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.
Saturday, May 30, 2009
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.
"God is other, people"
Richard Neuhaus reports the following anecdote of the late, great Cardinal Avery Dulles (requiescat in pace). Once when giving a talk at a parish church, the Cardinal noticed a large banner strung across the entrace that read "God is other people". His gut reaction was to take a magic marker to the sign and put an "emphatic comma" after the word "other". (Of course, he restrained himself.)
The attitude reflected in that banner, and the idea too frequently heard in a number of sermons, is that we find God in our fellow human beings or nowhere. It's almost as if, when asked what the greatest command of the law was, Jesus had answered: "Love the Lord your God with all of your heart, and all of your mind, and all of your strength; or, which is the same thing, love your neighbour as yourself." He didn't say that. Whether intentional or not, this kind of thinking can have the effect of directing us away from God and towards each other, towards ourselves. Now of course, "God is other people" is true in a sense. We serve God by means of loving service towards our neighbour: "What you do to the least of these, my brothers and sisters, you do to Me", said Our Lord. But this truth exists in tension with another, namely, that God is absolutely transcendent, infinitely surpassing our loftiest conceptions of Him: "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the LORD. As high as the heavens are above the earth, so high are my ways above your ways and my thoughts above your thoughts" (Isaiah 55:8-9). So we live in the tension between "God is other people" and "God is other, people". To embrace the first and ignore the second is to risk making what Father Neuhaus calls "the greatest of all category mistakes -- mistaking the creature for the Creator" (American Babylon, p. 100).
Father Neuhaus makes this point in the context of a discussion about the different forms atheism takes in our society. In a culture where bizarre neo-pagan spiritualities multiply at an ever-increasing rate, it's not always easy to tell who is and who is not an atheist. "Is a Zen physio-psychoanalyst an atheist?", he wonders. He continues:
"There are also curious twists and turns under ostensibly orthodox Christian auspices. References to transcendent realities are sometimes conflated with, and sometimes subordinated to, social agendas of great variety ... [this is where he inserts Cardinal Dulles's banner anecdote]. Whether under Christian or non-Christian auspices, many of the "spiritualities" in contemporary culture would seem to be elaborately religionized forms of atheism "(p. 100).
But we should also be cognizant of the fact that there are atheists worthy of our respect, "atheists in good faith", as Father Raniero Cantalamessa, preacher to the papal household, calls them. Neuhaus quotes him thus:
"The world of today knows a new category of people: the atheists in good faith, those who live painfully the situation of the silence of God, who do not believe in God but do not boast about it; rather they experience the existential anguish and the lack of meaning of everything: They too, in their own way, live in the dark night of the spirit. Albert Camus called them "the saints without God." The mystics exist above all for them; they are their travel and table companions. Like Jesus, they "sat down at the table of sinners and ate with them" (see Luke 15:2). This explains the passion with which certain atheists, once converted, pore over the writings of the mystics: Claudel, Bernanos, the two Maritains, L. Bloy, the writer J. K. Huysmans and so many others over the writings of Angela of Foligno; T. S. Eliot over those of Julian of Norwich. There they find again the same scenery that they had left, but this time illuminated by the sun.... The word "atheist" can have an active and a passive meaning. It can indicate someone who rejects God, but also one who -- at least so it seems to him -- is rejected by God. In the first case, it is a blameworthy atheism (when it is not in good faith), in the second an atheism of sorrow or of expiation." (Quoted on pp.104-105 of American Babylon)
The attitude reflected in that banner, and the idea too frequently heard in a number of sermons, is that we find God in our fellow human beings or nowhere. It's almost as if, when asked what the greatest command of the law was, Jesus had answered: "Love the Lord your God with all of your heart, and all of your mind, and all of your strength; or, which is the same thing, love your neighbour as yourself." He didn't say that. Whether intentional or not, this kind of thinking can have the effect of directing us away from God and towards each other, towards ourselves. Now of course, "God is other people" is true in a sense. We serve God by means of loving service towards our neighbour: "What you do to the least of these, my brothers and sisters, you do to Me", said Our Lord. But this truth exists in tension with another, namely, that God is absolutely transcendent, infinitely surpassing our loftiest conceptions of Him: "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the LORD. As high as the heavens are above the earth, so high are my ways above your ways and my thoughts above your thoughts" (Isaiah 55:8-9). So we live in the tension between "God is other people" and "God is other, people". To embrace the first and ignore the second is to risk making what Father Neuhaus calls "the greatest of all category mistakes -- mistaking the creature for the Creator" (American Babylon, p. 100).
