Judge Not . . .

To love means, it seems, more to share and commiserate with another's predicament than to pass judgment on it. Since we all look at the world through our own perspectives, don't we need to share perspectives in order to see the truth that is common to each? That is what Gadamer thinks. (Truth and Method).

Since judgment involves (so often) imposing my own perspective on another's without considering hers, it is oppositional and doesn't often get us closer to the truth. Getting to truth involves sharing. (You can't force your opinion on another in any event, since people are free.)

Hence, the rule to follow: commiserate and listen, then share your own perspective, perhaps as modified by the other's. Refrain from passing judgment. Let the other person make up his or her mind. "Judge not lest you be judged."

To transcend one's perspective is actually at the heart of religious faith. As Robert Spaemann says, "To believe that God exists means to believe that he is not our idea, but that we are his idea. It implies precisely what Jesus demanded from us: a transformation of perspective. Conversion." "Rationality and Faith in God," at p. 629 (Communio 32 [Winter 2005]).

Watch a video about philosopher Anthony Flew's Conversion from Atheism to Theism.

Watch a video about the (at least current) limits in physical science's ability to explain the world.

Reading the Bible . . . and Living It

My sibling complained that her daughter, who graduated this spring summa cum laude from Rhodes College in Memphis, "had to take so many courses on the bible she should have qualified as a minister."

The words grated on me, for they seem to disparage the central source of wisdom in our Judeo-Christian western culture. It seemed she was parroting what many in the secular culture think, that the bible isn't "culturally relevant." I told her so, which didn't make her too happy.

I wish I had memorized the following quote from St. Jerome, and just recited it to her, rather than objecting to her statement:

"What other life can there be without knowledge of the Scriptures, for through these Christ himself, who is the life of the faithful, becomes known. What food, what honey can be sweeter than to learn of God's wise plan, to enter into God's sanctuary and gaze upon the mind of the creator, and to rehearse the words of your Lord, which are full of spiritual wisdom."

I think the quote from St. Jerome would have been a more effective response than my (rather heated and judgmental) objection. For, as St. Angela Merici said:

"You will accomplish more by kind words and a courteous manner than by anger or sharp rebuke, which should never be used except in necessity."

So maybe the real answer is to read the bible more, but also to live it more.

Deo Gratias

"Dedicate yourselves to thankfulness." Colossians 3:12-17. "Count your blessings." "Thanks be to God!"

According to a meditation in my Living With Christ issue this month (p. 4), "The rule of St. Benedict prescribes that the doorkeeper should say "Deo Gracias" whenever a stranger knocks at the door or a beggar asks for assistance."

I am reminded of something my friend Sunny told me recently: "I always tell my grandkids (and I practice it myself) to try to remember three things to be grateful for before you go to bed each  night. That way, you practice thinking of yourself as blessed."

A byword for the Communion and Liberation movement is "positivity." The way I read this is that, to one who has eyes to see, Christ is found in all situations, from intense suffering to intense joy. Since Christ is in all things, all things have meaning and there is no need to despair. "Do not fear, for I am with you." Isa. 41:10. "I am with you always, to the very end of the age." Mt. 28:20.

The meditation asks that we give thanks for the "beggar at the door," that is, for anyone who interrupts our day, our routine, out of need. Deo Gratias that we are needed! Let us even count as positivity our own neediness as we thank God for our opportunity to help others in need.

Practicing counting our blessings helps us see how blessed we are. Practicing this "way of life" leads to life in full, and to being a blessing for others. So, in this way, do God's blessings flow.

Listen to Ockeghem's Deo Gratias.

God of My Daily Routine

I should like to bring the routine of my daily life before you, O Lord, to discuss the long days and tedious hours that are filled with everything else but you.

… In your loving mercy, look at my soul, a road … a bomb-pocked highway on which countless trivialities, much empty talk and pointless activity, idle curiosity and ludicrous pretensions of importance all roll forward in a never-ending stream.

