope Adrian II met them in a formal procession to receive with appropriate dignity and decorum the remains of Pope Clement. The Pope was well aware of the great importance of the brothers' mission. Tensions were already developing between the two halves of the Roman Empire, the western and the eastern, and the Pope envisaged the Slavs, who were very numerous in the territories in between, as a kind of bridge between the two, maintaining the unity of the Christians living on either side. Consequently he did not hesitate to affirm the mission of the two brothers to Moravia, accepting and approving the usage of the Slavic language in the liturgy. The liturgy in Slavic was celebrated in the Basilicas of St. Peter, St. Andrew, and St. Paul.
But while in Rome, Cyril became gravely ill. Sensing the near approach of death, he wanted to consecrate his remaining time to prayer in one of the Greek monasteries in the city (probably at Santa Prassede), where he assumed the monastic name of Cyril (his baptismal name was Constantine). He pleaded with his brother, who had since become a bishop, not to abandon the mission to the Moravians, and to return to that people. Cyril turned to God with this prayer: "Lord my God ... hear my prayer and watch over your faithful flock which you had entrusted to my care ... free them from the heresy of the three languages, gather all into unity and grant to the people you have chosen concord in the true faith and the right confession." He died on February 14, 869.
Faithful to the task imposed on him by his brother, Methodius returned to Moravia the following year (870) and also went on to Pannonia (now Hungary). Here once again he met with a hostile reception from the Frankish clergy, who imprisoned him. Even so, he did not lose heart, and when he was liberated in 873 he devoted himself with great zeal to the organization of the church, seeing to the formation of a group of disciples. It was owing to these disciples that the crisis that burst out following the death of Methodius on April 6, 885 was overcome: imprisoned, some of them were sold as slaves and were brought to Venice, where they were ransomed by an official from Constantinople, who allowed them to return to the lands of the Balkan Slavs. Received in Bulgaria, they were able to continue the mission started by Methodius, spreading the Gospel into the "land of Rus'". God in His mysterious providence had thus availed Himself of their persecution to preserve the work of the sainted brothers.
Cyril was passionate about the writings of St. Gregory Nazianzus, having learned from him the importance of language in the transmission of the Gospel. He introduced his own work of translation with the following solemn invocation: "Listen, all you Slavic peoples, listen to the word that comes from God, the word that nourishes souls, the word that leads to the knowledge of God." In fact, already some years before the request came from the prince of Moravia for a mission to his land, Cyril and his brother Methodius had been actively engaged, together with a group of disciples, in the project of gathering Christian dogmas into books written in Slavic. At that time the need was clearly seen for new written symbols, more closely attuned to the spoken language: thus was born the glagolitic alphabet [l'alfabeto glagolitico], which after modification, became known as the "Cyrilic" alphabet in honor of the one who inspired it. This was a decisive event in the development of Slavic civilization in general. Cyril and Methodius were convinced that a people could not believe they had fully received divine revelation unless they heard it in their own tongue and read it in their own alphabet.
Pope Pius XI, in his apostolic letter Quod Sanctum Cyrillum, said of the two brothers that they were "sons of the East, Byzantines according to their homeland, Greeks by birth, Romans by their mission, Slavs by their apostolic fruit". Their historic role was next officially proclaimed by Pope John Paul II in the apostolic letter Egregiae virtutis viri, where he called them co-patron saints of Europe together with St. Benedict.
Friday, June 19, 2009
And all shall be well ...
And all shall be well and
All manner of thing shall be well
When the tongues of flame are in-folded
Into the crowned knot of fire
And the fire and the rose are one.
-T. S. Eliot, Little Gidding (from The Four Quartets)
All manner of thing shall be well
When the tongues of flame are in-folded
Into the crowned knot of fire
And the fire and the rose are one.
-T. S. Eliot, Little Gidding (from The Four Quartets)
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Silence, Mystery, the Mass
The present state of the world and the whole of life is diseased. If I were a doctor and were asked for my advice, I should reply: Create silence! Bring men to silence. The Word of God cannot be heard in the noisy world of today. And even if it were blazoned forth with all the panoply of noise so that it could be heard in the midst of all the other noise, then it would no longer be the Word of God. Therefore create silence.
-Kierkegaard
A friend I've never met sent me a worderful gift -- Max Picard's book The World of Silence (Thanks, Rachel!) The writing is poetic in places, more or less aphoristic throughout, and I don't know what to make of some of it. It's the kind of writing that needs to be pondered, prayed over, digested slowly. The above quote from Kierkegaard closes the book. Picard has profound things to say, things that we all need to hear today. Here are some of his thoughts on prayer:
"God became man for the sake of man. This event is so utterly extraordinary and so much against the experience of reason and against everything the eye has seen, that man is not able to make response to it in words. A layer of silence lies between this event and man, and in this silence man approaches the silence that surrounds God Himself. Man and the mystery first meet in the silence, but the word that comes out of this silence is original, as the first word before it had ever spoken anything. That is why it is able to speak of the mystery.
"It is a sign of the love of God that a mystery is always separated from man by a layer of silence. And that is a reminder that man should also keep a silence in which to approach the mystery. Today, when there is only noise in and around man, it is difficult to approach the mystery. When the layer of silence is missing, the extraordinary easily becomes connected with the ordinary, with the routine of things, and man reduces the extraordinary to a mere part of the ordinary, a mere part of the mechanical routine.
... Prayer is the pouring of the word into silence. ... In prayer the region of the lower, human silence comes into relation with the higher silence of God; the lower rests in the higher. In prayer the word and therefore man is in the center between two regions of silence. In prayer man is held between these two regions.
"Elsewhere, outside prayer, the silence of man is fulfilled and receives its meaning in speech. But in prayer it receives its meaning and fulfillment in the meeting with the silence of God.
"Elsewhere, outside prayer, the silence in man serves the word in man. But now, in prayer, the word serves the silence in man: the word leads the human silence to the silence of God."
Part of the problem with the Novus Ordo, at least as it is most often celebrated, is that silence does not have sufficient space. And, as Picard says, one can only approach a mystery as awesome as the Eucharist in silence. Part of the attraction of the old Latin mass is that it makes abundant room for this necessary silence. It does what Kierkegaard suggests as a remedy for the world's ills: it creates silence. But a lot of people today, confronted with silence, are at a loss as to what to do. Silence bores them, perhaps even frightens them. This is a sad state of affairs. To paraphrase Kierkegaard, if I were a parish priest, I would try to instill in my congregation a love for silence. There is more than enough noise in the world outside. Let there be silence in Church.
-Kierkegaard
A friend I've never met sent me a worderful gift -- Max Picard's book The World of Silence (Thanks, Rachel!) The writing is poetic in places, more or less aphoristic throughout, and I don't know what to make of some of it. It's the kind of writing that needs to be pondered, prayed over, digested slowly. The above quote from Kierkegaard closes the book. Picard has profound things to say, things that we all need to hear today. Here are some of his thoughts on prayer:
"God became man for the sake of man. This event is so utterly extraordinary and so much against the experience of reason and against everything the eye has seen, that man is not able to make response to it in words. A layer of silence lies between this event and man, and in this silence man approaches the silence that surrounds God Himself. Man and the mystery first meet in the silence, but the word that comes out of this silence is original, as the first word before it had ever spoken anything. That is why it is able to speak of the mystery.
"It is a sign of the love of God that a mystery is always separated from man by a layer of silence. And that is a reminder that man should also keep a silence in which to approach the mystery. Today, when there is only noise in and around man, it is difficult to approach the mystery. When the layer of silence is missing, the extraordinary easily becomes connected with the ordinary, with the routine of things, and man reduces the extraordinary to a mere part of the ordinary, a mere part of the mechanical routine.
... Prayer is the pouring of the word into silence. ... In prayer the region of the lower, human silence comes into relation with the higher silence of God; the lower rests in the higher. In prayer the word and therefore man is in the center between two regions of silence. In prayer man is held between these two regions.
"Elsewhere, outside prayer, the silence of man is fulfilled and receives its meaning in speech. But in prayer it receives its meaning and fulfillment in the meeting with the silence of God.
"Elsewhere, outside prayer, the silence in man serves the word in man. But now, in prayer, the word serves the silence in man: the word leads the human silence to the silence of God."
Part of the problem with the Novus Ordo, at least as it is most often celebrated, is that silence does not have sufficient space. And, as Picard says, one can only approach a mystery as awesome as the Eucharist in silence. Part of the attraction of the old Latin mass is that it makes abundant room for this necessary silence. It does what Kierkegaard suggests as a remedy for the world's ills: it creates silence. But a lot of people today, confronted with silence, are at a loss as to what to do. Silence bores them, perhaps even frightens them. This is a sad state of affairs. To paraphrase Kierkegaard, if I were a parish priest, I would try to instill in my congregation a love for silence. There is more than enough noise in the world outside. Let there be silence in Church.
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Dialogues of the Carmelites 2: How Sister Constance Prepares for Death
In the garden, some of the religious are harvesting. Constance is sitting in a tree eating the fruit.
S. Matilda: Anxiety has not made you lose your appetite, Sister Constance. But at that rate, I’ll never fill my basket.
S. Constance: What need do we have for all these provisions? Perhaps we’ll all be dead before this fruit can spoil.
S. Matilda: And suppose we don’t die at all? I don’t have such a great desire to die, Sister Constance.
S. Constance: Oh! I don’t either! But if we put our lives in God’s hands, to decide whether or not we will die, what good is it to worry about what we will eat? We will never have a better opportunity for a bit of gluttony!
S. Matilda: Now there’s a strange way of preparing for martyrdom!
S. Constance: Oh! Pardon me, Sister Matilda. In chapel, at work, and in the great silence, I can very well prepare in another manner. This manner here is the way of recreation. Why shouldn’t both ways be good? And besides, at the end of the day, the office of martyrs is not to eat, but to be eaten.
S. Matilda: Anxiety has not made you lose your appetite, Sister Constance. But at that rate, I’ll never fill my basket.
S. Constance: What need do we have for all these provisions? Perhaps we’ll all be dead before this fruit can spoil.
S. Matilda: And suppose we don’t die at all? I don’t have such a great desire to die, Sister Constance.
S. Constance: Oh! I don’t either! But if we put our lives in God’s hands, to decide whether or not we will die, what good is it to worry about what we will eat? We will never have a better opportunity for a bit of gluttony!
S. Matilda: Now there’s a strange way of preparing for martyrdom!
S. Constance: Oh! Pardon me, Sister Matilda. In chapel, at work, and in the great silence, I can very well prepare in another manner. This manner here is the way of recreation. Why shouldn’t both ways be good? And besides, at the end of the day, the office of martyrs is not to eat, but to be eaten.
Saturday, June 13, 2009
Ars moriendi
Man dies only once in his life, and as he lacks experience of the event, he bungles it. So that he may die successfully, he must learn how to die by following the instruction of experienced men who know what it means to die in the midst of life. Asceticism gives us this experience of death. (Florensky)
I've been thinking a lot about death lately. Several reasons for this, some of them personal. No need to go into that. What prompts this posting is an article written a few days back at The Catholic Thing, "Fear of Death", by Virgil Nemoianu. Reading it, I recalled something I'd read a long while back in Daisetz Suzuki's book, Zen and Japanese Culture (I've referred to this book before; see my posting on the Samurai and the cat). Suzuki quotes a story from a work entitled Hagakure, which translates as "Hidden under the leaves":
Yagyu Tajima no kami Munenori was a great swordsman and teacher in the art to the Shogun of the time, Tokugawa Iyemitsu. One of the personal guards of the Shogun one day came to Tajima no kami wishing to be trained in swordplay. The master said, "As I observe, you seem to be a master of the art yourself; pray tell me to what school you belong, before we enter into the relationship of teacher and pupil."
The guardsman said, "I am ashamed to confess that I have never learned the art."
"Are you going to fool me? I am teacher to the honorable Shogun himself, and I know my judging eye never fails."
"I am sorry to defy your honor, but I really know nothing."
This resolute denial on the part of the visitor made the swordsmaster think for a while, and he finally said, "If you say so, that must be so; but still I am sure of your being master of something, though I know not just what."
"Yes, if you insist, I will tell you this. There is one thing of which I can say I am complete master. When I was still a boy, the thought came upon me that as a samurai I ought in no circumstances to be afraid of death, and ever since I have grappled with the problem of death now for some years, and finally the problem has entirely ceased to worry me. May this be what you hint at?"
"Exactly!", exclaimed Tajima no kami. "That is what I mean. I am glad I made no mistake in my judgment. For the ultimate secrets of swordsmanship also lie in being released from the thought of death. I have trained ever so many hundreds of my pupils along this line, but so far none of them really deserve the final certificate for swordsmanship. You need no technical training, you are already a master."
Of course it is natural to fear and hate death. But even the noble pagans knew that this was something that should be and can be overcome. Suetonius tells us that on the night before he died, Julius Caesar attended a dinner party where the topic under discussion was "what is the best sort of death" (Caesar is supposed to have said, prophetically as it turned out, "Let it come swiftly and unexpectedly"). I can't say that that subject has ever come up at any party I've been to recently. (But then again, I don't get out much!) Part of the reason we fear death so much is that we keep it at a distance, push it away, refuse to think about it. It may sound morbid, but it really is a salutary spiritual exercise to "grapple with the problem" every day. It is in the Rule of St. Benedict that a monk should keep death ever before his eyes. It might not be going too far even to befriend your own personal death. After all, Francis of Assisi called her his Sister. You don't hate and fear your sister.