Father Neuhaus makes this point in the context of a discussion about the different forms atheism takes in our society. In a culture where bizarre neo-pagan spiritualities multiply at an ever-increasing rate, it's not always easy to tell who is and who is not an atheist. "Is a Zen physio-psychoanalyst an atheist?", he wonders. He continues:
"There are also curious twists and turns under ostensibly orthodox Christian auspices. References to transcendent realities are sometimes conflated with, and sometimes subordinated to, social agendas of great variety ... [this is where he inserts Cardinal Dulles's banner anecdote]. Whether under Christian or non-Christian auspices, many of the "spiritualities" in contemporary culture would seem to be elaborately religionized forms of atheism "(p. 100).
But we should also be cognizant of the fact that there are atheists worthy of our respect, "atheists in good faith", as Father Raniero Cantalamessa, preacher to the papal household, calls them. Neuhaus quotes him thus:
"The world of today knows a new category of people: the atheists in good faith, those who live painfully the situation of the silence of God, who do not believe in God but do not boast about it; rather they experience the existential anguish and the lack of meaning of everything: They too, in their own way, live in the dark night of the spirit. Albert Camus called them "the saints without God." The mystics exist above all for them; they are their travel and table companions. Like Jesus, they "sat down at the table of sinners and ate with them" (see Luke 15:2). This explains the passion with which certain atheists, once converted, pore over the writings of the mystics: Claudel, Bernanos, the two Maritains, L. Bloy, the writer J. K. Huysmans and so many others over the writings of Angela of Foligno; T. S. Eliot over those of Julian of Norwich. There they find again the same scenery that they had left, but this time illuminated by the sun.... The word "atheist" can have an active and a passive meaning. It can indicate someone who rejects God, but also one who -- at least so it seems to him -- is rejected by God. In the first case, it is a blameworthy atheism (when it is not in good faith), in the second an atheism of sorrow or of expiation." (Quoted on pp.104-105 of American Babylon)
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
More from American Babylon
I can't remember where exactly (maybe in his book, Miracles?), but C. S. Lewis somewhere in his writings notes a certain incoherence in the philosophical stance of scientific materialism. Father Neuhaus in American Bablyon makes the same point in his usual inimitable manner:
"Yes, there are those who embrace simple-minded responses to the quandary [i.e., the mind-matter paradox]. In recent years, the "new atheists", as they are misleadingly called, such as Richard Dawkins, say that we human beings are nothing but "survival machines" and that what we call thought is nothing more than the product of neurosynapses in the pound of meat that is the brain. But, by their own account, they are programmed to talk that way, and, apart from our sympathy for their self-chosen plight, we need pay no mind to what they insist on describing as their mindlessness. Of course they protest that they are making an argument that has a claim upon our intellectual attention, but, try as we might, we cannot agree without denying the existence of the intellect that is the agent of our agreement" (p. 67-68).
My very first posting on this blog dealt with this sort of thing, and I don't want to repeat myself. Let me just say that for argument of any kind, scientific, ethical, theological, philosophical, whatever, to make sense, there must be a transcendent truth independent of human biology that we can access by means of our reason. This is possible because our minds are images of the Mind of the Maker, the source of all Truth. (And if we ever encounter extra-terrestrial intelligence, differences in biological makeup and evolutionary history will not be an insuperable impediment to our common pursuit of truth. Star Trek opens this Friday, so I had to throw that in!) Neuhaus expresses this idea beautifully: "The Catholic Augustinians ... were of the school of the logos , where it is understood that reason participates in the Mind of the Maker, and all that is truly real is love in response to the love by which all that is exists" (p. 72).
I love the way the man writes! I'll conclude this posting with one more quote that reinforces what was said earlier in a particularly compelling way:
"It is a striking oddity of our time that people who ground morality in choice are frequently the same people who claim that we have no choice. That is to say, they subscribe to the dismal idea that our lives and what we call our thoughts, purposes, and choices are all determined by matter in motion -- which is, finally, all that we are. At the same time, they subscribe to the idea of progress as the conquest of nature to, as Francis Bacon said, "relieve the estate of man."
