As St. Ambrose said, "Where there is faith, there is liberty." Freedom is called a paradox because freedom is only found in recognizing our relationship of dependence on the infinite, the creator. Here is how Luigi Giussani puts it: "The human being -- the concrete human person, me, you -- once were not, now we are, and tomorrow will no longer be: thus we depend.
"And either we depend upon the flux of our material antecedents, and are consequently slaves of the powers that be, or we depend upon What lies at the origin of the movement of all things, beyond them, which is to say, God.
"Freedom identifies itself with dependence upon God at the human level: it is a recognized and lived dependence, while slavery, on the other hand, denies or censures this relationship.
"Religiosity is the lived awareness of this relationship. Freedom comes through religiosity!
"Religiosity is the single hindrance, limit, confine to the dictatorship of man over man, whether we are referring to men and women, parents and children, owners and workers, party chiefs, and rank and file. It is the only hindrance, the single barrier and objection to the slavery imposed by the powers that be." The Religious Sense, pp. 91-92.
Yesterday I saw a picture of hundreds of people lined up waiting to enter the new casino in Des Plaines. Then a picture of a room full of hundreds of slot machines with a person sitting in front of each one. The article said the managers of the casino were having to encourage people to stay away and come back another day as the casino had reached its crowd limit. I asked myself, slaves or free?
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
Monday, July 18, 2011
Mothers and Fathers and Generation
I'm nearly done wading through volume five of The Glory of the Lord. Near the end I came accross one of those gems of Balthasar's thinking that makes worthwhile the effort of reading his work. Following is a quote from a section in the book entitled "The Miracle of Being".
“The fact that I find myself within the realm of a world and in the boundless community of other existent beings is astonishing beyond measure … . From the infinite prodigality of an act of generation … resulting in a ‘chance hit’ … a ‘new’ being is created which … cannot interpret itself in any way as a product of chance … . Nothing … indicates that this had the ‘personal’ intention of producing precisely this unique and as such irreplaceable person through that game of chance; there is nothing to prove that this unique person receives a kind of necessary place through his incorporation [into the world]. I could imagine … that an infinite number of ‘others’ could have occupied this ‘same’ place in the universe instead of me.
Of course, the child does not awaken into consciousness with this question on its mind. … Its ‘I’ awakens in the experience of a ‘Thou’: in its mother’s smile through which it learns that it is contained, affirmed and loved in a relationship which is incomprehensibly encompassing, already actual, sheltering and nourishing. The body which its snuggles into, a soft, warm and nourishing kiss, is a kiss of love in which it can take shelter because it has been sheltered there a priori.... a light which has been perpetually asleep awakens at some point into an alert and self-knowing light. But it awakens at the love of the Thou, as it has always slept in the womb and on the bosom of the Thou.... therefore it is right that the child should glimpse the Absolute,... first in its mother, its parents, and that only in a second and third stage does it have to learn to distinguish the love of God from the love which it has experienced in this way."
“The fact that I find myself within the realm of a world and in the boundless community of other existent beings is astonishing beyond measure … . From the infinite prodigality of an act of generation … resulting in a ‘chance hit’ … a ‘new’ being is created which … cannot interpret itself in any way as a product of chance … . Nothing … indicates that this had the ‘personal’ intention of producing precisely this unique and as such irreplaceable person through that game of chance; there is nothing to prove that this unique person receives a kind of necessary place through his incorporation [into the world]. I could imagine … that an infinite number of ‘others’ could have occupied this ‘same’ place in the universe instead of me.
Of course, the child does not awaken into consciousness with this question on its mind. … Its ‘I’ awakens in the experience of a ‘Thou’: in its mother’s smile through which it learns that it is contained, affirmed and loved in a relationship which is incomprehensibly encompassing, already actual, sheltering and nourishing. The body which its snuggles into, a soft, warm and nourishing kiss, is a kiss of love in which it can take shelter because it has been sheltered there a priori.... a light which has been perpetually asleep awakens at some point into an alert and self-knowing light. But it awakens at the love of the Thou, as it has always slept in the womb and on the bosom of the Thou.... therefore it is right that the child should glimpse the Absolute,... first in its mother, its parents, and that only in a second and third stage does it have to learn to distinguish the love of God from the love which it has experienced in this way."
Tuesday, July 5, 2011
A Spiritual Canticle of the Soul and the Bridegroom Christ
"Someone who could show us the way would be a true hero! As Christians, we know who that hero is."
We know who he is, but we may not know where he is. So, I offer these stanzas of a poet's thought on the matter.
A Spiritual Canticle of the Soul and the Bridegroom Christ
Where have you fled and vanished,
Beloved, since you left me here to moan?
Deer-like you leaped; then, banished
and wounded by my own
I followed you with cries, but you have flown.
Shepherds, if you discover,
going about this knoll to tend your sheep,
the dwelling of that lover
whose memory I keep,
tell him I sicken unto death and weep.
To seek him, I shall scour
these trackless woods to where the rivers flow –
not stop to pick a flower,
not run from beasts – but go
past every fort and border that I know.
O forests darkly glooming,
seeded by my beloved’s very hand!
O pasture richly blooming,
you flower-jeweled band!
I beg you, say if he has crossed your land.
These are just the opening stanzas in a thirty plus stanza poem. The poet is St. John of the Cross. The poem is translated from the Spanish by Rhina P. Espaillat. I think it captures the spirit of the seeker who is trying to counter "the spirit of the age".
We know who he is, but we may not know where he is. So, I offer these stanzas of a poet's thought on the matter.