There is a body of Christian literature, mostly Catholic I think, on the Ars Moriendi, the art of dying well. It arose initially in Medieval times in response to changing conditions brought on by the Black Death. Perhaps this art is something that should be revived. The texts all exort the Christian that the best preparation for a good death is a good life: "Christians should live in such wise ... that they may die safely, every hour, when God will" (cited in Comper, The Book of the Craft of Dying and Other Early English Tracts concerning Death, New York, Arno Press, 1977). Clearly, the preparation for death is not something that can be put off until we are afflicted with old age or serious illness. A consistent practice of memento mori, mindfulness of death, is a necessary part of a truly Christian "art of living".
(More on this topic in my next post.)
I've been thinking a lot about death lately. Several reasons for this, some of them personal. No need to go into that. What prompts this posting is an article written a few days back at The Catholic Thing, "Fear of Death", by Virgil Nemoianu. Reading it, I recalled something I'd read a long while back in Daisetz Suzuki's book, Zen and Japanese Culture (I've referred to this book before; see my posting on the Samurai and the cat). Suzuki quotes a story from a work entitled Hagakure, which translates as "Hidden under the leaves":
Yagyu Tajima no kami Munenori was a great swordsman and teacher in the art to the Shogun of the time, Tokugawa Iyemitsu. One of the personal guards of the Shogun one day came to Tajima no kami wishing to be trained in swordplay. The master said, "As I observe, you seem to be a master of the art yourself; pray tell me to what school you belong, before we enter into the relationship of teacher and pupil."
The guardsman said, "I am ashamed to confess that I have never learned the art."
"Are you going to fool me? I am teacher to the honorable Shogun himself, and I know my judging eye never fails."
"I am sorry to defy your honor, but I really know nothing."
This resolute denial on the part of the visitor made the swordsmaster think for a while, and he finally said, "If you say so, that must be so; but still I am sure of your being master of something, though I know not just what."
"Yes, if you insist, I will tell you this. There is one thing of which I can say I am complete master. When I was still a boy, the thought came upon me that as a samurai I ought in no circumstances to be afraid of death, and ever since I have grappled with the problem of death now for some years, and finally the problem has entirely ceased to worry me. May this be what you hint at?"
"Exactly!", exclaimed Tajima no kami. "That is what I mean. I am glad I made no mistake in my judgment. For the ultimate secrets of swordsmanship also lie in being released from the thought of death. I have trained ever so many hundreds of my pupils along this line, but so far none of them really deserve the final certificate for swordsmanship. You need no technical training, you are already a master."
Of course it is natural to fear and hate death. But even the noble pagans knew that this was something that should be and can be overcome. Suetonius tells us that on the night before he died, Julius Caesar attended a dinner party where the topic under discussion was "what is the best sort of death" (Caesar is supposed to have said, prophetically as it turned out, "Let it come swiftly and unexpectedly"). I can't say that that subject has ever come up at any party I've been to recently. (But then again, I don't get out much!) Part of the reason we fear death so much is that we keep it at a distance, push it away, refuse to think about it. It may sound morbid, but it really is a salutary spiritual exercise to "grapple with the problem" every day. It is in the Rule of St. Benedict that a monk should keep death ever before his eyes. It might not be going too far even to befriend your own personal death. After all, Francis of Assisi called her his Sister. You don't hate and fear your sister.
There is a body of Christian literature, mostly Catholic I think, on the Ars Moriendi, the art of dying well. It arose initially in Medieval times in response to changing conditions brought on by the Black Death. Perhaps this art is something that should be revived. The texts all exort the Christian that the best preparation for a good death is a good life: "Christians should live in such wise ... that they may die safely, every hour, when God will" (cited in Comper, The Book of the Craft of Dying and Other Early English Tracts concerning Death, New York, Arno Press, 1977). Clearly, the preparation for death is not something that can be put off until we are afflicted with old age or serious illness. A consistent practice of memento mori, mindfulness of death, is a necessary part of a truly Christian "art of living".
(More on this topic in my next post.)
Thursday, June 11, 2009
John Scotus Eriugena: Salus nostra ex fide inchoat
"What is philosophy but an expounding of the rules of religion whereby man humbly adores and rationally seeks God, the highest cause and the source of everything? (De predestinatione)
"No one enters heaven except through philosophy." (Annotationes in Martianum Capellam)
The Holy Father's general audience on Wednesday (June 10, 2009) was devoted to John Scotus Eriugena. Born in Ireland in the early years of the ninth century, he left his native land to join the French court of Charles the Bald, a center of cultural and intellectual life at the time. The date of his death is not known with certainty, but is thought to have been around 870.
Well-versed in both Greek and Latin, John had a particular interest in Maximus the Confessor and above all, in Dionysius the Areopagite. Throughout the Middle Ages, this author was identified with the disciple of Paul mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles (17:34), but he is now known to have been a Syrian living and writing in the fifth century. His works were translated by John the Scot, and so were made accessible to later theologians like St. Bonaventure. Convinced of the apostolicity of his writings, John devoted his life to deepening and developing his thought, to such an extent that sometimes it is hard to distinguish where we are dealing with the ideas of Scotus Eriugena and where he is merely transmitting the reflections of the Pseudo-Dionysius.
The theological work of John Scotus did not escape the censure of ecclesial authorities, on account of a radical Platonism that sometimes seems to draw too near to pantheism, even if his intentions were always orthodox. Among his many works, the Pope singled out De divisione naturae ("On the divisions of nature") and De hierarchia caelestia ("An Exposition on the celestial hierarchy of St. Dionysius").
Our author says: "Salus nostra ex fide inchoat", our salvation begins with faith. We cannot speak about God proceeding from our own conceptions, but from what God says concerning Himself in Sacred Scripture. But, seeing as God speaks only the truth, Scotus Eriugena is convinced that scriptural authority and reason can never contradict each other; he is convinced that true religion and true philosophy coincide. From this perspective he writes: "Any sort of authority that is not confirmed by true reason should be considered weak... There is in fact no true authority that does not coincide with the truth discovered by the power of reason ... Let no authority intimidate you or distract you from what right reasoning and contemplation lead you to understand. In fact, authentic authority never contradicts right reason, nor does the latter ever contradict true authority. Both without any doubt stem from the same source, which is the divine wisdom." We have here a courageous affirmation of the power of reason, founded on the certainty that true authority is reasonable, because God is creative reason. Erigena's profound passion for truth is clearly evident, as it also is in a passage not mentioned by Pope Benedict, where he claims that at the last judgment the wicked will suffer the worst punishment possible -- ignorance of the truth.
John Scotus repeats a point made earlier by St. John Chrysostom, that Scripture itself, though coming from God, would not have been necessary if man had not sinned. We must therefore deduce that Scripture was given by God with a pedagogial intent and out of condescension, so that man would be able to recall all that had been impressed on his heart at the moment of his creation "in the image and likeness of God" and which original sin had made him forget. Eriugena writes in the Expositiones: "Man was not created for the Scriptures, of which he would have had no need if he had not sinned, but rather the Scriptures -- woven of doctrine and symbol -- were given for man. Thanks to them, our rational nature can be introduced into the depths of pure and authentic contemplation of God." The words of Sacred Scripture purify our reason, a reason that has been a little blinded, and help us return to the memory of what we, inasmuch as we are the image of God, carry in our hearts, wounded as it is by sin.
Certain hermeneutical consequences with respect to Scriptural interpretation follow from this, and still today they can point out the right path for a correct reading of Sacred Scripture. It is a matter of uncovering the sense hidden in the sacred text and this supposes a particular interior exercise by which reason opens itself up to the sure route towards the truth. This exercise consists of cultivating a constant disposition to conversion. In order to arrive at a view into the depths of the text it is necessary to progress simultaneously in conversion of the heart and in conceptual analysis of the words. In fact it is only from the constant purification both of the eyes of the heart and the eyes of the mind that we can attain an exact understanding.
This path leads the thinking being to the very threshold of the Divine Mystery, where all our notions acknowledge their own weakness and incapacity and oblige us for that reason, with the simple power, free and sweet, of truth to always go beyond everything that has been and is continually being acquired. The adoring and silent recognition of the Mystery, which leads into a communion that makes one, is thus revealed as the one road to a relationship with the truth that is at the same time the most intimate possible and the most scrupulously respectful of God's otherness. John Scotus, making use of a vocabulary dear to the Greek Christian tradition, has called this experience towards which we are tending "theosis" or divinization, with so ardent an affirmation that it is possible to suspect him of heterodox pantheism. It is hard to avoid that feeling when faced with texts like this: "Just as iron becomes red-hot and molten in the fire so as to give the appearance that there is only fire present, and yet the two substances remain distinct, one from the other, so also we must accept that at the end of this world all of nature, corporeal and incorporeal, will manifest only God and yet remain integral in such a manner that God can in some way be comprehended while remaining incomprehensible and creation itself will be transformed, with ineffable wonder, into God."
In reality, the whole of John's theological thought is more evidently the demonstration of an attempt to express in words the inexpressible truths of God, based solely on the mystery of the Word made flesh in Jesus of Nazareth. All the metaphors he uses to indicate this ineffable reality shows how much he was aware of the absolute inadequacy of the terms we use in speaking of these things. And for all that there remains the charm and a certain atmosphere of authentic mystical experience that we can every so often reach out and touch in his writings. As proof of that, it is enough to cite a page from De divisione naturae which touches in the depths of our souls even we believers in the 21st century: "Nothing is to be desired", he writes, "other than the joy of the truth that is Christ, nor is anything to be avoided other than His absence. Indeed, this ought to be considered the one and only cause of total and eternal sadness. Take Christ away from me and no other good remains to me, nor does anything terrify me so much as His absence. The greatest torment of a rational creature is the privation and the absence of Christ."
"No one enters heaven except through philosophy." (Annotationes in Martianum Capellam)
The Holy Father's general audience on Wednesday (June 10, 2009) was devoted to John Scotus Eriugena. Born in Ireland in the early years of the ninth century, he left his native land to join the French court of Charles the Bald, a center of cultural and intellectual life at the time. The date of his death is not known with certainty, but is thought to have been around 870.
Well-versed in both Greek and Latin, John had a particular interest in Maximus the Confessor and above all, in Dionysius the Areopagite. Throughout the Middle Ages, this author was identified with the disciple of Paul mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles (17:34), but he is now known to have been a Syrian living and writing in the fifth century. His works were translated by John the Scot, and so were made accessible to later theologians like St. Bonaventure. Convinced of the apostolicity of his writings, John devoted his life to deepening and developing his thought, to such an extent that sometimes it is hard to distinguish where we are dealing with the ideas of Scotus Eriugena and where he is merely transmitting the reflections of the Pseudo-Dionysius.
The theological work of John Scotus did not escape the censure of ecclesial authorities, on account of a radical Platonism that sometimes seems to draw too near to pantheism, even if his intentions were always orthodox. Among his many works, the Pope singled out De divisione naturae ("On the divisions of nature") and De hierarchia caelestia ("An Exposition on the celestial hierarchy of St. Dionysius").
Our author says: "Salus nostra ex fide inchoat", our salvation begins with faith. We cannot speak about God proceeding from our own conceptions, but from what God says concerning Himself in Sacred Scripture. But, seeing as God speaks only the truth, Scotus Eriugena is convinced that scriptural authority and reason can never contradict each other; he is convinced that true religion and true philosophy coincide. From this perspective he writes: "Any sort of authority that is not confirmed by true reason should be considered weak... There is in fact no true authority that does not coincide with the truth discovered by the power of reason ... Let no authority intimidate you or distract you from what right reasoning and contemplation lead you to understand. In fact, authentic authority never contradicts right reason, nor does the latter ever contradict true authority. Both without any doubt stem from the same source, which is the divine wisdom." We have here a courageous affirmation of the power of reason, founded on the certainty that true authority is reasonable, because God is creative reason. Erigena's profound passion for truth is clearly evident, as it also is in a passage not mentioned by Pope Benedict, where he claims that at the last judgment the wicked will suffer the worst punishment possible -- ignorance of the truth.
John Scotus repeats a point made earlier by St. John Chrysostom, that Scripture itself, though coming from God, would not have been necessary if man had not sinned. We must therefore deduce that Scripture was given by God with a pedagogial intent and out of condescension, so that man would be able to recall all that had been impressed on his heart at the moment of his creation "in the image and likeness of God" and which original sin had made him forget. Eriugena writes in the Expositiones: "Man was not created for the Scriptures, of which he would have had no need if he had not sinned, but rather the Scriptures -- woven of doctrine and symbol -- were given for man. Thanks to them, our rational nature can be introduced into the depths of pure and authentic contemplation of God." The words of Sacred Scripture purify our reason, a reason that has been a little blinded, and help us return to the memory of what we, inasmuch as we are the image of God, carry in our hearts, wounded as it is by sin.
Certain hermeneutical consequences with respect to Scriptural interpretation follow from this, and still today they can point out the right path for a correct reading of Sacred Scripture. It is a matter of uncovering the sense hidden in the sacred text and this supposes a particular interior exercise by which reason opens itself up to the sure route towards the truth. This exercise consists of cultivating a constant disposition to conversion. In order to arrive at a view into the depths of the text it is necessary to progress simultaneously in conversion of the heart and in conceptual analysis of the words. In fact it is only from the constant purification both of the eyes of the heart and the eyes of the mind that we can attain an exact understanding.