Even if I should try to escape from my routine by becoming a Carthusian, so that I'd have nothing more to do but spend my days in silent adoration of your holy presence, would that solve my problem?… I'm afraid not…. When I think of all the hours I have spent… Reciting your Church's official prayer… Then it becomes clear to me that I myself am responsible for making my life so humdrum.… Through my own attitude I can transform the holiest events into the gray tedium of dull routine. My days don't make me dull--it's the other way around

Oh God, it seems we can lose sight of you in anything we do. Not even prayer, or the Holy Sacrifice, or the quiet of the cloister… can fully safeguard us from this danger.… But on the other hand if it's true that I can lose you in everything, it must also be true that I can find you and everything… Thus I must seek you in all things

It is not anxiety or nonbeing, not even death that can rescue me from being lost to the things of the world.… but only your love can save me, the love of you, who are the goal and attraction of all things.… Before you, all multiplicity becomes one; in you, all that has been scattered is reunited; in your love all that has been merely external is made again true and genuine. In your love all the diffusion of the day's chores comes home again to the evening of your unity, which is eternal life

Touch my heart with this grace, O Lord. When I reach out in joy or in sorrow for the things of this world, grant that through them I may know and love you, their maker and final home.

God of Law

Your Church, O my God, has to be visible. And if she is to be visible … then she must express herself in commandments and customs …. And he who grasps all this with a believing heart and a vigorous love, enters through the narrow gate of the commandments into the broad expanse of your Spirit.

But … are you the God of these laws? … in the commandments which you yourself  have given … is the expression of your own Holiness and Goodness….

But it’s not like that in the case of laws originating from human authority. The prescribed cut of the clerical gown in itself has nothing to do with the Holiness of your Being …. Why then must I seek you in precisely this way, when  you could just as well be found in another?

Is it because the authorities you have placed over me have so ordered? Yes of course. But why must they order precisely this? Because the unbounded realm of the possible can be reduced to living actuality only by a more or less arbitrary choice? Because otherwise, if everyone were free to choose according to his own arbitrary judgment, there would arise disorder and hopeless confusion? Can all the laws and regulations of your Kingdom be considered merely as necessary ordinances insuring order and uniformity…? Are they only spiritual traffic laws?

… But what of the other laws which are not simply concrete expressions of your own Law…? What of these, which affect me interiorly, in my own personal being and its freedom?

I am not asking you whether I should obey these laws-the answer to that question is perfectly clear to me-but rather how can I obey them in such a way that I meet you in them.

I always feel that, if one is not careful, he can easily become a mere fulfiller of the law, doing what is commanded externally and quite apathetically. He can turn into a "legalist," an anxious, slavish worshiper of the letter of the law, who thinks he has fulfilled all justice before you when he has fulfilled the human ordinance.

I don't want to be a legalist, nor a mere servant of man, nor a servant of the dead letter. And still I must fulfill the demands of human superiors. I want to observe their ordinances with all my heart, but I can't see how I can give my heart completely to such an object. The inner man should obey such laws, and yet he should not be a slave of men.

Thus the only answer seems to be that, whenever I obey such a law, I must keep looking directly at you. … Obedience can be the expression of my seeking you alone in it.

If I look upon my obedience to these human laws as a demonstration of homage for your beloved free Will, which rules over me according to its own good pleasure, then I can truly find you therein. Then my whole being flows toward you, into you, in to the broad, free expanse of your unbounded Being, instead of being cramped within the narrow confines of human orders. You are the God of human laws for me, only when you are the God of my love.

Give me a ready and willing heart, O Lord. Let me bear the burden of the commands issued by your authorities in such a way that this bearing is an exercise of selflessness, of patience, of fidelity.

In no command do I belong to men, but to you, and he who belongs to you is free. You are not the God of laws because you will that we should serve the law: you are rather the God of the one law, that we should give our love and service to you alone.

Nature is Cruel But Humans Don't Have To Be

I saw a wonderful movie, Temple Grandin, about an autistic woman who struggled through her condition to become a notable scientist focusing on humane treatment of cattle in slaughter houses. I highly recommend it.

