Charisma = Possession

Charisma, according to Philip Rieff, is "a possession -- more precisely, a particular condition of being possessed or compelled. Possession 'from above' raises the possibility of being possessed 'from below'." Charisma, p.86.

Therese of Lisieux is a good example of possession "from above." She had an irresistable charm -- a charisma -- arising from possession of -- a being possessed by -- in her own words: an extraordinary love of God. Where did this possession come from? A quirk of personality? An out of place gene? No, Therese allowed herself to be possessed completely by her "spouse," Christ.

Rieff remarks also that possession is a "particular condition of being compelled." Possession from above is compulsion to shut down our transgressive desires, the drives of our lower nature -- to lower our eyes, to quiet our tongues, to beat our breasts while giving God praise for His mercy over our transgressiveness. When God is in possession He can act through us. Those who have eyes to see notice the charisma.

Charisma anyone?

3D Glasses

Wearing 3D glasses in the movie Avatar reminded me that the world we see "in real life" is also (happily) multi-dimensional.  For the Christian, the super-natural is one of the dimensions. What we see before us we see "in the light of" faith, hope and charity.

This principle is important for our experience of the world, which is not ideal, to say the least. As von Balthasar puts it, Engagement With God (p. 85-86), an ideal world would be a resurrected world, which it is not.  In reality the world is resurrected only in spe, in the dimension of hope.  

This has an important implication for Christian action.  ". . . [T]o think that the Christian, by his efforts, is able so radically to change the structures [of the world] is mere chiliastic fantasy or the hope of an unrealistic enthusiast."  In other words, our 3D glasses of "faith, hope and charity" do not re-create the world into a utopian pipe-dream.  Rather, they help us see the world as it "is," that is, as it is, as it should be, as it could be, and as it eventually will be, in God's time and plan.

"This again does not mean that the Christian must simply resign himself to the world as it is now and ever shall be.  The Christian's task is so far as he is able to fill the structures of the world with the boundless spirit of love and reconciliation, despite the fact that he will always encounter opposition to his efforts toward this end."

Are you wearing your "3D" glasses?

"Voluntary" Celibacy

I read in the paper this morning that Pope Benedict reaffirmed priestly celibacy. He said, according to the paper, that celibacy would be a scandal only in "a world in which God is not there." The article said an Austrian bishop has urged the Vatican to drop the rule, in the wake of a widened European clerical sex scandal. The Austrian bishop said celibacy should be "voluntary."

A more precise word would be "optional." For the vow of celibacy is certainly voluntary. I don't have to become a priest, and I know the rule going in, so my vow of celibacy is voluntary. Likewise, if I get married, my vow of fidelity is voluntary. Once made, it is no longer "optional."

It is fashionable to hold the position that celibacy for priests should be optional. Maybe so. Celibacy has become controversial because a small number of non-celibate priests have preyed sexually on children. Some feel the celibacy rule attracts men with abnormal sexual drives, and turns away men who are sexually "normal."

Still, it seems to me that celibacy is a valuable "sign of contradiction" that is much needed in our sexually charged world. As the Pope stated, it is a sign that God asks us to transcend ourselves, and provides the grace to do so. . . if we ask for it. And, as Matt's earlier post points out, transcending ourselves allows us to be more present to others.

Is Love or Hate Most Powerful?

Hate is certainly a powerful emotion, but is it more powerful than love? If God is love, love must be more powerful, right? Yet, look at the newspaper and TV: stories of hate are everywhere. Hate always seems to get the upper hand. How can love prevail over hate's power? Love is upbuilding, hate destroys. Love frees, hate enslaves. Love "covers a multitude of sins," hate magnifies every imperfection. Love gives life, hate deals death. Love, like the Spring, is always beginning, hate ends all possibilities. In the end, hate destroys the hater, love lets live.

Still, how can the person in thrall to hatred get free? Love has no legions, it can't seem to unclench the hater's fist, unshackle his mind. For Christians, Christ's resurrection gives us hope that love ultimately will prevail. But until that time comes, it seems that love often can only watch helplessly . . . and hope and pray.