This path leads the thinking being to the very threshold of the Divine Mystery, where all our notions acknowledge their own weakness and incapacity and oblige us for that reason, with the simple power, free and sweet, of truth to always go beyond everything that has been and is continually being acquired. The adoring and silent recognition of the Mystery, which leads into a communion that makes one, is thus revealed as the one road to a relationship with the truth that is at the same time the most intimate possible and the most scrupulously respectful of God's otherness. John Scotus, making use of a vocabulary dear to the Greek Christian tradition, has called this experience towards which we are tending "theosis" or divinization, with so ardent an affirmation that it is possible to suspect him of heterodox pantheism. It is hard to avoid that feeling when faced with texts like this: "Just as iron becomes red-hot and molten in the fire so as to give the appearance that there is only fire present, and yet the two substances remain distinct, one from the other, so also we must accept that at the end of this world all of nature, corporeal and incorporeal, will manifest only God and yet remain integral in such a manner that God can in some way be comprehended while remaining incomprehensible and creation itself will be transformed, with ineffable wonder, into God."
In reality, the whole of John's theological thought is more evidently the demonstration of an attempt to express in words the inexpressible truths of God, based solely on the mystery of the Word made flesh in Jesus of Nazareth. All the metaphors he uses to indicate this ineffable reality shows how much he was aware of the absolute inadequacy of the terms we use in speaking of these things. And for all that there remains the charm and a certain atmosphere of authentic mystical experience that we can every so often reach out and touch in his writings. As proof of that, it is enough to cite a page from De divisione naturae which touches in the depths of our souls even we believers in the 21st century: "Nothing is to be desired", he writes, "other than the joy of the truth that is Christ, nor is anything to be avoided other than His absence. Indeed, this ought to be considered the one and only cause of total and eternal sadness. Take Christ away from me and no other good remains to me, nor does anything terrify me so much as His absence. The greatest torment of a rational creature is the privation and the absence of Christ."
Philosophy, poetry, music, silence
"We should note also that the philosopher today, in so far as he is not a merely academic, a merely professorial philosopher, tends to draw nearer to the poet. All around us we can see a new emergence of a lost Atlantis from the depths. On this recovered continent, that unity which thought, as such, and poetry, as such, had in their beginnings is being recreated ..."
-Gabriel Marcel
"The sound of music is not, like the sound of words, opposed, but rather parallel to silence.
It is as though the sounds of music were being driven over the surface of silence.
Music is silence, which in dreaming begins to sound.
Silence is never more audible than when the last sound of music has died away."
-Max Picard
-Gabriel Marcel
"The sound of music is not, like the sound of words, opposed, but rather parallel to silence.
It is as though the sounds of music were being driven over the surface of silence.
Music is silence, which in dreaming begins to sound.
Silence is never more audible than when the last sound of music has died away."
-Max Picard
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
Tolstoy's last days
I've been remiss in my postings the last week or so: very busy with tutoring, and almost all my free time has been taken up with some translation work I'm doing for Ignatius Press. More on that, perhaps, in a later post. Today, I'm prompted to respond to a piece that Ralph McInerny posted several days ago on the website The Catholic Thing, a piece entitled "The Marrying Animal". In it he says: "Tolstoy became a fruitcake as he grew older, his own marriage was more war than peace, and he fled to the local railway station where he died, refusing his wife admittance. He also wanted to reinvent Christianity." It seems that McInerny is unaware, and might be gratified to know, as I was, that Tolstoy very probably sought to be reconciled to Holy Mother Church in the last days of his life. I quote extensively from the chapter on Tolstoy in a book by Karl Stern entitled The Flight From Woman (I've posted on Stern before; his conversion story, The Pillar of Fire, is well worth reading):
"We have reason to believe that the dying Tolstoy, like Andrew, came back to the faith of Marie [referring to characters from War and Peace - A.]. During the course of his famous flight from home, some remarkable events occurred which are either minimized or entirely omitted by most biographers. After the old man left his home under cover of darkness (on the night of October 26th), only accompanied by his servant Duchan Petrovich, the first goal of his secret trip was the Optina monastery. This in itself -- considering the excommunicated, the sectarian -- is strange. In his younger years Tolstoy had made pilgrimages there. This time he went with the explicit purpose of talking to the Prior, Father Joseph. It seems that the porter did not answer quickly enough, and the aged poet, with the restlessness and impatience which characterized that entire episode of the flight, turned away to spend the night at the monastery's guest house. However, even there he left precipitously at three o'clock in the morning on the 29th (not without having properly signed his name in the guest book). In view of the idea we have of Tolstoy's later years it is equally remarkable that the next stop of his trip should have been a convent -- the convent of Shamardino. There Tolstoy's sister Marya lived as a nun. He intended to stay in Shamardino for about two weeks. Tolstoy had always maintained a particular affection for this sister, an affection which was mutual. Although it is held that Marie Bolkonska is modeled after Tolstoy's mother, it is possibly no coincidence that he gave her the name of his own sister.
However, Tolstoy could not stay at the convent because Alexandra, his daughter, came and warned him that his wife was about to track him down. (It is quite conceivable that Alexandra made him leave out of jealousy towards Marya.) At any rate, a few days later, when he was lying on his deathbed in the station-master's house in Astapovo, the Metropolitan of Moscow wired a paternal greeting which was witheld from the dying man. Moreover, the Holy Synod wanted to send Starets Joseph to Tolstoy's bedside, but the monk happened to be sick. Thus, in his place, a Father Varsonofy arrived from the monastery with the sacraments. In vain did he plead to be allowed to see the dying man. Tolstoy's entourage, particularly Alexandra it seems, felt that the sight of the priest would be too much of a shock. For the same reason Sonya was not admitted to the side of her dying husband, and it is moving to read how she pleaded, nearly crazy with grief and frustration, to be allowed at least to enter the room. ...
The fact that Tolstoy, under the premonition of approaching death, headed for the monastery to see the Prior, and then to the convent to see his sister, is most remarkable. Unfortunately, no record seems to exist of his last conversations with Marya. But a strong inference may be drawn from a note which Father Varsonofy wrote to Countess Alexandra Tolstoy, when he asked for permission to be admitted to the dying man's side: "You know that the Count had expressed in front of his own sister, your aunt who is a nun, the desire to see us and talk with us in order to obtain peace for his soul, and that he deeply regretted that he had not been able to fulfill this desire." The plea was received on November 5 and was refused. On the morning of November 8, 1910, Tolstoy died."
I pray that, in the end, Tolstoy found that peace which he sought. Requiescat in pace.
"We have reason to believe that the dying Tolstoy, like Andrew, came back to the faith of Marie [referring to characters from War and Peace - A.]. During the course of his famous flight from home, some remarkable events occurred which are either minimized or entirely omitted by most biographers. After the old man left his home under cover of darkness (on the night of October 26th), only accompanied by his servant Duchan Petrovich, the first goal of his secret trip was the Optina monastery. This in itself -- considering the excommunicated, the sectarian -- is strange. In his younger years Tolstoy had made pilgrimages there. This time he went with the explicit purpose of talking to the Prior, Father Joseph. It seems that the porter did not answer quickly enough, and the aged poet, with the restlessness and impatience which characterized that entire episode of the flight, turned away to spend the night at the monastery's guest house. However, even there he left precipitously at three o'clock in the morning on the 29th (not without having properly signed his name in the guest book). In view of the idea we have of Tolstoy's later years it is equally remarkable that the next stop of his trip should have been a convent -- the convent of Shamardino. There Tolstoy's sister Marya lived as a nun. He intended to stay in Shamardino for about two weeks. Tolstoy had always maintained a particular affection for this sister, an affection which was mutual. Although it is held that Marie Bolkonska is modeled after Tolstoy's mother, it is possibly no coincidence that he gave her the name of his own sister.
However, Tolstoy could not stay at the convent because Alexandra, his daughter, came and warned him that his wife was about to track him down. (It is quite conceivable that Alexandra made him leave out of jealousy towards Marya.) At any rate, a few days later, when he was lying on his deathbed in the station-master's house in Astapovo, the Metropolitan of Moscow wired a paternal greeting which was witheld from the dying man. Moreover, the Holy Synod wanted to send Starets Joseph to Tolstoy's bedside, but the monk happened to be sick. Thus, in his place, a Father Varsonofy arrived from the monastery with the sacraments. In vain did he plead to be allowed to see the dying man. Tolstoy's entourage, particularly Alexandra it seems, felt that the sight of the priest would be too much of a shock. For the same reason Sonya was not admitted to the side of her dying husband, and it is moving to read how she pleaded, nearly crazy with grief and frustration, to be allowed at least to enter the room. ...
The fact that Tolstoy, under the premonition of approaching death, headed for the monastery to see the Prior, and then to the convent to see his sister, is most remarkable. Unfortunately, no record seems to exist of his last conversations with Marya. But a strong inference may be drawn from a note which Father Varsonofy wrote to Countess Alexandra Tolstoy, when he asked for permission to be admitted to the dying man's side: "You know that the Count had expressed in front of his own sister, your aunt who is a nun, the desire to see us and talk with us in order to obtain peace for his soul, and that he deeply regretted that he had not been able to fulfill this desire." The plea was received on November 5 and was refused. On the morning of November 8, 1910, Tolstoy died."
I pray that, in the end, Tolstoy found that peace which he sought. Requiescat in pace.
Saturday, May 30, 2009
Pentecost
καὶ ἐπλήσθησαν πάντες πνεύματος ἁγίου, καὶ ἤρξαντο λαλεῖν ἑτέραις γλώσσαις καθὼς τὸ πνεῦμα ἐδίδου ἀποφθέγγεσθαι αὐτοῖς.
et repleti sunt omnes Spiritu Sancto et coeperunt loqui aliis linguis prout Spiritus Sanctus dabat eloqui illis.
All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages as the Spirit gave them ability.
(Acts 2.4)
This is part of the Office of Readings for the Solemnity of Pentecost, taken from the treatise Against Heresies by St. Irenaeus:
The Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and strength, the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of God came down upon the Lord, and the Lord in turn gave this Spirit to his Church, sending the Advocate from heaven into all the world into which, according to his own words, the devil too had been cast down like lightning.
If we are not to be scorched and made unfruitful, we need the dew of God. Since we have our accuser, we need an Advocate as well. And so the Lord in his pity for man, who had fallen into the hands of brigands, having himself bound up his wounds and left for his care two coins bearing the royal image, entrusted him to the Holy Spirit. Now, through the Spirit, the image and inscription of the Father and the Son have been given to us, and it is our duty to use the coin committed to our charge and make it yield a rich profit for the Lord.
et repleti sunt omnes Spiritu Sancto et coeperunt loqui aliis linguis prout Spiritus Sanctus dabat eloqui illis.
All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages as the Spirit gave them ability.
(Acts 2.4)
This is part of the Office of Readings for the Solemnity of Pentecost, taken from the treatise Against Heresies by St. Irenaeus:
The Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and strength, the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of God came down upon the Lord, and the Lord in turn gave this Spirit to his Church, sending the Advocate from heaven into all the world into which, according to his own words, the devil too had been cast down like lightning.
If we are not to be scorched and made unfruitful, we need the dew of God. Since we have our accuser, we need an Advocate as well. And so the Lord in his pity for man, who had fallen into the hands of brigands, having himself bound up his wounds and left for his care two coins bearing the royal image, entrusted him to the Holy Spirit. Now, through the Spirit, the image and inscription of the Father and the Son have been given to us, and it is our duty to use the coin committed to our charge and make it yield a rich profit for the Lord.
Friday, May 29, 2009
More from the Holy Father's May 27 address on St. Theodore the Studite
I left out some of the text of Pope Benedict's talk on Theodore in my last post. Here is the rest:
"The principle renunciations for Theodore are those requested by obedience, since each of the monks has his own way of living and inclusion in the large community of 300 monks really involves a new form of life, which he qualifies as "the martyrdom of submission." Also here the monks give an example of how much is required of us also. Because of original sin, the tendency of man is to do his own will, to submit everything to his own will. But in this way, if each person follows only his own self, the fabric of society breaks down. Only by learning to insert oneself into the common freedom, to share and submit oneself to it, to learn the law, that is, the submission and obedience to the rules of the common good and the common life, can society, and indeed the "I" itself, be healed of the pride of wishing to be the center of the world. In this way St. Theodore helps his monks, and us as well, with acute introspection, to understand the true way to live, to resist the temptation of setting up one's own will as the highest rule of life, and to preserve one's true personal identity -- which is always an identity involving togetherness with others -- and one's peace of heart.
For Theodore the Studite a virtue on a par with obedience and humility is philergia, the love of work, in which he sees a criterion for testing the quality of one's personal devotion: whoever is zealous in material commitments, who works assiduously, he argues, will be the same in spiritual matters. He does not allow a monk, under the pretext of prayer and contemplation, to be dispensed from work, including manual labor, which is in reality, according to him and to the whole monastic tradition, the means of finding God. Theodore does not fear to speak of work as the "monk's sacrifice", as his "liturgy", even as a sort of Mass by means of which monastic life becomes angelic life. By this means the world of work is humanized and a person through his work becomes more himself, and closer to God. A consequence of this singular vision should be borne in mind: exactly because it is the fruit of a form of "liturgy", the riches obtained from common labor should not serve the comfort of the monks but should be destined for the aid of the poor. Here we can all accept the necessity that the fruit of work be of benefit for all. Obviously, the work of the Studites was not only manual: the monks would have a great importance in the religious and cultural development of Byzantine civilization as calligraphers, painters, poets, educators of youth, school teachers, librarians.