A phrase that was repeated once or twice in the movie is: "Nature is cruel but humans don't have to be." Ms. Grandin stated this in response to the slaughter house's criticism of her designs as being more expensive that was necessary. But she took the view embodied in her quote. She also said:

"I think using animals for food is an ethical thing to do, but we've got to do it right. We've got to give those animals a decent life and we've got to give them a painless death. We owe the animal respect."

To me that is a great example of human morality. We don't have to act like animals. We can do better!

God of Law

The following and the previous posts from Karl Rahner are taken from "Encounters with Silence" by Karl Rahner, St. Augustine's Press, South Bend, Indiana.

“The Lord is Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom” (2 Cor. 3:17). And this is said of you  … in the sense that You are our spirit and  our life.

Are you truly the Spirit of freedom in my life, or are you not rather the God of law? …. Your laws, which you yourself have given us, are not chains – your commands are commands of freedom. In their austere and inexorable simplicity they set us free from our own dull narrowness, from the drag of our pitiful, cowardly concupiscence. They awaken in us the freedom of loving you.

But, Lord, what of the commandments imposed upon us by men, issued in your name? Let me tell you quite frankly what rumbles through my heart when the spirit of criticism and discontent is upon me, O God of freedom and of sincere, open speech, I can tell you with confidence – you listen indulgently to such things.

…. You have established rulers of this world, both temporal and spiritual, and sometimes it seems to me that they have diligently set about patching up all the holes that your spirit of freedom had torn in the fence of rules and regulations by His liberating Pentecostal storm.

First there are the 2414 paragraphs of the Church’s law-book. … how many “response” to inquiries have been added to bring joy to the hearts of the jurists! And then there are several thousand liturgical decrees clamoring for our attention. … In order to praise you in the Breviary … I need a road map, a directorium so intricate and elaborate it requires a new edition every year!

…. I don’t mean to accuse them, Lord, these wise and faithful servants whom you have placed over your household. Rather I must say to their praise that they are not vulnerable to the reproach which your son once made against the Scribes and Pharisees who sat upon the chair of Moses. Unlike those rulers and teachers of old, your modern stewards have imposed heavy burdens not only on others, but on themselves too.

… Lord, your household of the laity has only your sweet yoke and your light burden to carry, belief in your Word, your own commandment that frees us unto love, and the burden of your grace flowing from the sacraments. And if this yoke weighs heavy upon us, then it’s only because we’re weak and our hearts are evil, so that we should actually complain against ourselves and not against your yoke. The burden … is mainly our burden, the burden of your priests, which we have actually picked up and set upon our own shoulders.

Free, Free At Last

To experience living freely one must want to do (and do) what one feels obligated to do.

Freedom is often defined as "doing whatever you want," but what about the moral law? Does obeying it diminish freedom? It doesn't seem so. because doing what one should do should be consistent with being free, right? The problem, though, is that what I want to do is often not what I know I should do. For example, if I am addicted, I am not free.

A common solution is to pretend to wave away the moral law and to attempt to live the freedom of moral anarchy. But we know inside that we aren't are own moral legislators. The moral law is initially experienced as external to us, but a law nonetheless.

So how do we feel free in obeying moral law? We pray for a higher power (God) to overhaul or heal our will, so that I will want to do what I know I ought to do. This is akin to Harry Frankfurt's idea of a "second order" volition, willing for a will to do something. This is the solution for addicts, in the 12 step program, and shows a unique capacity of a human person, who can take a distance from himself, look at himself from the outside so to speak, and seek assistance from a higher power to reform one's will. When we can live in accordance with the moral law, freely, then we experience true freedom.

The process of getting to this point is how we "lead" our lives -- that is, lead ourselves in living our lives. Robert Sokolowski explains that we "shepherd" ourselves, at a meta level, which guides our "first order" will. To want to do what we know it is right to do, what we ought to do, is also a definition of virtue, for virtue is the strength that enables us to want to do what we ought.

Sacred Truths, Inalienable Rights

The bishops' call to celebrate a "Fortnight of Freedom" commences this Thursday with the feast of John Fisher, the only Catholic bishop to stand against Henry VIII's diktat to the church.  It ends on the 4th of July, our nation's celebration of its civic freedoms, paramount of which are those enunciated in the "first" amendment to our constitution:  our rights of freedom of speech and free exercise of religion.