A Spiritual Canticle of the Soul and the Bridegroom Christ
Where have you fled and vanished,
Beloved, since you left me here to moan?
Deer-like you leaped; then, banished
and wounded by my own
I followed you with cries, but you have flown.
Shepherds, if you discover,
going about this knoll to tend your sheep,
the dwelling of that lover
whose memory I keep,
tell him I sicken unto death and weep.
To seek him, I shall scour
these trackless woods to where the rivers flow –
not stop to pick a flower,
not run from beasts – but go
past every fort and border that I know.
O forests darkly glooming,
seeded by my beloved’s very hand!
O pasture richly blooming,
you flower-jeweled band!
I beg you, say if he has crossed your land.
These are just the opening stanzas in a thirty plus stanza poem. The poet is St. John of the Cross. The poem is translated from the Spanish by Rhina P. Espaillat. I think it captures the spirit of the seeker who is trying to counter "the spirit of the age".
For the Sake of Others
"A hero in the Talmud is someone who works on his own spiritual development for the sake of others." Bob's post rightly emphasizes the communal dimension in religion -- that our relationship with God, in which we experience His love, properly involves our relationships with and love of others. Why is this so? I think the key is love. We cannot really experience God's love unless we love and are loved by others. And love is always "for the sake of" another.
The need for involvement of others in our spiritual growth is reminiscent of the problem of modern science, which, in its scientistic form, eliminates the human from the world of knowledge. Scientism claims to have the "final say" on what is real, but the result is to leave out the human being whose mystery cannot be captured by science.
According to E.L. Fortin, the corrective is "a new 'Socratic turn' that, like the original Socratic turn, would both preserve science and return it to its native human context." Fortin quotes Walker Percy's The Moviegoer where the narrator said that he focused on science (his so-called "vertical search") and when he finished this search, the "difficulty was that though the universe had been disposed of, I myself was left over." The narrator finally realizes that his search really needed to be "horizontal," to be conducted by "wander[ing] in the neighborhood." Fortin concludes, "This is as good a recapitulation of the Socratic turn as one is likely to come across anywhere today. Socrates' turn toward human things did not necessitate abandonment of his quest for the knowledge of nature. The two must somehow go hand in hand. Our task is to find a way of bringing them together again." He calls this "[o]ur most urgent need." Fortin, "The Bible Made Me Do It," in Human Rights, Virtue, and the Common Good, at pp. 128-129.
So, to heal our theology and our science requires that we act "for the sake of others." Someone who could show us the way would be a true hero! As Christians, we know who that hero is.
The need for involvement of others in our spiritual growth is reminiscent of the problem of modern science, which, in its scientistic form, eliminates the human from the world of knowledge. Scientism claims to have the "final say" on what is real, but the result is to leave out the human being whose mystery cannot be captured by science.
According to E.L. Fortin, the corrective is "a new 'Socratic turn' that, like the original Socratic turn, would both preserve science and return it to its native human context." Fortin quotes Walker Percy's The Moviegoer where the narrator said that he focused on science (his so-called "vertical search") and when he finished this search, the "difficulty was that though the universe had been disposed of, I myself was left over." The narrator finally realizes that his search really needed to be "horizontal," to be conducted by "wander[ing] in the neighborhood." Fortin concludes, "This is as good a recapitulation of the Socratic turn as one is likely to come across anywhere today. Socrates' turn toward human things did not necessitate abandonment of his quest for the knowledge of nature. The two must somehow go hand in hand. Our task is to find a way of bringing them together again." He calls this "[o]ur most urgent need." Fortin, "The Bible Made Me Do It," in Human Rights, Virtue, and the Common Good, at pp. 128-129.
So, to heal our theology and our science requires that we act "for the sake of others." Someone who could show us the way would be a true hero! As Christians, we know who that hero is.
Freedom from the Spirit of the Age
I think of the "tether" as the link between the inner "I" -- our true identity -- and the absolute who founds us. This chord is at the heart of our being, anchoring us to the source of our being, the God who made us. With that source of strength, the source also of virtue, we can be free to perform in the world. This is true freedom.
I recently came across a sign of what this freedom means in practice.
In J. Brian Benested's Church, State, and Society, a treatment of the Church's social doctrine, the author discusses a book by Alessandro Manzoni, The Betrothed (1840). In it Manzoni depicts a virtuous churchman. Benested states, "A remarkable trait possessed by Cardinal Borromeo was his independence from the opinions of others. . . . Despite the pressures of the culture and corruption within the Church, [Cardinal] Borromeo was able to avoid unwise accommodation to the spirit of the age." p. 141.
What I take this to mean is that our faith, and the virtues or strengths that it helps us to develop, can keep us from being slaves to the "spirit of the age." This is a "freedom" available to those who are "tethered" to their God in faith.
I recently came across a sign of what this freedom means in practice.
In J. Brian Benested's Church, State, and Society, a treatment of the Church's social doctrine, the author discusses a book by Alessandro Manzoni, The Betrothed (1840). In it Manzoni depicts a virtuous churchman. Benested states, "A remarkable trait possessed by Cardinal Borromeo was his independence from the opinions of others. . . . Despite the pressures of the culture and corruption within the Church, [Cardinal] Borromeo was able to avoid unwise accommodation to the spirit of the age." p. 141.
What I take this to mean is that our faith, and the virtues or strengths that it helps us to develop, can keep us from being slaves to the "spirit of the age." This is a "freedom" available to those who are "tethered" to their God in faith.
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