While carrying out a vast range of external activity, Theodore did not let himself be distracted from what he considered to be strictly required by his role as superior: being a spiritual father to his monks. Never forgetting the decisive influence his good mother and sainted uncle had on his own life, he exercised a comparable spiritual direction with his monks. His biographer tells us that every day after evening prayer he installed himself at the iconostasis to listen to the confidences of all. He also gave spiritual counsel to many people outside the monastery. His Spiritual Testimony and his Letters put in relief this open and affectionate character of his, and show how from his paternity were born true spiritual friendships within and outside his monastery.
The Studite rule, known under the name Hypotyposis, codified a little after his death, was adopted with some modifications on Mount Athos when in 962, Saint Athanasius the Athonite founded the Great Lavra there, and in Kiev, when at the beginning of the second millenium, St. Theodosius introduced it in the Lavra of the Caves. Understood in its genuine significance, the Rule shows itself to be particularly current. There are today numerous opinions which attempt to undermine the unity of the common faith and incite a dangerous sort of spiritual individualism and pride. It is necessary to pledge oneself to defend and make grow the perfect unity of the Body of Christ, in which the peace of good order and sincere personal relationships in the Spirit are comprised.
"The principle renunciations for Theodore are those requested by obedience, since each of the monks has his own way of living and inclusion in the large community of 300 monks really involves a new form of life, which he qualifies as "the martyrdom of submission." Also here the monks give an example of how much is required of us also. Because of original sin, the tendency of man is to do his own will, to submit everything to his own will. But in this way, if each person follows only his own self, the fabric of society breaks down. Only by learning to insert oneself into the common freedom, to share and submit oneself to it, to learn the law, that is, the submission and obedience to the rules of the common good and the common life, can society, and indeed the "I" itself, be healed of the pride of wishing to be the center of the world. In this way St. Theodore helps his monks, and us as well, with acute introspection, to understand the true way to live, to resist the temptation of setting up one's own will as the highest rule of life, and to preserve one's true personal identity -- which is always an identity involving togetherness with others -- and one's peace of heart.
For Theodore the Studite a virtue on a par with obedience and humility is philergia, the love of work, in which he sees a criterion for testing the quality of one's personal devotion: whoever is zealous in material commitments, who works assiduously, he argues, will be the same in spiritual matters. He does not allow a monk, under the pretext of prayer and contemplation, to be dispensed from work, including manual labor, which is in reality, according to him and to the whole monastic tradition, the means of finding God. Theodore does not fear to speak of work as the "monk's sacrifice", as his "liturgy", even as a sort of Mass by means of which monastic life becomes angelic life. By this means the world of work is humanized and a person through his work becomes more himself, and closer to God. A consequence of this singular vision should be borne in mind: exactly because it is the fruit of a form of "liturgy", the riches obtained from common labor should not serve the comfort of the monks but should be destined for the aid of the poor. Here we can all accept the necessity that the fruit of work be of benefit for all. Obviously, the work of the Studites was not only manual: the monks would have a great importance in the religious and cultural development of Byzantine civilization as calligraphers, painters, poets, educators of youth, school teachers, librarians.
While carrying out a vast range of external activity, Theodore did not let himself be distracted from what he considered to be strictly required by his role as superior: being a spiritual father to his monks. Never forgetting the decisive influence his good mother and sainted uncle had on his own life, he exercised a comparable spiritual direction with his monks. His biographer tells us that every day after evening prayer he installed himself at the iconostasis to listen to the confidences of all. He also gave spiritual counsel to many people outside the monastery. His Spiritual Testimony and his Letters put in relief this open and affectionate character of his, and show how from his paternity were born true spiritual friendships within and outside his monastery.
The Studite rule, known under the name Hypotyposis, codified a little after his death, was adopted with some modifications on Mount Athos when in 962, Saint Athanasius the Athonite founded the Great Lavra there, and in Kiev, when at the beginning of the second millenium, St. Theodosius introduced it in the Lavra of the Caves. Understood in its genuine significance, the Rule shows itself to be particularly current. There are today numerous opinions which attempt to undermine the unity of the common faith and incite a dangerous sort of spiritual individualism and pride. It is necessary to pledge oneself to defend and make grow the perfect unity of the Body of Christ, in which the peace of good order and sincere personal relationships in the Spirit are comprised.
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Ashrayaparavrtti
I learned a new word today, thanks to Mary Eberstadt at www.firstthings.com: ashrayaparavrtti is Sanskrit for "a sudden moment of life-changing insight." Just thought I'd share that!
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
St. Theodore the Studite (Pope Benedict's General Audience, May 27, 2009)
Theodore was born in 759 into a pious and noble family. His mother Teoctista and uncle Platone, abbot of the monastery of Sakkudion, were venerated as saints. At age 22 he embraced the monastic life. Because of a rupture with Patriarch Tarasio over the latter's weakness with respect to the adulterous marriage of the emperor Constantine VI, he was exiled to Thessalonica in 796. Reconciled with the imperial authority the following year under the Empress Irene, he returned to Constantinople and took up residence in the monastery of Studios. From here he initiated the "Studite reform."
He became head of the resistance to the iconoclasm of Leo VI the Armenian, a new opposition to images and icons in the Church. The procession of icons organized by the monks of Studios unleashed the reaction against this policy. From 815 to 821 Theodore was scourged, imprisoned, and exiled. Finally he was allowed to return to Constantinople, but not to his own monastery. He established himself with his monks on the other side of the Bosporus. He died on November 11, 826, as recorded in the Byzantine calendar.
Theodore understood that the veneration of icons concerned the very truth of the Incarnation. In his three books, Antirretikoi (Rebuttals), Theodore made a comparison between the relations among the three Persons of the Trinity, where the existence of each of the divine Persons does not destroy their unity, and the relation between the two natures in Christ, which do not compromise in Him the unity of the Logos. He argued that to abolish the veneration of icons of Christ would signify the cancellation of His own redemptive work, from the moment when, assuming human nature, the invisible Eternal Word appeared in visible human flesh and in this way sanctified the whole visible world. Icons, sanctified by liturgical benediction and by the prayers of the faithful, unite us with the person of Christ, with his saints, and by means of them, with the heavenly Father and bear witness to the entrance of the divine reality into our visible, material world.
Another profound conviction of Theodore was this: with respect to secular Christians, monks assume the obligation to observe with greater rigor and intensity the duties of Christians. For this they make a special profession which pertains to the hagiasmata (consecrations) and is a sort of "new baptism" of which the action of taking the habit is the symbol. Characteristic of monks is the commitment to poverty, chastity, and obedience. Addressing his monks, Theodore speaks in concrete, at times even picturesque, terms of poverty as an essential element of monasticism from its beginnings and as a following of Christ, but it points out a path for all the rest of us as well. The renunciation of material possessions, the attitude of freedom from them, as also sobriety and simplicity, are in force in radical form only for monks, but the spirit of such a renunciation applies equally to all. In fact, we must not depend on material property, we must rather learn renunciation, simplicity, austerity and sobriety. Only thus can a society grow in solidarity and overcome the great problem of world poverty. And so in this sense the radical sign of the poor monk indicates also a path for all of us. When next he expounds on the temptations against chastity he does not conceal his own experiences and he demonstrates the path of interior struggle to final self-mastery and so to the respect of one's own body and that of others as temples of God.
The principle elements of Theodore the Studite's spiritual teachings may be summed up as: love for the Incarnate Lord, made visible in the liturgy and in icons; faithfulness to baptism and the obligation to live in the communion of the Body of Christ, understood also as a communion of Christians among themselves; a spirit of poverty, sobriety, renunciation, chastity, self-control, humility, and obedience against the supremacy of self-will, which destroys the fabric of society and peace of mind; love for physical and spiritual labor; spiritual friendship born from purification of one's own conscience, one's own soul, one's own life. Let us seek to follow these teachings which point out to us the road to true life.
He became head of the resistance to the iconoclasm of Leo VI the Armenian, a new opposition to images and icons in the Church. The procession of icons organized by the monks of Studios unleashed the reaction against this policy. From 815 to 821 Theodore was scourged, imprisoned, and exiled. Finally he was allowed to return to Constantinople, but not to his own monastery. He established himself with his monks on the other side of the Bosporus. He died on November 11, 826, as recorded in the Byzantine calendar.
Theodore understood that the veneration of icons concerned the very truth of the Incarnation. In his three books, Antirretikoi (Rebuttals), Theodore made a comparison between the relations among the three Persons of the Trinity, where the existence of each of the divine Persons does not destroy their unity, and the relation between the two natures in Christ, which do not compromise in Him the unity of the Logos. He argued that to abolish the veneration of icons of Christ would signify the cancellation of His own redemptive work, from the moment when, assuming human nature, the invisible Eternal Word appeared in visible human flesh and in this way sanctified the whole visible world. Icons, sanctified by liturgical benediction and by the prayers of the faithful, unite us with the person of Christ, with his saints, and by means of them, with the heavenly Father and bear witness to the entrance of the divine reality into our visible, material world.
Another profound conviction of Theodore was this: with respect to secular Christians, monks assume the obligation to observe with greater rigor and intensity the duties of Christians. For this they make a special profession which pertains to the hagiasmata (consecrations) and is a sort of "new baptism" of which the action of taking the habit is the symbol. Characteristic of monks is the commitment to poverty, chastity, and obedience. Addressing his monks, Theodore speaks in concrete, at times even picturesque, terms of poverty as an essential element of monasticism from its beginnings and as a following of Christ, but it points out a path for all the rest of us as well. The renunciation of material possessions, the attitude of freedom from them, as also sobriety and simplicity, are in force in radical form only for monks, but the spirit of such a renunciation applies equally to all. In fact, we must not depend on material property, we must rather learn renunciation, simplicity, austerity and sobriety. Only thus can a society grow in solidarity and overcome the great problem of world poverty. And so in this sense the radical sign of the poor monk indicates also a path for all of us. When next he expounds on the temptations against chastity he does not conceal his own experiences and he demonstrates the path of interior struggle to final self-mastery and so to the respect of one's own body and that of others as temples of God.
The principle elements of Theodore the Studite's spiritual teachings may be summed up as: love for the Incarnate Lord, made visible in the liturgy and in icons; faithfulness to baptism and the obligation to live in the communion of the Body of Christ, understood also as a communion of Christians among themselves; a spirit of poverty, sobriety, renunciation, chastity, self-control, humility, and obedience against the supremacy of self-will, which destroys the fabric of society and peace of mind; love for physical and spiritual labor; spiritual friendship born from purification of one's own conscience, one's own soul, one's own life. Let us seek to follow these teachings which point out to us the road to true life.
Monday, May 25, 2009
Salus ex Judaeis est
ὅτι ἡ σωτηρία ἐκ τῶν Ἰουδαίων ἐστίν.
Quia salus ex Judaeis est.
For salvation is from the Jews.
John 4:22
"The second person of the Holy Trinity, true God and true man, is of Jewish flesh received from the Jewish virgin -- as is the eucharistic body we receive, and the Body of Christ into which we are incorporated by baptism. It is said that when John XXIII, then papal nuncio in Paris, first saw the pictures of the piles of corpses at Auschwitz, he exclaimed, "There is the Body of Christ!"
(Richard Neuhaus, American Babylon, p. 172)
"Christianity ... is not defined by a moral or metaphysical "essence" but by the man of the cross, a permanently suspect character, forever a stranger of that strange people, the Jews. Through Jesus the Jew, we Christians are anchored in history, defined not by abstract ideas but by a most particular story involving a most particular people."
(ibid., p. 174)
"Nor can [the Church] forget that she draws sustenance from the root of that good olive tree onto which have been grafted the wild olive branches of the Gentiles. Indeed, the Church believes that by His Cross Christ, our Peace, reconciled Jew and Gentile, making them both one in Himself. (cf. Ephesians 2:14-16)."
(Nostra Aetate)
"Along the way to that fulfillment [in the New Jerusalem], Christians and Jews will disagree about whether we can name the name of the Lamb. And when it turns out that we Christians have rightly named the Lamb ahead of time, there will be, as St. Paul reminds us, no reason for boasting; for in the beginning, all along the way, and in the final consummation, it will be evident to all that the Lamb -- which is to say salvation -- is from the Jews. Salvation is from the Jews, then, not as a "point of departure" [quoted from a recent commentary on John's gospel], but as the continuing presence and promise of a point of arrival -- a point of arrival that we, Christians and Jews, together pray that we will together reach. In that shared prayer is the hope that Babylon is not forever."
(American Babylon, p. 182)
Just thought it would be good to keep all this in mind, in these days when the hideous face of anti-Semitism is more and more on display, particularly in Europe, but not only there.
Quia salus ex Judaeis est.
For salvation is from the Jews.
John 4:22
"The second person of the Holy Trinity, true God and true man, is of Jewish flesh received from the Jewish virgin -- as is the eucharistic body we receive, and the Body of Christ into which we are incorporated by baptism. It is said that when John XXIII, then papal nuncio in Paris, first saw the pictures of the piles of corpses at Auschwitz, he exclaimed, "There is the Body of Christ!"