If you have doubts about the importance of religious freedom, ask yourself:  Where do the "inalienable" rights to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness, as enumerated in our Declaration of Independence, come from?  Not from positive law, which can repeal what it enacts when political interests change.  The Declaration states the source:  They are "endowed by our Creator."  The original draft of the Declaration declared that "we hold these truths to be sacred" rather than "self-evident," which underscores the rights' divine origin.  (The word was changed at the behest of Benjamin Franklin.  Philip Rieff, The Crisis of the Officer Class, 140.)  Inalienable rights are sacred, i.e., absolute, partaking of a transcendent, eternal, unchangeable, inalienable order.  How else could they be inalienable? 

How does one speak to a power that would alienate inalienable rights?  Only by the voice of conscience, which listens to the unchanging sacred order, and prophetically calls power back to obedience to it.  Conscience must speak if liberty would be preserved; else tyranny triumphs, pushing freedom to its knees.

To require religious institutions materially to support morally abhorrent practices -- practices which directly contradict the sacred, inalienable right to life guaranteed in the founding documents of our country -- amounts to a silencing of the voice of conscience, and a prohibition on the free exercise of religion.  Power's message to religion then is:  Say what you will, but do what I say.  A civic community desiring to preserve its freedom will not hear those grating words without protest.

Signs of the Divine

The feast of Corpus Christi last Sunday gives cause for reflection on how we encounter a divine Christ in our physical world.  The sequence for the mass (Lauda Sion) by Thomas Aquinas notes, in regard to the bread and wine of the Eucharist:

Here beneath these signs are hidden/  Priceless things to sense forbidden;
Sign, not things are all we see:/ Blood is poured and flesh is broken
Yet in either wondrous token/ Christ entire we know to be.

It seems to me that we always see Christ, if we can see him at all, under "signs," since he has chosen not, since his Ascension, to be present in the physical world in his physical body. Rather, we meet him in things and persons under sign, meaning what we see is a sign of Christ.  To see others as a sign of Christ (i.e. to see Christ in others) depends on our love for them.  Christ is "seen" in love and compassion, in joy and in suffering with others.

Robert Spaemann quotes Richard of St. Victor, "Where love is, there is the eye."  Love and the Dignity of Human Life,  7.  This means that love is not blind but sees.  Spaemann says, "[P]opular wisdom has it [that] 'love makes blind.'  Someone in love makes up an image of the beloved that cannot stand the later tests of experience.  On the other hand, truly personal love transcends all images, all qualities of the beloved and aims at the person beyond all these qualities.  The qualities are that through which love is enkindled.  But once it is enkindled it leaves these qualities behind." 

To paraphrase, the qualities of a person I love are signs of the transcendent person whom I really "see" in love.  In love, I see the person's transcendent reality, her ineffable uniqueness, in Christ.

Laud Sion in its last stanza prays that eventually, "at the feast of love," we will see Christ no longer under sign, but "face to face."  Then we will recognize Him as the true face of the face of each person we truly love.