Singleness

From Singled Out: Why Celibacy Must Be Reinvented in Today's Church by Christine A. Colón and Bonnie E. Field:

Page 208:

In her [Laura Smit] discussion of Paul's view of singleness in I Corinthians, she remarks,

"It does seem…that singleness must be the default choice for a Christian, given the clear preference for singleness expressed in this text and in Jesus' teachings. In other words, the burden of proof is on the decision to marry, not the decision to remain single. Christians should assume that they will be single unless and until they have a godly reason to marry. Christians should never marry out of insecurity, fear, a desire to escape the parental home, a need for affirmation, or a search for financial stability. Christians should only marry those who enhance their ability to live Christlike lives, those able to be true partners in Christian service, those who give them a vision of the image of God and the glory of Christ."


Page 215-216:

Developing this "larger capacity for love" is essential for today's evangelical church, which, too often, is so concerned with preserving its families that it ignores many who desperately long for the Christian community that the church has the potential to provide. In her discussion of this issue, Laura Smit equates today's Protestant church with an example she draws from Langdon Gilkey's book Shantung Compound in which the author records his experiences in an internment camp during the Japanese occupation of China. She states,

"Most of the missionaries were detained with their families, and their care for their families trumped their sense of obligation to the rest of the community. No one had enough space to live with much privacy, but some families who had arrived earlier than others had two small rooms for their family of four or five people, whereas the later arrivals had only one. Gilkey was in charge of housing assignments, but when he tried to get some of the missionaries who had two rooms to rearrange themselves to make the space allocation more fair, he met complete resistance. No family was willing to sacrifice anything for the good of the community, and several parents appealed to their moral duty to look out for the good of their families as a defense for such selfishness."

What stands out to Gilkey and to Smit is that in contrast to the Protestant missionaries who separated themselves into distinct family units and placed their families above everything else, the Catholic priests who, as Gilkey records, "mixed…made friends with anyone in camp, helped out, played cards, smoked, and joked with them…were a means of grace to the whole community." Without family ties, the priests had the freedom to express their love beyond family boundaries to include everyone within this newly formed community.

A Prayer

http://www.ccel.org/ is a website that e-publishes classic Christian texts. The following prayer was sent along on their June
e-Newsletter.

Praying With Gregory of Nyssa (c. 335-c.394)


You truly, O Lord, are the pure and eternal fount of goodness; ... who did curse, and did bless; you did banish us from Paradise, and did recall us; you did strip off the fig-tree leaves ... and put upon us a costly garment; you did open the prison and did release the condemned; you did sprinkle us with clean water, and cleanse us from our filthiness. No longer shall ... the flaming sword encircle Paradise around, and make the entrance inaccessible to those that draw near; but all is turned to joy for us that were the heirs of sin; Paradise, yea, heaven itself may be trodden by man, and the creation, in the world and above the world, that once was at variance with itself, is knit together in friendship: and we ... are made to join in the angels' song, offering the worship of their praise.

- from "On the Baptism of Christ"

Read more by this author at the CCEL.

Love and Truth

In his book Man Against Mass Society, written (in 1952) in the shadow of the horrors of the Nazi and Soviet death camps, Gabriel Marcel describes a degraded "mass" man, passive, un-free, susceptible to fanatacism through manipulation by propaganda and demagoguery, the kind of degraded human that supported and furthered the horrors mentioned.

The antitdote? According to Marcel, it is the "universal," and "the light," which he describes as mind, or spirit, and "the identity at their upper limit of Love and Truth" (p. 262) "[W]e should have to add that a truth which lies below that limit is a pseudo-truth and conversely that a love without truth is in some respects a mere delirium." He identifies this with the "light" in the first chapter of John.

Benedict XVI his encyclical likewise links truth and love. In par 2, he says, "Truth, in fact is logos, which creats dia-logos, and hence communication and communion." Without truth, relationship, love, degrades into "using", sullenness and, ultimately, hatred. Without love, truth likewise degrades to a "pseudo-truth" that harms rather than helps man. This is both Marcel's and Benedict's core message.

We tend to think of truth as standing "out there," objectively, on its own. In point of fact, it is only "truth" to the extent that we are bound to it (be"troth"ed to it), that is, to the extent we exist in a relation of respect and obedience to it and to each other through it. Relationships, including those of "love," without truth, are degraded, degrading the "lovers".

This is a most important truth for our day and age in which truth divorced from love leads to the horrors, among others, of abortion, the mass killing of family members, gang violence, terrorism, and many other forms of lesser violence that no less degrade and demean us.