(Richard Neuhaus, American Babylon, p. 172)
"Christianity ... is not defined by a moral or metaphysical "essence" but by the man of the cross, a permanently suspect character, forever a stranger of that strange people, the Jews. Through Jesus the Jew, we Christians are anchored in history, defined not by abstract ideas but by a most particular story involving a most particular people."
(ibid., p. 174)
"Nor can [the Church] forget that she draws sustenance from the root of that good olive tree onto which have been grafted the wild olive branches of the Gentiles. Indeed, the Church believes that by His Cross Christ, our Peace, reconciled Jew and Gentile, making them both one in Himself. (cf. Ephesians 2:14-16)."
(Nostra Aetate)
"Along the way to that fulfillment [in the New Jerusalem], Christians and Jews will disagree about whether we can name the name of the Lamb. And when it turns out that we Christians have rightly named the Lamb ahead of time, there will be, as St. Paul reminds us, no reason for boasting; for in the beginning, all along the way, and in the final consummation, it will be evident to all that the Lamb -- which is to say salvation -- is from the Jews. Salvation is from the Jews, then, not as a "point of departure" [quoted from a recent commentary on John's gospel], but as the continuing presence and promise of a point of arrival -- a point of arrival that we, Christians and Jews, together pray that we will together reach. In that shared prayer is the hope that Babylon is not forever."
(American Babylon, p. 182)
Just thought it would be good to keep all this in mind, in these days when the hideous face of anti-Semitism is more and more on display, particularly in Europe, but not only there.
Saturday, May 23, 2009
The Samurai and the Cat
This is from an 18th century Japanese work on swordsmanship. The whole thing can be found in English translation in Daisetz Suzuki's book, Zen and Japanese Culture (where I first saw it) or online at www.auburn.edu/~wilsoug/Neko_no_Mojutsu.html.
There once was a famous swordsman whose home was plagued by a particularly large, strong, aggressive rat. He sent his pet cat against it, but she was no match for the rat, and after being bitten, she ran off screaming. Next he called on the three local cats known for their superior skill in the art of rat-catching: the black cat, the tiger cat, and the gray cat. But when the three entered the room where the rat was, he glared at them fiercely, fended off their assault, and counter-attacked so furiously that he drove them from the house. The swordsman decided he would deal with the problem himself, and taking up his sword he went after the rat. But it moved with such speed that it hardly seemed to touch the ground, and even made a successful leap at his head. Dripping with sweat, he abandoned the fight.
Now he had heard of a cat in the neighboring village with a reputation for unsurpassed rat fighting ability, an almost mystical skill in the art. He sent for her, but when she arrived, he was disappointed, as there was nothing impressive in her appearance. Nevertheless, he sent her in against the rat. The cat entered the room nonchalantly, carelessly, not like one expecting to face a dangerous foe. But as soon as the rat caught sight of her, he become frozen with terror. A moment later, the cat came out with the rat dangling from her jaws.
That night a banquet was held, and the mysterious cat was given the place of honor. All the other cats wanted to know how she overcame that fearsome rat so easily, but first each gave an account of his own approach to ratting. The black cat stepped forward and explained how from his kitten years he had trained himself in speed, agility, and acrobatics, so that he could leap over barriers seven feet high and squeeze through narrow rat-sized openings. He was also very adept at pretending to be asleep, and pouncing immediately when an unsuspecting rat came within reach. But his physical skill availed him nothing against that extraordinary rat.
Next came the tiger cat. He had come to the realization that the important thing in fighting was to develop a powerful spirit, and he had trained himself in that. "I am now", he said, "in possession of the strongest spirit, which fills up heaven and earth. When I face an opponent, my overawing spirit is already on him, and victory is on my side even prior to actual combat ... But that old mysterious rat moved along without leaving any shadow. The reason is beyond me."
The gray cat set forth his views next: "I have for a long time disciplined myself in this way: not to overawe the enemy, not to force a fight, but to assume a yielding and conciliatory attitude ... I act like a curtain surrendering itself to the pressure of a stone thrown at it. Even a strong rat finds no means to fight me. But the one we had to deal with today has no parallel, it refused to submit to my psychical overpowering and was not tempted by my manifestation of a yielding psyche. It was a most mysterious creature -- the like of which I have never seen in my life."
The master cat's response to and criticism of their various approaches can be summed up very simply: the problem is self-consciousness. All of the other cats' techniques are conscious contrivances, and so not in harmony with the Way. "To make Nature display its mysterious way of achieving things is to do away with all your own thinking, contriving, and acting; let Nature have her own way ... and there will be no shadows, no signs, no traces whereby you can be caught; you have then no foes who can successfully resist you. ... But there is one most essential consideration which when neglected is sure to upset everything. This is: not to cherish even a speck of self-conscious thought.... When you are in the state of mind known as 'mindlessness' (mushin), you act in unison with Nature without resorting at all to artificial contrivances. The Way, however, is above all limitation, and all this talk of mine is far from being exhaustive as far as the Way is concerned.
Sometime ago there was in my neighborhood a cat who passed all her time in sleeping, showing no sign of spiritual-animal power, and looking like a wooden image. People never saw her catch a single rat, but wherever she roamed about no rats ever dared to appear in her presence. I once visited her and asked for the reason. She gave no answer. I repeated my query four times, but she remained silent. It was not that she was unwilling to answer, but in truth she did not know how to answer. So we note that one who knows speaks not a word, while one who speaks knows not. That old cat was forgetful not only of herself but all things about her, she was the one who realized divine warriorship and killed not. I am not to be compared to her."
What has this to do with us Catholics? This posting has gone on long enough, so I'll save my reflections for next time.
There once was a famous swordsman whose home was plagued by a particularly large, strong, aggressive rat. He sent his pet cat against it, but she was no match for the rat, and after being bitten, she ran off screaming. Next he called on the three local cats known for their superior skill in the art of rat-catching: the black cat, the tiger cat, and the gray cat. But when the three entered the room where the rat was, he glared at them fiercely, fended off their assault, and counter-attacked so furiously that he drove them from the house. The swordsman decided he would deal with the problem himself, and taking up his sword he went after the rat. But it moved with such speed that it hardly seemed to touch the ground, and even made a successful leap at his head. Dripping with sweat, he abandoned the fight.
Now he had heard of a cat in the neighboring village with a reputation for unsurpassed rat fighting ability, an almost mystical skill in the art. He sent for her, but when she arrived, he was disappointed, as there was nothing impressive in her appearance. Nevertheless, he sent her in against the rat. The cat entered the room nonchalantly, carelessly, not like one expecting to face a dangerous foe. But as soon as the rat caught sight of her, he become frozen with terror. A moment later, the cat came out with the rat dangling from her jaws.
That night a banquet was held, and the mysterious cat was given the place of honor. All the other cats wanted to know how she overcame that fearsome rat so easily, but first each gave an account of his own approach to ratting. The black cat stepped forward and explained how from his kitten years he had trained himself in speed, agility, and acrobatics, so that he could leap over barriers seven feet high and squeeze through narrow rat-sized openings. He was also very adept at pretending to be asleep, and pouncing immediately when an unsuspecting rat came within reach. But his physical skill availed him nothing against that extraordinary rat.
Next came the tiger cat. He had come to the realization that the important thing in fighting was to develop a powerful spirit, and he had trained himself in that. "I am now", he said, "in possession of the strongest spirit, which fills up heaven and earth. When I face an opponent, my overawing spirit is already on him, and victory is on my side even prior to actual combat ... But that old mysterious rat moved along without leaving any shadow. The reason is beyond me."
The gray cat set forth his views next: "I have for a long time disciplined myself in this way: not to overawe the enemy, not to force a fight, but to assume a yielding and conciliatory attitude ... I act like a curtain surrendering itself to the pressure of a stone thrown at it. Even a strong rat finds no means to fight me. But the one we had to deal with today has no parallel, it refused to submit to my psychical overpowering and was not tempted by my manifestation of a yielding psyche. It was a most mysterious creature -- the like of which I have never seen in my life."
The master cat's response to and criticism of their various approaches can be summed up very simply: the problem is self-consciousness. All of the other cats' techniques are conscious contrivances, and so not in harmony with the Way. "To make Nature display its mysterious way of achieving things is to do away with all your own thinking, contriving, and acting; let Nature have her own way ... and there will be no shadows, no signs, no traces whereby you can be caught; you have then no foes who can successfully resist you. ... But there is one most essential consideration which when neglected is sure to upset everything. This is: not to cherish even a speck of self-conscious thought.... When you are in the state of mind known as 'mindlessness' (mushin), you act in unison with Nature without resorting at all to artificial contrivances. The Way, however, is above all limitation, and all this talk of mine is far from being exhaustive as far as the Way is concerned.
Sometime ago there was in my neighborhood a cat who passed all her time in sleeping, showing no sign of spiritual-animal power, and looking like a wooden image. People never saw her catch a single rat, but wherever she roamed about no rats ever dared to appear in her presence. I once visited her and asked for the reason. She gave no answer. I repeated my query four times, but she remained silent. It was not that she was unwilling to answer, but in truth she did not know how to answer. So we note that one who knows speaks not a word, while one who speaks knows not. That old cat was forgetful not only of herself but all things about her, she was the one who realized divine warriorship and killed not. I am not to be compared to her."
What has this to do with us Catholics? This posting has gone on long enough, so I'll save my reflections for next time.
Friday, May 22, 2009
Some words of Pope Benedict from his General Audience, May 20, 2009
“Il Memoriale di Mosè sul Monte Nebo è un sito di forte valenza simbolica: esso parla della nostra condizione di pellegrini tra un “già” e un “non ancora”, tra una promessa così grande e bella da sostenerci nel cammino e un compimento che ci supera, e che supera anche questo mondo. La Chiesa vive in se stessa questa “indole escatalogica” e “pellegrinante”: è già unita a Cristo suo sposo, ma la festa di nozze è per ora solo pregustata, in attesa del suo ritorno glorioso alla fine dei tempi.”
[The Memorial of Moses on Mount Nebo is a site of very powerful symbolic force: it speaks of our condition as pilgrims between an “already” and a “not yet”, between a promise so great and beautiful that it sustains us on the way and a fulfillment which goes beyond us, and which also goes beyond this world. The Church in herself lives this “eschatalogical and pilgrim character”: she is already united to Christ her bridegroom, but for now she has only a foretaste of the wedding feast, while she awaits his return in glory at the end of time.]
“In ginocchio sul Calvario e nel Sepolcro di Gesù, ho invocato la forza dell’ amore che scaturisce dal Mistero pasquale, la sola forza che può rinnovare gli uomini e orientare al suo fine la storia ed il cosmo.”
[On my knees on Calvary and in the Sepulchre of Jesus, I invoked the force of the love that flows from the Paschal Mystery, the only force that is capable of renewing men and orienting towards its end history and the universe.]
[The Memorial of Moses on Mount Nebo is a site of very powerful symbolic force: it speaks of our condition as pilgrims between an “already” and a “not yet”, between a promise so great and beautiful that it sustains us on the way and a fulfillment which goes beyond us, and which also goes beyond this world. The Church in herself lives this “eschatalogical and pilgrim character”: she is already united to Christ her bridegroom, but for now she has only a foretaste of the wedding feast, while she awaits his return in glory at the end of time.]
“In ginocchio sul Calvario e nel Sepolcro di Gesù, ho invocato la forza dell’ amore che scaturisce dal Mistero pasquale, la sola forza che può rinnovare gli uomini e orientare al suo fine la storia ed il cosmo.”
[On my knees on Calvary and in the Sepulchre of Jesus, I invoked the force of the love that flows from the Paschal Mystery, the only force that is capable of renewing men and orienting towards its end history and the universe.]
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Chuang Tzu
I've been looking through Thomas Merton's take on some of the writings of Chuang Tzu, the Taoist sage who lived in 3rd century B.C. China. (The last "Guess the author" was taken from Merton's book The Way of Chuang Tzu). His verses abound in paradoxes, anticipating some of the best sayings of later Zen masters. Merton explains his interest in this ancient Chinese master in his Note to the Reader:
"One may dispute the thesis that all monasticism, Christian or non-Christian, is essentially one. I believe that Christian monasticism has obvious characteristics of its own. Nevertheless, there is a monastic outlook which is common to all those who have elected to question the value of a life submitted entirely to arbitrary secular presuppositions, dictated by social convention, and dedicated to the pursuit of temporal satisfactions which are perhaps only a mirage. Whatever may be the value of "life in the world" there have been, in all cultures, men who have claimed to find something they vastly prefer in solitude."
This is why I love Thomas Merton. I would like to cultivate in myself this monastic outlook. Merton and Chuang Tzu are for me guides and helpers in this undertaking.
"... the whole teaching, the "way" ["tao" is often translated as "way"] contained in these anecdotes, poems, and meditations, is characteristic of a certain mentality found everywhere in the world, a certain taste for simplicity, for humility, self-effacement, silence, and in general a refusal to take seriously the aggressivity, the ambition, the push, and the self-importance which one must display in order to get along in society."