 LAUDA SION

Latin text

English version

Lauda Sion Salvatórem Lauda ducem et pastórem In hymnis et cánticis. Quantum potes, tantum aude: Quia major omni laude, Nec laudáre súfficis. Laudis thema speciális, Panis vivus et vitális, Hódie propónitur. Quem in sacræ mensa cœnæ, Turbæ fratrum duodénæ Datum non ambígitur. Sit laus plena, sit sonóra, Sit jucúnda, sit decóra Mentis jubilátio. Dies enim solémnis ágitur, In qua mensæ prima recólitur Hujus institútio. In hac mensa novi Regis, Novum Pascha novæ legis, Phase vetus términat. Vetustátem nóvitas, Umbram fugat véritas, Noctem lux elíminat. Quod in cœna Christus gessit, Faciéndum hoc expréssit In sui memóriam. Docti sacris institútis, Panem, vinum, in salútis Consecrámus hóstiam. Dogma datur Christiánis, Quod in carnem transit panis, Et vinum in sánguinem. Quod non capis, quod non vides, Animósa firmat fides, Præter rerum ordinem. Sub divérsis speciébus, Signis tantum, et non rebus, Latent res exímiæ. Caro cibus, sanguis potus: Manet tamen Christus totus, Sub utráque spécie. A suménte non concísus, Non confráctus, non divísus: Integer accípitur. Sumit unus, sumunt mille: Quantum isti, tantum ille: Nec sumptus consúmitur. Sumunt boni, sumunt mali: Sorte tamen inæquáli, Vitæ vel intéritus. Mors est malis, vita bonis: Vide paris sumptiónis Quam sit dispar éxitus. Fracto demum Sacraménto, Ne vacílles, sed memento, Tantum esse sub fragménto, Quantum toto tégitur. Nulla rei fit scissúra: Signi tantum fit fractúra: Qua nec status nec statúra Signáti minúitur. Ecce panis Angelórum, Factus cibus viatórum: Vere panis fíliórum, Non mittendus cánibus. In figúris præsignátur, Cum Isaac immolátur: Agnus paschæ deputátur Datur manna pátribus. Bone pastor, panis vere, Jesu, nostri miserére: Tu nos pasce, nos tuére: Tu nos bona fac vidére In terra vivéntium. Tu, qui cuncta scis et vales: Qui nos pascis hic mortales: Tuos ibi commensáles, Cohærédes et sodales, Fac sanctórum cívium. Amen. Allelúja.

Sion, lift up thy voice and sing: Praise thy Savior and thy King, Praise with hymns thy shepherd true. All thou canst, do thou endeavour: Yet thy praise can equal never Such as merits thy great King. See today before us laid The living and life-giving Bread, Theme for praise and joy profound. The same which at the sacred board Was, by our incarnate Lord, Giv'n to His Apostles round. Let the praise be loud and high: Sweet and tranquil be the joy Felt today in every breast. On this festival divine Which records the origin Of the glorious Eucharist. On this table of the King, Our new Paschal offering Brings to end the olden rite. Here, for empty shadows fled, Is reality instead, Here, instead of darkness, light. His own act, at supper seated Christ ordain'd to be repeated In His memory divine; Wherefore now, with adoration, We, the host of our salvation, Consecrate from bread and wine. Hear, what holy Church maintaineth, That the bread its substance changeth Into Flesh, the wine to Blood. Doth it pass thy comprehending? Faith, the law of sight transcending Leaps to things not understood. Here beneath these signs are hidden Priceless things, to sense forbidden, Signs, not things, are all we see. Flesh from bread, and Blood from wine, Yet is Christ in either sign, All entire, confessed to be. They, who of Him here partake, Sever not, nor rend, nor break: But, entire, their Lord receive. Whether one or thousands eat: All receive the self-same meat: Nor the less for others leave. Both the wicked and the good Eat of this celestial Food: But with ends how opposite! Here 't is life: and there 't is death: The same, yet issuing to each In a difference infinite. Nor a single doubt retain, When they break the Host in twain, But that in each part remains What was in the whole before. Since the simple sign alone Suffers change in state or form: The signified remaining one And the same for evermore. Lo! bread of the Angels broken, For us pilgrims food, and token Of the promise by Christ spoken, Children’s meat, to dogs denied. Shewn in Isaac's dedication, In the manna's preparation: In the Paschal immolation, In old types pre-signified. Jesu, shepherd of the sheep: Thou thy flock in safety keep, Living bread, thy life supply: Strengthen us, or else we die, Fill us with celestial grace. Thou, who feedest us below: Source of all we have or know: Grant that with Thy Saints above, Sitting at the feast of love, We may see Thee face to face. Amen. Alleluia.