"In short, we are completely captive to the nature we are determined to conquer. We are free to think and to choose, but our thinking and choosing is an illusion, since in reality they are no more than the transmission of impulses between the neurons of the "pound of meat" that is the brain. As the befuddled philosopher is supposed to have said, "As to the question of whether we have free will, we have no choice but to answer yes." This is self-referential contradiction and intellectual incoherence of a high order. It is at the core of the position that asserts with adamant certitude that there is no truth and that's the truth" (p. 77-78).
More on this in my next posting. (Oh, yeah, and the answer to the last "guess the author" is John Henry Newman. The passage is from one of his Parochial and Plain Sermons.)
"Yes, there are those who embrace simple-minded responses to the quandary [i.e., the mind-matter paradox]. In recent years, the "new atheists", as they are misleadingly called, such as Richard Dawkins, say that we human beings are nothing but "survival machines" and that what we call thought is nothing more than the product of neurosynapses in the pound of meat that is the brain. But, by their own account, they are programmed to talk that way, and, apart from our sympathy for their self-chosen plight, we need pay no mind to what they insist on describing as their mindlessness. Of course they protest that they are making an argument that has a claim upon our intellectual attention, but, try as we might, we cannot agree without denying the existence of the intellect that is the agent of our agreement" (p. 67-68).
My very first posting on this blog dealt with this sort of thing, and I don't want to repeat myself. Let me just say that for argument of any kind, scientific, ethical, theological, philosophical, whatever, to make sense, there must be a transcendent truth independent of human biology that we can access by means of our reason. This is possible because our minds are images of the Mind of the Maker, the source of all Truth. (And if we ever encounter extra-terrestrial intelligence, differences in biological makeup and evolutionary history will not be an insuperable impediment to our common pursuit of truth. Star Trek opens this Friday, so I had to throw that in!) Neuhaus expresses this idea beautifully: "The Catholic Augustinians ... were of the school of the logos , where it is understood that reason participates in the Mind of the Maker, and all that is truly real is love in response to the love by which all that is exists" (p. 72).
I love the way the man writes! I'll conclude this posting with one more quote that reinforces what was said earlier in a particularly compelling way:
"It is a striking oddity of our time that people who ground morality in choice are frequently the same people who claim that we have no choice. That is to say, they subscribe to the dismal idea that our lives and what we call our thoughts, purposes, and choices are all determined by matter in motion -- which is, finally, all that we are. At the same time, they subscribe to the idea of progress as the conquest of nature to, as Francis Bacon said, "relieve the estate of man."
"In short, we are completely captive to the nature we are determined to conquer. We are free to think and to choose, but our thinking and choosing is an illusion, since in reality they are no more than the transmission of impulses between the neurons of the "pound of meat" that is the brain. As the befuddled philosopher is supposed to have said, "As to the question of whether we have free will, we have no choice but to answer yes." This is self-referential contradiction and intellectual incoherence of a high order. It is at the core of the position that asserts with adamant certitude that there is no truth and that's the truth" (p. 77-78).
More on this in my next posting. (Oh, yeah, and the answer to the last "guess the author" is John Henry Newman. The passage is from one of his Parochial and Plain Sermons.)
Monday, May 4, 2009
Guess the author
Let us not be content with ourselves; let us not make our own hearts our home, or this world our home, or our friends our home; let us look out for a better country, that is, a heavenly country. Let us look out for Him Who alone can guide us to that better country; let us call heaven our home, and this life a pilgrimage; let us view ourselves as sheep in the trackless desert, who, unless they follow the shepherd, will be sure to lose themselves.
By the rivers of Babylon ...
First, a bit of history. Nabopolassar, the father of Nebuchadnezzar, laid the foundations for the Babylonian dynasty and empire in 626 B.C., and his son greatly extended it through conquest. Nineveh was taken and destroyed in 612 B.C. The kingdom of Judah was next, and Jerusalem was captured in 597. Nebuchadnezzar put Zedekiah on the throne as his proxy, at the same time exiling Ezekiel and thousands of others. In 586, the holy city was destroyed and almost all the remaining citizens were deported to captivity in Babylon. When Cyrus, king of Persia, conquered Babylon in 539, he permitted the Jews to return to their homeland to rebuild Jerusalem and, even more importantly, the temple.