He mentions an essay by John Wu on St. Therese of Lisieux and Taoism (now THAT would be something worth reading!):
"The book of the Bible which most obviously resembles the Taoist classics is Ecclesiastes. But at the same time there is much in the teaching of the Gospels on simplicity, childlikeness, and humility, which responds to the deepest aspirations of the Chuang Tzu book and the Tao Teh Ching. John Wu has pointed this out in a remarkable essay on St. Therese of Lisieux and Taoism ... The "Little Way" of Therese of Lisieux is an explicit renunciation of all exalted and disincarnate spiritualities that divide man against himself, putting one half in the realm of angels and the other in an earthly hell. For Chuang Tzu, as for the Gospel, to lose one's life is to save it, and to seek to save it for one's own sake is to lose it. There is an affirmation of the world that is nothing but ruin and loss. There is a renunciation of the world that finds and saves man in his own home, which is God's world. In any event, the "way" of Chuang Tzu is mysterious because it is so simple that it can get along without being a way at all. Least of all is it a "way out." Chuang Tzu would have agreed with St. John of the Cross, that you enter upon this kind of way when you leave all ways and, in some sense, get lost."
Speaking of getting lost, here is one of my favorite poems from this book:
MAN IS BORN IN TAO
Fishes are born in water
Man is born in Tao.
If fishes, born in water,
Seek the deep shadow
Of pond and pool,
All their needs
Are satisfied.
If man, born in Tao,
Sinks into the deep shadow
Of non-action
To forget aggression and concern,
He lacks nothing
His life is secure.
Moral: "All the fish needs
Is to get lost in water.
All man needs is to get lost
In Tao."
Or, putting this into a Christian idiom, all a person needs is to get lost in the love, the mercy, the will of God. For, as Dante said, in His will is our peace.
"One may dispute the thesis that all monasticism, Christian or non-Christian, is essentially one. I believe that Christian monasticism has obvious characteristics of its own. Nevertheless, there is a monastic outlook which is common to all those who have elected to question the value of a life submitted entirely to arbitrary secular presuppositions, dictated by social convention, and dedicated to the pursuit of temporal satisfactions which are perhaps only a mirage. Whatever may be the value of "life in the world" there have been, in all cultures, men who have claimed to find something they vastly prefer in solitude."
This is why I love Thomas Merton. I would like to cultivate in myself this monastic outlook. Merton and Chuang Tzu are for me guides and helpers in this undertaking.
"... the whole teaching, the "way" ["tao" is often translated as "way"] contained in these anecdotes, poems, and meditations, is characteristic of a certain mentality found everywhere in the world, a certain taste for simplicity, for humility, self-effacement, silence, and in general a refusal to take seriously the aggressivity, the ambition, the push, and the self-importance which one must display in order to get along in society."
He mentions an essay by John Wu on St. Therese of Lisieux and Taoism (now THAT would be something worth reading!):
"The book of the Bible which most obviously resembles the Taoist classics is Ecclesiastes. But at the same time there is much in the teaching of the Gospels on simplicity, childlikeness, and humility, which responds to the deepest aspirations of the Chuang Tzu book and the Tao Teh Ching. John Wu has pointed this out in a remarkable essay on St. Therese of Lisieux and Taoism ... The "Little Way" of Therese of Lisieux is an explicit renunciation of all exalted and disincarnate spiritualities that divide man against himself, putting one half in the realm of angels and the other in an earthly hell. For Chuang Tzu, as for the Gospel, to lose one's life is to save it, and to seek to save it for one's own sake is to lose it. There is an affirmation of the world that is nothing but ruin and loss. There is a renunciation of the world that finds and saves man in his own home, which is God's world. In any event, the "way" of Chuang Tzu is mysterious because it is so simple that it can get along without being a way at all. Least of all is it a "way out." Chuang Tzu would have agreed with St. John of the Cross, that you enter upon this kind of way when you leave all ways and, in some sense, get lost."
Speaking of getting lost, here is one of my favorite poems from this book:
MAN IS BORN IN TAO
Fishes are born in water
Man is born in Tao.
If fishes, born in water,
Seek the deep shadow
Of pond and pool,
All their needs
Are satisfied.
If man, born in Tao,
Sinks into the deep shadow
Of non-action
To forget aggression and concern,
He lacks nothing
His life is secure.
Moral: "All the fish needs
Is to get lost in water.
All man needs is to get lost
In Tao."
Or, putting this into a Christian idiom, all a person needs is to get lost in the love, the mercy, the will of God. For, as Dante said, in His will is our peace.
Sunday, May 17, 2009
"We laugh at life ..."
(Macarius of Alexandria and Macarius the Egyptian (also called the Elder or the Great to distinguish him from his contemporary) were both hermits living in the desert of Scete in the 4th century. Some of the sayings of the Elder Macarius are recorded in the Apophthegmata Patrum, the Sayings of the Desert Fathers. Both were great ascetic saints with power to expel demons. The following is part of a poem entitled Macarius the Younger, by Thomas Merton. I'm writing this from memory, so it's probably not exactly what Merton wrote.)
The two Macarii, both men of God,
Going to visit a brother,
Took the boat that crosses the river.
The boat was full of officers, rich brass,
With horses, boys, and guards.
One tribune saw the monks
Like a pair of sacks
Lying in the stern,
Ragged bums, having nothing,
Free men.
"You," he said, "are the happy ones. You laugh at life.
You need nothing from the world but a few rags,
A crust of bread." One Macarius answered, "Yes, it's true;
We follow God. We laugh at life, and we are sorry
Life laughs at you."
Then the tribune saw himself as he really was.
He gave away all that he had,
And enlisted in the desert army.
The two Macarii, both men of God,
Going to visit a brother,
Took the boat that crosses the river.
The boat was full of officers, rich brass,
With horses, boys, and guards.
One tribune saw the monks
Like a pair of sacks
Lying in the stern,
Ragged bums, having nothing,
Free men.
"You," he said, "are the happy ones. You laugh at life.
You need nothing from the world but a few rags,
A crust of bread." One Macarius answered, "Yes, it's true;
We follow God. We laugh at life, and we are sorry
Life laughs at you."
Then the tribune saw himself as he really was.
He gave away all that he had,
And enlisted in the desert army.
Friday, May 15, 2009
A Story from the Talmud
(I saw a version of this in one of Walter Kaufmann's books, perhaps Tragedy and Philosophy. I can't remember for sure. I read most of Kaufmann's books back in the days before my return to the Church. But this story stuck with me. It always makes me smile.)
Rabbi Eliezer and Rabbi Joshua were debating a point of Law, and after long argument, neither could persuade the other. In frustration, Rabbi Eliezer said, "If the Law is as I say, this tree will show us", and immediately the tree jumped a hundred yards. But Rabbi Joshua said, "Strange behavior of a tree proves nothing about the Law." Then Rabbi Eliezer said, "If the law is as I say, this river will show us", and immediately the river reversed direction and began to flow upstream. But Rabbi Joshua remained unimpressed: "What does a river have to do with the Law?" Next Rabbi Eliezer appealed to a nearby wall: "If the Law is as I say, this wall will show us", and the wall immediately began to topple over. But Rabbi Joshua rebuked the wall, saying, "If two scholars debate a point of Law, what business do you have to take sides?" So the wall stopped in mid-fall. Out of deference to Rabbi Eliezer it did not straighten up to its former position, and out of respect for Rabbi Joshua it did not fall any further. Finally Rabbi Eliezer appealed to heaven, and a voice came down from above saying, "What do you have against Rabbi Eliezer? The Law is as he says." But Rabbi Joshua responded: "It is written in the Torah, "It is not in heaven". What does this mean? The Rabbis of old thoroughly discussed this passage and came to a consensus, which we all now accept, and ever since then, we no longer listen to voices from heaven, for You have already put it into the Torah that we should decide according to the majority." Now Rabbi Daniel was present at this debate, and it happened that some time later he encountered Elijah the prophet. He asked Elijah what the Holy One, Blessed be He, had said at that precise moment. Elijah replied: "God smiled and said, 'My children have won against me! My children have won!'"
Rabbi Eliezer and Rabbi Joshua were debating a point of Law, and after long argument, neither could persuade the other. In frustration, Rabbi Eliezer said, "If the Law is as I say, this tree will show us", and immediately the tree jumped a hundred yards. But Rabbi Joshua said, "Strange behavior of a tree proves nothing about the Law." Then Rabbi Eliezer said, "If the law is as I say, this river will show us", and immediately the river reversed direction and began to flow upstream. But Rabbi Joshua remained unimpressed: "What does a river have to do with the Law?" Next Rabbi Eliezer appealed to a nearby wall: "If the Law is as I say, this wall will show us", and the wall immediately began to topple over. But Rabbi Joshua rebuked the wall, saying, "If two scholars debate a point of Law, what business do you have to take sides?" So the wall stopped in mid-fall. Out of deference to Rabbi Eliezer it did not straighten up to its former position, and out of respect for Rabbi Joshua it did not fall any further. Finally Rabbi Eliezer appealed to heaven, and a voice came down from above saying, "What do you have against Rabbi Eliezer? The Law is as he says." But Rabbi Joshua responded: "It is written in the Torah, "It is not in heaven". What does this mean? The Rabbis of old thoroughly discussed this passage and came to a consensus, which we all now accept, and ever since then, we no longer listen to voices from heaven, for You have already put it into the Torah that we should decide according to the majority." Now Rabbi Daniel was present at this debate, and it happened that some time later he encountered Elijah the prophet. He asked Elijah what the Holy One, Blessed be He, had said at that precise moment. Elijah replied: "God smiled and said, 'My children have won against me! My children have won!'"
Thursday, May 14, 2009
No Abiding City
οὐ γὰρ ἔχομεν ὧδε μένουσαν πόλιν, ἀλλὰ τὴν μέλλουσαν ἐπιζητοῦμεν.
Non enim habemus hic manentem civitatem, sed futuram inquirimus.
For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the one that is to come.
Hebrews 13:14
There is a nice play on words in the original Greek that the Latin and English translations don't capture. In the Greek, the words for "lasting" (menousan)and "future" (mellousan), translated in this English version as "the one to come", differ only in a single consonant.
There is a book entitled No Abiding City, written by a priest of the Order of Preachers. I believe his name was Bede Jarrett. I remember seeing in Dorothy Day's autobiography that she used to read this work to a dying friend, who drew great comfort from it. That piqued my interest, so I obtained the book through interlibrary loan and wrote out extensive passages from it in a notebook. Unfortunately, that notebook has gone astray. But one of the Dominican author's remarks that always sticks with me is that much of the suffering, the sadness, the discontent we experience in life comes from forgetting that we are pilgrims on the earth. The world can only wound us if we mistake it for home and try to settle down in it. And this is, as Father Neuhaus points out, an ever-recurring temptation: "Although all Christians are in exile,some are more at home in their exile than others. And some times and places are more home-like than others. This can be a great comfort, and a great temptation. The temptation is to unpack, settle down in the present, and forget about the pilgrimage" (American Babylon, p.120). St. Teresa of Avila encapsulates this idea of life as pilgrimage in her pithy remark: "Life is a night in an uncomfortable inn." Jarrett maintains that the pains and tribulations of life are robbed of half their sting if we bear in mind that we are on a journey. It is right and proper for pilgrims on a journey to be uncomfortable on the road. Jarrett addresses his reader with these words of encouragement, which must have been a great solace to Dorothy Day's friend (I'm relying on my memory here, so this is almost certainly not an exact quote, but you'll get the general idea): "You are sad, you are in pain? You feel that you cannot go on? Of course you can go on! It is only a journey. Of course you can go on. It will have an end. When you see the lights of your destination on the road ahead of you, it gives you strength to go on."
Let's keep our eyes on our destination, which is, as Father Neuhaus says, "not so much a place as a person," Jesus Christ, Our Risen Lord and Saviour.
Non enim habemus hic manentem civitatem, sed futuram inquirimus.
For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the one that is to come.
Hebrews 13:14
There is a nice play on words in the original Greek that the Latin and English translations don't capture. In the Greek, the words for "lasting" (menousan)and "future" (mellousan), translated in this English version as "the one to come", differ only in a single consonant.
There is a book entitled No Abiding City, written by a priest of the Order of Preachers. I believe his name was Bede Jarrett. I remember seeing in Dorothy Day's autobiography that she used to read this work to a dying friend, who drew great comfort from it. That piqued my interest, so I obtained the book through interlibrary loan and wrote out extensive passages from it in a notebook. Unfortunately, that notebook has gone astray. But one of the Dominican author's remarks that always sticks with me is that much of the suffering, the sadness, the discontent we experience in life comes from forgetting that we are pilgrims on the earth. The world can only wound us if we mistake it for home and try to settle down in it. And this is, as Father Neuhaus points out, an ever-recurring temptation: "Although all Christians are in exile,some are more at home in their exile than others. And some times and places are more home-like than others. This can be a great comfort, and a great temptation. The temptation is to unpack, settle down in the present, and forget about the pilgrimage" (American Babylon, p.120). St. Teresa of Avila encapsulates this idea of life as pilgrimage in her pithy remark: "Life is a night in an uncomfortable inn." Jarrett maintains that the pains and tribulations of life are robbed of half their sting if we bear in mind that we are on a journey. It is right and proper for pilgrims on a journey to be uncomfortable on the road. Jarrett addresses his reader with these words of encouragement, which must have been a great solace to Dorothy Day's friend (I'm relying on my memory here, so this is almost certainly not an exact quote, but you'll get the general idea): "You are sad, you are in pain? You feel that you cannot go on? Of course you can go on! It is only a journey. Of course you can go on. It will have an end. When you see the lights of your destination on the road ahead of you, it gives you strength to go on."