 PANIS ANGELICUS

Latin Text

Panis Angelicus fit panis hominum

Dat panis coelicus figuris terminum

O res mirabilis! Manducat Dominum

Pauper, pauper, servus et humilis

Pauper, pauper, servus et humilis

English Translation

The angel's bread becomes the bread of men

The heavenly bread ends all symbols

Oh, miraculous thing! The body of the Lord will nourish

The poor, poor, and humble servant

The poor, poor, and humble servant

God of Knowledge

How many things have passed  through my brain in the course of my life, O my God! How many things have I thought and learned!

… most of what I have learned, I have learned in order to forget it again and thus to experience concretely, even in the area of knowledge, my own poverty, narrowness, and limitation.

Oh God, it is good to forget. In fact, the best part of most of the things I once knew is precisely the fact that they could be forgotten. Without protest, they have sunk gently and peacefully out of sight. And thus they have enabled me literally to see through them in all their inner poverty and ultimate insignificance.

Knowledge seems more like a kind of pain-killing drug that I have to take repeatedly against the boredom and desolation of my heart. And no matter how faithful I may be to it, it can never really cure me. All it can give me his words and concepts, which perform the middle man's service of expressing and interpreting reality to me, but can never still my heart's craving for the reality itself….

How can we approach the heart of all things, the true heart of reality? Not by knowledge alone but by the full flower of knowledge, love. Only the experience of knowledge’s blooming into love has any power to work a transformation in me… it is only in love that I am fully present--not in bare knowing, but in the affection engendered by knowing.

Only knowledge gained through experience, the fruit of living and suffering, fills the heart with the wisdom of love, instead of crushing it with the disappointment of boredom and final oblivion. It is not the results of our own speculation, but the golden harvest of what we have lived through and suffered through, that has power to enrich the heart and nourish the spirit.

Thanks to your mercy, O infinite God, I know something about you not only through concepts and words, but through experience.… You have descended upon me in water and the Spirit, in my baptism… Then my reason with its extravagant cleverness was still silent. Then without asking me, you made your self my poor heart's destiny.

You have seized me; I have not "grasped" you.… Now that you live in me, my spirit is filled with something more than pale, empty words about reality, words whose tremendous variety and prolific confusion serve only to perplex and weary me. In baptism, Father, you have spoken your Word into my being… the Word in which all reality and all life subsists, endures, and has its being.

Oh, grow in me, enlightened me, shine forth ever stronger in me, eternal Light, sweet Light of my soul.… May you alone enlightened me, you alone speak to me, may all that I know apart from you be nothing more than a chance traveling companion on the journey toward you.

Be now my consolation, O Lord, now when all knowledge, even your revelation expressed in human language, fails to still the yearning of my heart.… You yourself are my knowledge, the knowledge that is light and life. You yourself are my knowledge, experience, and love. You are the God of the one and only knowledge that is eternal, the knowledge that is bliss without end.

Encounters with Silence, Ch. 4

God of My Prayer

When I pray, it’s as if my words have disappeared down some deep, dark well, from which no echo ever comes back to reassure me that they have struck the ground of your heart.

Lord, to pray my whole life long without hearing an answer, isn’t that too much to ask? You see how I run away from you time and time again, to speak with men who give me an answer, to busy myself with things that give me some kind of response.  You see how much I need to be answered.

Be merciful to me, my God. When I flee from prayer, it’s not that I want to flee from you, but from myself and my own superficiality. I don’t want to run away from your Infinity and Holiness, but from the deserted marketplace of my own soul. Every time I try to pray, I am doomed to wander in the barren wastes of my own emptiness, since I have left the world behind, and still cannot find my way into the true sanctuary of my inner self, the only place where you can be found and adored.

Give me, O God of my prayer, the grace to continue waiting for you in prayer.

More Rahner Spirituality

We never succeed in compressing together into the narrow confines of our finiteness everything that appears good to us, good just because it is: life and wisdom, goodness and power, strength and tenderness. These and all other varied forces of our life are things we neither can nor want to do without, and yet each of them inevitably excludes another. There is only one thing we can do, and do it we must: order always forces, arrange them in some kind of hierarchy, allot to each of them its proper place and limits, so that no single one becomes complete master and thus blots out all the others. We must preserve the order in our life, we must live a life of moderation.
We must be careful lest the spirit become the adversary of the soul, lest goodness turned into weakness, lest strength degenerate into mere brute force. All these things are like so many parasites clamoring for share of our life's blood, all greedily desiring to live in us and through us.
There is nothing here into which we dare throw ourselves completely, nothing to which we can fully abandon ourselves. Any such lack of moderation would spell ruin for both us and for the object of our attachment. Those who know everything are seldom warm of heart; the mighty of this world are usually hard; and it is proverbial that the beautiful are often stupid. And so it must be: how could we be finite and be all these things together?