The name Bablyon is the Greek version of the Akkadian Bab-Ilu, which translates as "gate of god". My fascination with languages prompts me to point out the similarities between 'Ilu', 'Allah', and 'Elohim', the words for God/god in Akkadian, Arabic, and Hebrew. The Hebrew word is plural in form (the -im ending), but is regularly used for God in the Hebrew Bible. For example, a recurring phrase is: 'ko amar Adonai Elohim Yisrael', 'Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel'. It might be a propos at this point to mention that in the Genesis account, Babylon is the place where the diversity of languages came to be. As we read in Genesis 11: "And the Lord said, "Behold, they are one people, and they have all one language; and this is only the beginning of what they will do; and nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them. Come, let us go down and there confuse their language, that they may not understand one another's speech.... and they left off building the city. Therefore its name was called Babel..."
So Babylon, symbolically, is the place where there is no communication, or at least, a place where communication is confused. A place where misunderstandings abound. And where there is no real communication, there is no real community. But human beings were made for community. Hence we are out of place in the world, restless in Babylon, and we long for a homeland where all misunderstandings, all lies will cease, where communication will be perfect, where human community will be perfected through our common community with God. We are all exiles here, on pilgrimage towards that perfect community that awaits us in the New Jerusalem. Hence we are not to get too comfortable here. Babylon is no place to settle down: 'Here we have no abiding city'. This is one of the principle points Father Neuhaus makes in his book, American Bablyon. But side by side with this we are enjoined to work for the well-being of this place of our exile, just as Jeremiah counselled the Jews in their Babylonian captivity:
"Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat the produce. Take wives and have sons and daughters ... multiply there, and do not decrease. But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare."
There is an obvious tension here, of which we should all be ever mindful. And there is an important difference between our situation and that of the Jews in Babylon, one that Father Neuhaus tends to pass over. The Jews were exiles in Babylon, but the Babylonians weren't. The Jews longed for their ancestral homeland; the Babylonians were home. We are not allowed to recognize such a distinction. We are all, without exception, exiles here, even those of us who don't realize it, who feel quite at home in the world. So when Neuhaus says: "To seek the peace and welfare of Babylon is to seek improvement, and another word for improvement in 'progress'. Devotion to progress is devotion to the common good, including the good of those citizens of Babylon who seek no other city" (p.58), I feel like responding, "Yes, but the greatest good we can do for them is to convince them that they don't belong in Babylon, that no one belongs in Babylon." Changing the metaphor a bit, we are commissioned by Our Lord to convince everyone to come with us into the Ark that is the Church, an Ark that can give us safe passage home.
The name Bablyon is the Greek version of the Akkadian Bab-Ilu, which translates as "gate of god". My fascination with languages prompts me to point out the similarities between 'Ilu', 'Allah', and 'Elohim', the words for God/god in Akkadian, Arabic, and Hebrew. The Hebrew word is plural in form (the -im ending), but is regularly used for God in the Hebrew Bible. For example, a recurring phrase is: 'ko amar Adonai Elohim Yisrael', 'Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel'. It might be a propos at this point to mention that in the Genesis account, Babylon is the place where the diversity of languages came to be. As we read in Genesis 11: "And the Lord said, "Behold, they are one people, and they have all one language; and this is only the beginning of what they will do; and nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them. Come, let us go down and there confuse their language, that they may not understand one another's speech.... and they left off building the city. Therefore its name was called Babel..."
So Babylon, symbolically, is the place where there is no communication, or at least, a place where communication is confused. A place where misunderstandings abound. And where there is no real communication, there is no real community. But human beings were made for community. Hence we are out of place in the world, restless in Babylon, and we long for a homeland where all misunderstandings, all lies will cease, where communication will be perfect, where human community will be perfected through our common community with God. We are all exiles here, on pilgrimage towards that perfect community that awaits us in the New Jerusalem. Hence we are not to get too comfortable here. Babylon is no place to settle down: 'Here we have no abiding city'. This is one of the principle points Father Neuhaus makes in his book, American Bablyon. But side by side with this we are enjoined to work for the well-being of this place of our exile, just as Jeremiah counselled the Jews in their Babylonian captivity:
"Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat the produce. Take wives and have sons and daughters ... multiply there, and do not decrease. But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare."