Let's keep our eyes on our destination, which is, as Father Neuhaus says, "not so much a place as a person," Jesus Christ, Our Risen Lord and Saviour.
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Julian of Norwich, the hazelnut, and Finitum capax infiniti
Once in the course of my teaching internship in a public school in a small rural community ("around the bay", as we say here in St. John's), I was guiding a level II English class through the mythological background to Sophocles's Theban plays. I don't remember the context, but the word "paradox" came up. I gave the class the etymology: it's from the Greek adjective paradoxos, meaning "contrary to expectation, incredible." As an example of a paradox, I talked about the phrase "Finitum capax infiniti" (the finite is capable of the infinite). This idea is usually associated with the Eucharist, but I've always mentally connected it with one of the "Showings" of Julian of Norwich. Lady Julian was a 14th century anchoress who had a number of revelations in which Jesus appeared to her and spoke to her. In one, he held something in the palm of his hand, a thing about the size of a hazelnut, something so small and fragile-looking that she was amazed, for, in her words, "me thought it might suddenly have fallen to nought for littleness." She wondered what this could be. And the reply came: "It is all that is made." And immediately Julian knew three things: God made it; God loves it; God preserves it: "It lasteth and ever shall, for God loveth it. And so hath all things being by the love of God."
Note the paradox here. Julian, as part of the creation, part of "all that is made", is the minutest of sub-atomic particles within the hazelnut. But at the same time, by the grace and power of God, she is carried outside the whole of the created order and looks down upon it from God's perspective. This image awes me; it shakes me to my core. I tried to convey to this class of sixteen-year-olds that they were walking, talking paradoxes -- finite beings that participate in infinity, capable of containing, embracing, the whole universe in their thoughts. I don't know if I brought in Blake's line about "holding infinity in the palm of your hand", or if that only occurred to me later. I got pretty excited about all this (I tend to do that; it's the Latin blood I inherited from my father). I'm sure they were all rolling their eyes, thinking "What is he going on about now?" But maybe I planted a seed that will germinate when the conditions are right. Or, more likely, it went in one ear and out the other. But we teachers live in hope.
Father Richard Neuhaus has a beautiful reflection on this paradox in the final chapter of his book American Babylon:
The Christian proposal is that in Jesus the unknown has made itself known in the finitude of space and time. Jesus says of himself, "I am the way, the truth, and the life." He is the human face of God. There is a wondrous phrase -- Finitum capax infiniti (The finite is capable of the infinite) -- that theologians have referred to in controversies over the Eucharist. In Jesus Christ, the infinite and the finite are one. If the infinite did not include the finite, it would not be infinite. In that case, what we call "the infinite" would be yet another finite thing, however great and glorious, because it would not include the reality we call "finite." But now God, the Infinite, has become a human being, so that, as the early fathers of the Church never tired of saying, we human beings may become God, meaning that we creatures will participate fully in the life of the Creator.
Note the paradox here. Julian, as part of the creation, part of "all that is made", is the minutest of sub-atomic particles within the hazelnut. But at the same time, by the grace and power of God, she is carried outside the whole of the created order and looks down upon it from God's perspective. This image awes me; it shakes me to my core. I tried to convey to this class of sixteen-year-olds that they were walking, talking paradoxes -- finite beings that participate in infinity, capable of containing, embracing, the whole universe in their thoughts. I don't know if I brought in Blake's line about "holding infinity in the palm of your hand", or if that only occurred to me later. I got pretty excited about all this (I tend to do that; it's the Latin blood I inherited from my father). I'm sure they were all rolling their eyes, thinking "What is he going on about now?" But maybe I planted a seed that will germinate when the conditions are right. Or, more likely, it went in one ear and out the other. But we teachers live in hope.
Father Richard Neuhaus has a beautiful reflection on this paradox in the final chapter of his book American Babylon:
The Christian proposal is that in Jesus the unknown has made itself known in the finitude of space and time. Jesus says of himself, "I am the way, the truth, and the life." He is the human face of God. There is a wondrous phrase -- Finitum capax infiniti (The finite is capable of the infinite) -- that theologians have referred to in controversies over the Eucharist. In Jesus Christ, the infinite and the finite are one. If the infinite did not include the finite, it would not be infinite. In that case, what we call "the infinite" would be yet another finite thing, however great and glorious, because it would not include the reality we call "finite." But now God, the Infinite, has become a human being, so that, as the early fathers of the Church never tired of saying, we human beings may become God, meaning that we creatures will participate fully in the life of the Creator.
Guess the author #8
The Man of Tao
The man in whom Tao
Acts without impediment
Harms no other being
By his actions
Yet he does not know himself
To be "kind", to be "gentle."
The man in whom Tao
Acts without impediment
Does not bother with his own interests
And does not despise
Others who do.
He does not struggle to make money
And does not make a virtue of poverty.
He goes his way
Without relying on others
And does not pride himself
On walking alone.
While he does not follow the crowd
He won't complain of those who do.
Rank and reward
Make no appeal to him;
Disgrace and shame
Do not deter him.
He is not always looking
For right and wrong
Always deciding "Yes" or "No."
The ancients said, therefore:
"The man of Tao
Remains unknown
Perfect virtue
Produces nothing
'No-Self'
Is 'True-Self.'
And the greatest man
Is Nobody."
(Two possible answers for this.)
The man in whom Tao
Acts without impediment
Harms no other being
By his actions
Yet he does not know himself
To be "kind", to be "gentle."
The man in whom Tao
Acts without impediment
Does not bother with his own interests
And does not despise
Others who do.
He does not struggle to make money
And does not make a virtue of poverty.
He goes his way
Without relying on others
And does not pride himself
On walking alone.
While he does not follow the crowd
He won't complain of those who do.
Rank and reward
Make no appeal to him;
Disgrace and shame
Do not deter him.
He is not always looking
For right and wrong
Always deciding "Yes" or "No."
The ancients said, therefore:
"The man of Tao
Remains unknown
Perfect virtue
Produces nothing
'No-Self'
Is 'True-Self.'
And the greatest man
Is Nobody."
(Two possible answers for this.)
Monday, May 11, 2009
Does Richard Rorty really matter?
I'm inclined to answer in the negative. Rorty was a much-lauded American philosopher, recently deceased, who espoused what he called "liberal ironism". He wrote several books, including Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity, which gives the fullest exposition of his ideas. Father Neuhaus devotes the greater part of a lengthy chapter to him in American Babylon, in which he does a masterful job of puncturing the pretensions of his ironist project.
What is liberal ironism, you might well ask? In a nutshell: "Liberal ironists, says Rorty, know that the Enlightenment project is dead, and what is most dead about it is the rationalist notion that there is reality "out there" that is intellectually apprehensible and that can provide certain knowledge about how the world is and what we ought to do about it. Liberal ironists know, Rorty writes, that there is no universally valid answer to moral questions such as, 'Why not be cruel?'" (American Babylon, p. 128).
The goal for liberal ironists is self-realization through conceiving one's life in terms of one's own "final vocabulary", a term Rorty uses for the words we use to individuate ourselves, to tell our life story. They want to be absolutely their own unique creation, free from any "inherited contingencies". What this means in terms of their attitude towards posterity is one of the most interesting parts of the chapter. Neuhaus says: "Although Rorty does not quite put it this way, his purpose -- the drive to self-creation by the achievement of utter novelty, the urge to be one's own judge, the struggle for liberation from inherited vocabularies -- is closely associated with sterility and death. It follows that successors are the enemy. Children entangle us with others, compromising our singularity. They are hostages to the future, thereby binding us to a future from which we would be free; and they are potential judges, thereby compromising our judgment of ourselves on our own terms" (p. 138-139).
In answer to his own question whether Richard Rorty is really worth all this attention, Father Neuhaus responds:
"I think the answer is yes. Not only because of his influence in our intellectual culture, but because, with rare relentlessness, he followed through on one possible response to our human circumstance in exile. His is a way of responding to that circumstance: Make it up as you go along; take ironic delight in the truth that there is no truth; there is no home that answers to our homelessness; defiantly (but light-headedly!) throw the final vocabulary that is your life in the face of nothingness. And if your neighbor or some inner curiosity persists in asking about the meaning of it all, simply change the subject. Such is the way of muddling through in an "Age of Irony." Richard Rorty matters because contemporaries beyond numbering, most of whom have never heard of Richard Rorty, are living their lives in the mode of the liberal ironism he depicted with such rare and chilling candor" (p. 162).
This is well said; almost thou dost persuade me. But there is so much other stuff to read! I don't think I'm personally up to the mental effort of trying to follow the twisted logic of a man who insists he has overcome logic, moved beyond it; who responds to charges of intellectual inconsistency with a shrug. (In this context, Neuhaus quotes Walt Whitman: "Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself! (I am large, I contain multitudes)"). So I think I'll give Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity a pass.
What is liberal ironism, you might well ask? In a nutshell: "Liberal ironists, says Rorty, know that the Enlightenment project is dead, and what is most dead about it is the rationalist notion that there is reality "out there" that is intellectually apprehensible and that can provide certain knowledge about how the world is and what we ought to do about it. Liberal ironists know, Rorty writes, that there is no universally valid answer to moral questions such as, 'Why not be cruel?'" (American Babylon, p. 128).
The goal for liberal ironists is self-realization through conceiving one's life in terms of one's own "final vocabulary", a term Rorty uses for the words we use to individuate ourselves, to tell our life story. They want to be absolutely their own unique creation, free from any "inherited contingencies". What this means in terms of their attitude towards posterity is one of the most interesting parts of the chapter. Neuhaus says: "Although Rorty does not quite put it this way, his purpose -- the drive to self-creation by the achievement of utter novelty, the urge to be one's own judge, the struggle for liberation from inherited vocabularies -- is closely associated with sterility and death. It follows that successors are the enemy. Children entangle us with others, compromising our singularity. They are hostages to the future, thereby binding us to a future from which we would be free; and they are potential judges, thereby compromising our judgment of ourselves on our own terms" (p. 138-139).
In answer to his own question whether Richard Rorty is really worth all this attention, Father Neuhaus responds:
"I think the answer is yes. Not only because of his influence in our intellectual culture, but because, with rare relentlessness, he followed through on one possible response to our human circumstance in exile. His is a way of responding to that circumstance: Make it up as you go along; take ironic delight in the truth that there is no truth; there is no home that answers to our homelessness; defiantly (but light-headedly!) throw the final vocabulary that is your life in the face of nothingness. And if your neighbor or some inner curiosity persists in asking about the meaning of it all, simply change the subject. Such is the way of muddling through in an "Age of Irony." Richard Rorty matters because contemporaries beyond numbering, most of whom have never heard of Richard Rorty, are living their lives in the mode of the liberal ironism he depicted with such rare and chilling candor" (p. 162).
This is well said; almost thou dost persuade me. But there is so much other stuff to read! I don't think I'm personally up to the mental effort of trying to follow the twisted logic of a man who insists he has overcome logic, moved beyond it; who responds to charges of intellectual inconsistency with a shrug. (In this context, Neuhaus quotes Walt Whitman: "Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself! (I am large, I contain multitudes)"). So I think I'll give Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity a pass.
Thursday, May 7, 2009
John Damascene [Papal audience, May 6, 2009]
Assuming that most Catholics share my opinion that the Pope is a very wise man, with profound things to say about the Catholic faith, I'm thinking about translating his Wedesday audience talks from Italian into English as a regular feature of my blog. As this involves a lot of time and effort, I'd appreciate some input on whether this would be a useful thing to do. No point going to the trouble if no one is going to read it!
Dear brothers and sisters,
I would like to speak today about John Damascene, a person of the first importance in the history of Byzantine theology, a great doctor of the universal Church. He was above all an eye-witness of the transition from the Greek and Syriac Christian culture, shared by the eastern part of the Byzantine Empire, to the culture of Islam which had made space for itself by means of military conquest in the territory habitually recognized as the Middle or Near East. John, born into a rich Christian family, while still a young man assumed an important office in the caliphate, an office perhaps held also by his father, responsible for economic matters. But very soon, dissatisfied with life in the court of the caliph, he took up the monastic life, entering the monastery of Saint Saba near Jerusalem. This was around the year 700. Never again venturing from the monastery, he dedicated himself with all of his strength to asceticism and literary activity, not disregarding a certain level of pastoral activity, borne witness to by his numerous "Homilies". His feast is celebrated on December 4. Pope Leo XIII proclaimed him a Doctor of the Universal Church in 1890.
He is remembered in the East particularly for his three Discourses against those who calumniate sacred images, which were condemned after his death by the iconoclastic council of Hieria (754). But these discourses were also the fundamental reason for his rehabilitation and canonization by the Orthodox Fathers at the Second Council of Nicea (787), the Seventh Ecumenical Council. In these texts it is possible to trace the first important attempts in the legitimization of the veneration of sacred images, by associating them with the mystery of the Incarnation of the Son of God in the womb of the Virgin Mary.