There is an obvious tension here, of which we should all be ever mindful. And there is an important difference between our situation and that of the Jews in Babylon, one that Father Neuhaus tends to pass over. The Jews were exiles in Babylon, but the Babylonians weren't. The Jews longed for their ancestral homeland; the Babylonians were home. We are not allowed to recognize such a distinction. We are all, without exception, exiles here, even those of us who don't realize it, who feel quite at home in the world. So when Neuhaus says: "To seek the peace and welfare of Babylon is to seek improvement, and another word for improvement in 'progress'. Devotion to progress is devotion to the common good, including the good of those citizens of Babylon who seek no other city" (p.58), I feel like responding, "Yes, but the greatest good we can do for them is to convince them that they don't belong in Babylon, that no one belongs in Babylon." Changing the metaphor a bit, we are commissioned by Our Lord to convince everyone to come with us into the Ark that is the Church, an Ark that can give us safe passage home.
Friday, May 1, 2009
St. Joseph the Worker
I know I said that my next few posts would be on Father Neuhaus's book, American Babylon, but today is the feast of St. Joseph the Worker, and I can't let that pass without acknowledgement. The Office of Readings for today (May 1) doesn't speak about St. Joseph specifically: there is instead a passage from Gaudium et Spes on the value and dignity of human labour. So I'll quote something from the Office of Readings from March 19, the saint's solemnity. This is from a sermon by Saint Bernardine of Siena:
"There is a general rule concerning all special graces granted to any human being. Whenever the divine favor chooses someone to receive a special grace, or to accept a lofty vocation, God adorns the person chosen with all the gifts of the Spirit needed to fulfill the task at hand.
"This general rule is especially verified in the case of Saint Joseph, the foster-father of our Lord and the husband of the Queen of our world, enthroned above the angels. He was chosen by the eternal Father as the trustworthy guardian and protector of his greatest treasures, namely, his divine Son and Mary, Joseph's wife. He carried out this vocation with complete fidelity until at last God called him, saying: Good and faithful servant, enter into the joy of your Lord.
"What then is Joseph's position in the whole Church of Christ? Is he not a man chosen and set apart? Through him and, yes, under him, Christ was fittingly and honorably introduced into the world. Holy Church in its entirety is indebted to the Virgin Mother because through her it was judged worthy to receive Christ. But after her we undoubtedly owe special gratitude and reverence to Saint Joseph.
"In him the Old Testament finds its fitting close. He brought the noble line of patriarchs and prophets to its promised fulfillment. What the divine goodness had offered as a promise to them, he held in his arms.
"... Remember us, Saint Joseph, and plead for us to your foster-child. Ask your most holy bride, the Virgin Mary, to look kindly upon us, since she is the mother of him who with the Father and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns eternally. Amen."
"There is a general rule concerning all special graces granted to any human being. Whenever the divine favor chooses someone to receive a special grace, or to accept a lofty vocation, God adorns the person chosen with all the gifts of the Spirit needed to fulfill the task at hand.
"This general rule is especially verified in the case of Saint Joseph, the foster-father of our Lord and the husband of the Queen of our world, enthroned above the angels. He was chosen by the eternal Father as the trustworthy guardian and protector of his greatest treasures, namely, his divine Son and Mary, Joseph's wife. He carried out this vocation with complete fidelity until at last God called him, saying: Good and faithful servant, enter into the joy of your Lord.
"What then is Joseph's position in the whole Church of Christ? Is he not a man chosen and set apart? Through him and, yes, under him, Christ was fittingly and honorably introduced into the world. Holy Church in its entirety is indebted to the Virgin Mother because through her it was judged worthy to receive Christ. But after her we undoubtedly owe special gratitude and reverence to Saint Joseph.
"In him the Old Testament finds its fitting close. He brought the noble line of patriarchs and prophets to its promised fulfillment. What the divine goodness had offered as a promise to them, he held in his arms.
"... Remember us, Saint Joseph, and plead for us to your foster-child. Ask your most holy bride, the Virgin Mary, to look kindly upon us, since she is the mother of him who with the Father and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns eternally. Amen."
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