Moreover, John Damascene was among the first to distinguish, in the public and private devotions of Christians, between adoration (latreia) and veneration (proskynesis): the first can only be directed towards God and is spiritual in the highest degree, the second can make use of an image to address the one who is represented by that same image. Obviously, the saint can in no case be identified with the material from which the icon is made. This distinction soon became very important in giving a Christian response to those who were claiming that the strict prohibition of the Old Testament regarding the cultic use of images always and everywhere applied. This was also a topic of discussion of great importance in the Islamic world, which accepted this Hebraic tradition of the total exclusion of all religious images. Christians, on the contrary, in this context, had discussed the problem and found the justification for the veneration of images. The Damascene writes: "In other times God had never been represented in an image, being incorporeal and without a face. But since now God has been seen in the flesh and has lived among men, I depict what is visible in God. I do not venerate the material, but the creator of the material, who was made material for me and deigned to live in material and work my salvation through material things. For that reason I will not cease to venerate the matter by means of which salvation has been obtained for me. But I do not venerate it absolutely as God! How could something that has come into existence from non-being be God?... But I venerate and respect also all the rest of the material that has procured my salvation, in so far as it is full of holy energy and grace. Is not the wood of the thrice blessed cross material?... And the ink and the most holy book of the Gospels, aren't these things material? The altar of salvation that dispenses for us the bread of life, is this not material?... And, before all other things, is not the flesh and blood of my Lord material? I must either suppress the sacred character of all these things, or I must allow to the tradition of the Church the veneration of images of God and those of the friends of God who are sanctified by the name they bear, and who for this reason are inhabited by the grace of the Holy Spirit. Therefore do not offend against matter: it is not contemptible, because nothing that God has made is contemptible" (Contra imaginum calumniatores, I, 16, ed. Kotter, pp.89-90). We see that, because of the Incarnation, matter appears as divinized, it is seen as the habitation of God. It is a question of a new vision of the world and of material reality. God has become flesh and flesh has become in truth the dwelling place of God, whose glory shines in the human face of Christ. Consequently the urgings of the Eastern Doctor are still extremely relevant, considering the very great dignity that matter has received in the Incarnation, able to become, in faith, sign and effective sacrament of the encounter of man with God. John Damascene remains, therefore, a privileged witness of the cult of icons, which became one of the most distinctive aspects of Eastern theology and spirituality down to the present. Yet it is a form of devotion that plainly belongs to the Christian faith, to the faith in that God who was made flesh and made himself visible. The teaching of Saint John Damascene was thus introduced into the tradition of the universal Church, whose sacramental doctrine provides for the fact that material elements taken from nature are capable of becoming means of grace in virtue of the invocation (epiclesis) of the Holy Spirit, accompanied by the confession of the true faith.
In connection with these profound ideas John Damascene also posits the veneration of the relics of the saints, on the basis of the conviction that the Christian saints, having become participants in the resurrection of Christ, cannot be considered simply as 'dead'. In enumerating, for example, those whose relics or images are worthy of veneration, John specifies in his third discourse in defense of images: "First of all let us venerate those among whom God rested, he alone being holy who rests among the saints (cfr Is 57,15), like the Holy Mother of God and all the saints. These are the ones who, as far as possible, made themselves like God by their will and by the indwelling and the aid of God, who are truly called gods (cfr Psalms 82,6), not by nature, but by contingency, just as red-hot iron is called fiery, not by nature but by contingency and by participation in the fire. He says in fact: You will be holy, for I am holy (Lv 19,2)" (III, 33, col. 1352 A). After a series of references of this type, the Damascene was able to serenely deduce: "God, who is good and superior to all goodness, was not content with the contemplation of himself, but willed that there should be beings blessed by him who would be able to become participants in his goodness: therefore he created from nothing all things, visible and invisible, including man, a reality both visible and invisible. And he created him by thinking and realizing him as a being capable of thought (ennoema ergon), enriched with words (logo[i] sympleroumenon) and oriented towards the spirit (pneumati teleioumenon)" (II, 2, PG 94, col. 865A). And to further clarify the idea, he adds: "One must let oneself be filled with wonder (thaumazein) at all the works of providence (tes pronoias erga), praise them all and accept them all, overcoming the temptation to pick out in them aspects which seem to many unjust or unfair (adika), and admitting that the plan of God (pronoia) goes beyond the capacity of man to know and understand (agnoston kai akatalepton), while on the contrary He alone knows our thoughts, our actions, and even our future" (II, 29, PG 94, col. 964C). Plato, among others, used to say that all philosophy begins with wonder: our faith also begins with the wonder of creation, of the beauty of God who made himself visible.
The optimism of natural contemplation (physike theoria), of seeing in the visible creation the good, the beautiful, the true, this Christian optimism is not a naive optimism: it takes account of the wound inflicted on human nature by a freedom of choice willed by God and improperly utilized by man, with all the consequences of widespread discord that are derived from that. From here comes the need, clearly perceived by the theologian from Damascus, that the nature in which the goodness and beauty of God are reflected, having been injured by our trespass, has been "reinforced and renewed" by the descent of the Son of God into the flesh, after God Himself, in many ways and diverse occasions, had sought to show that He had created man not only for "being" but for "well-being". With passionate zeal John explains: "It was necessary that nature be reinforced and renewed and the road of virtue be indicated and concretely taught (didachthenai aretes hodon), the road that leads away from corruption and towards eternal life ... And so has appeared on the horizon of history the great sea of the love of God for man (philanthropias pelagos) ..." It is a beautiful expression. We see, on the one side, the beauty of creation, and on the other, the destruction wrought by human sin. But we see in the Son of God, Who descends to renew nature, the sea of the love of God for man. John Damascene continues: "He Himself, the Creator and Lord, strove for his creatures, passing on to them his teaching by example... And so the Son of God, existing in the form of God, lowered the heavens and came down...near his servants...accomplishing the newest thing of all, the only truly new thing under the sun, through which the infinite power of God was made manifest in fact" (III, 1.PG 94, coll. 981C-984B).
We can imagine the comfort and the joy that these words, rich in such fascinating images, spread in the hearts of the faithful. Let us also, today, listen to them, sharing in the same sentiments of the Christians of that time: God wants to rest in us, he wants to renew nature also by means of our conversion, he wants to makes us sharers in his divinity. May the Lord help us to make of these words sustenance for our lives.
Dear brothers and sisters,
I would like to speak today about John Damascene, a person of the first importance in the history of Byzantine theology, a great doctor of the universal Church. He was above all an eye-witness of the transition from the Greek and Syriac Christian culture, shared by the eastern part of the Byzantine Empire, to the culture of Islam which had made space for itself by means of military conquest in the territory habitually recognized as the Middle or Near East. John, born into a rich Christian family, while still a young man assumed an important office in the caliphate, an office perhaps held also by his father, responsible for economic matters. But very soon, dissatisfied with life in the court of the caliph, he took up the monastic life, entering the monastery of Saint Saba near Jerusalem. This was around the year 700. Never again venturing from the monastery, he dedicated himself with all of his strength to asceticism and literary activity, not disregarding a certain level of pastoral activity, borne witness to by his numerous "Homilies". His feast is celebrated on December 4. Pope Leo XIII proclaimed him a Doctor of the Universal Church in 1890.
He is remembered in the East particularly for his three Discourses against those who calumniate sacred images, which were condemned after his death by the iconoclastic council of Hieria (754). But these discourses were also the fundamental reason for his rehabilitation and canonization by the Orthodox Fathers at the Second Council of Nicea (787), the Seventh Ecumenical Council. In these texts it is possible to trace the first important attempts in the legitimization of the veneration of sacred images, by associating them with the mystery of the Incarnation of the Son of God in the womb of the Virgin Mary.
Moreover, John Damascene was among the first to distinguish, in the public and private devotions of Christians, between adoration (latreia) and veneration (proskynesis): the first can only be directed towards God and is spiritual in the highest degree, the second can make use of an image to address the one who is represented by that same image. Obviously, the saint can in no case be identified with the material from which the icon is made. This distinction soon became very important in giving a Christian response to those who were claiming that the strict prohibition of the Old Testament regarding the cultic use of images always and everywhere applied. This was also a topic of discussion of great importance in the Islamic world, which accepted this Hebraic tradition of the total exclusion of all religious images. Christians, on the contrary, in this context, had discussed the problem and found the justification for the veneration of images. The Damascene writes: "In other times God had never been represented in an image, being incorporeal and without a face. But since now God has been seen in the flesh and has lived among men, I depict what is visible in God. I do not venerate the material, but the creator of the material, who was made material for me and deigned to live in material and work my salvation through material things. For that reason I will not cease to venerate the matter by means of which salvation has been obtained for me. But I do not venerate it absolutely as God! How could something that has come into existence from non-being be God?... But I venerate and respect also all the rest of the material that has procured my salvation, in so far as it is full of holy energy and grace. Is not the wood of the thrice blessed cross material?... And the ink and the most holy book of the Gospels, aren't these things material? The altar of salvation that dispenses for us the bread of life, is this not material?... And, before all other things, is not the flesh and blood of my Lord material? I must either suppress the sacred character of all these things, or I must allow to the tradition of the Church the veneration of images of God and those of the friends of God who are sanctified by the name they bear, and who for this reason are inhabited by the grace of the Holy Spirit. Therefore do not offend against matter: it is not contemptible, because nothing that God has made is contemptible" (Contra imaginum calumniatores, I, 16, ed. Kotter, pp.89-90). We see that, because of the Incarnation, matter appears as divinized, it is seen as the habitation of God. It is a question of a new vision of the world and of material reality. God has become flesh and flesh has become in truth the dwelling place of God, whose glory shines in the human face of Christ. Consequently the urgings of the Eastern Doctor are still extremely relevant, considering the very great dignity that matter has received in the Incarnation, able to become, in faith, sign and effective sacrament of the encounter of man with God. John Damascene remains, therefore, a privileged witness of the cult of icons, which became one of the most distinctive aspects of Eastern theology and spirituality down to the present. Yet it is a form of devotion that plainly belongs to the Christian faith, to the faith in that God who was made flesh and made himself visible. The teaching of Saint John Damascene was thus introduced into the tradition of the universal Church, whose sacramental doctrine provides for the fact that material elements taken from nature are capable of becoming means of grace in virtue of the invocation (epiclesis) of the Holy Spirit, accompanied by the confession of the true faith.
In connection with these profound ideas John Damascene also posits the veneration of the relics of the saints, on the basis of the conviction that the Christian saints, having become participants in the resurrection of Christ, cannot be considered simply as 'dead'. In enumerating, for example, those whose relics or images are worthy of veneration, John specifies in his third discourse in defense of images: "First of all let us venerate those among whom God rested, he alone being holy who rests among the saints (cfr Is 57,15), like the Holy Mother of God and all the saints. These are the ones who, as far as possible, made themselves like God by their will and by the indwelling and the aid of God, who are truly called gods (cfr Psalms 82,6), not by nature, but by contingency, just as red-hot iron is called fiery, not by nature but by contingency and by participation in the fire. He says in fact: You will be holy, for I am holy (Lv 19,2)" (III, 33, col. 1352 A). After a series of references of this type, the Damascene was able to serenely deduce: "God, who is good and superior to all goodness, was not content with the contemplation of himself, but willed that there should be beings blessed by him who would be able to become participants in his goodness: therefore he created from nothing all things, visible and invisible, including man, a reality both visible and invisible. And he created him by thinking and realizing him as a being capable of thought (ennoema ergon), enriched with words (logo[i] sympleroumenon) and oriented towards the spirit (pneumati teleioumenon)" (II, 2, PG 94, col. 865A). And to further clarify the idea, he adds: "One must let oneself be filled with wonder (thaumazein) at all the works of providence (tes pronoias erga), praise them all and accept them all, overcoming the temptation to pick out in them aspects which seem to many unjust or unfair (adika), and admitting that the plan of God (pronoia) goes beyond the capacity of man to know and understand (agnoston kai akatalepton), while on the contrary He alone knows our thoughts, our actions, and even our future" (II, 29, PG 94, col. 964C). Plato, among others, used to say that all philosophy begins with wonder: our faith also begins with the wonder of creation, of the beauty of God who made himself visible.
The optimism of natural contemplation (physike theoria), of seeing in the visible creation the good, the beautiful, the true, this Christian optimism is not a naive optimism: it takes account of the wound inflicted on human nature by a freedom of choice willed by God and improperly utilized by man, with all the consequences of widespread discord that are derived from that. From here comes the need, clearly perceived by the theologian from Damascus, that the nature in which the goodness and beauty of God are reflected, having been injured by our trespass, has been "reinforced and renewed" by the descent of the Son of God into the flesh, after God Himself, in many ways and diverse occasions, had sought to show that He had created man not only for "being" but for "well-being". With passionate zeal John explains: "It was necessary that nature be reinforced and renewed and the road of virtue be indicated and concretely taught (didachthenai aretes hodon), the road that leads away from corruption and towards eternal life ... And so has appeared on the horizon of history the great sea of the love of God for man (philanthropias pelagos) ..." It is a beautiful expression. We see, on the one side, the beauty of creation, and on the other, the destruction wrought by human sin. But we see in the Son of God, Who descends to renew nature, the sea of the love of God for man. John Damascene continues: "He Himself, the Creator and Lord, strove for his creatures, passing on to them his teaching by example... And so the Son of God, existing in the form of God, lowered the heavens and came down...near his servants...accomplishing the newest thing of all, the only truly new thing under the sun, through which the infinite power of God was made manifest in fact" (III, 1.PG 94, coll. 981C-984B).
We can imagine the comfort and the joy that these words, rich in such fascinating images, spread in the hearts of the faithful. Let us also, today, listen to them, sharing in the same sentiments of the Christians of that time: God wants to rest in us, he wants to renew nature also by means of our conversion, he wants to makes us sharers in his divinity. May the Lord help us to make of these words sustenance for our lives.
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