From "Encounters with Silence", by Karl Rahner, page 11, 12

How To Correct Myopia

In the story of the vineyard in today's Gospel, Jesus identifies himself with the owner's son (not with the vineyard which stands for Israel). Those who want to exploit the vineyard for their own purposes look at Jesus merely as one who stands in the way and must be eliminated. In their own greed they are blind.

An analogous criticism of techno-science is made by Wendell Berry in his book Life Is a Miracle. He notes (at p. 41-42) that "[t]he abstractions of science are too readily assimilable to the abstractions of industry and commerce, which see everything as interchangeable with or replaceable by something else." This "industrial doctrine of the interchangeability of parts" is applied to "places, to creatures, and to our fellow humans as if it were the law of the world, using all the while a sort of middling language, imitated from the sciences, that cannot speak of heaven or earth, but only of concepts. This is a rhetoric of nowhere, which forbids a passionate interest in, let alone a love of, anything in particular."

"Directly opposed to this reduction or abstraction of things is the idea of the preciousness of individual lives and places. This does not come from science, but from our cultural and religious traditions."

"We know enough of our own history by now to be aware that people exploit what they have merely concluded to be of value, but the defend what they love. To defend what we love we need a particularizing language, for we love what we particularly know. The abstract, "objective," impersonal, dispassionate language of science can help us know certain things . . . [b]ut it cannot replace, and it cannot become, the language of familiarity, reverence, and affection by which things of value ultimately are protected."

Love requires a "seeing" of the other as coming from a transcendent origin, i.e., God. Benevolent love recognizes that connection. It has been defined as "the will that something which has its existence from God should fulfill its existence for God. Benevolent love is a possibility only between creature and creature, for God has no fulfilment to which he strives . . .[I]t is. . . a feature of all relations of love between man and man. It is not one kind of human love but a partial analysis of the whole of human love." O'Donovan, Oliver, The Problem of Self-Love in St. Augustine, 33f, quoted in Zaborowski, Robert Spaemann's Philosophy of the Human Person, at p. 215.

Love is, therefore, connected with reverence. Reverence sees the other as having inherent value given by God, not by me or you. In a talk I heard about phenomenology, Prof. John Crosby stated that this form of seeing is tied to reverence. It is focused on the phenomenon, it attends to it, lets it appear. Attention, reverence, letting the other be in his or her uniqueness: this is love.

The Trinity Weaves a Web

At my folks' home in Wisconsin this weekend I saw a new birdhouse: an old grill with an entrance through a hole in the side for the rotisserie handle.  I saw some stems and straws sticking out of a corner.  When I lifted the lid I saw a nest with a mewling mass of the tiniest sparrows you could imagine blinking up at me.  I quickly closed the cover and spent some pleasant moments watching the mother and father enter and exit the "nest" with grubs for their babies.

This Sunday we celebrated the feast of the Holy Trinity.  At the 8 am Mass at St. Norbert's in nearby Roxbury I heard the chatter and chirping of quite a number of children.  I thought of the chicks in the nest and realized that our human birdlings were really not much different.  They were chirping and clamoring for their parents' attention or squabbling or babbling as the mass moved along.  And, to extend the metaphor, the nest was the church, the building and the larger church of all of us Christians, with the Trinity weaving the nest together with bits of straw, stems, and love.

Love Intensely to Live

In today's first reading (1 Peter 4:7-13) Peter announces that the "end of all things is at hand. Therefore be serious and sober-minded so that you will be able to pray. Above all, let your love for one another be intense, because love covers a multitude of sins."

During his homily at mass, Father Mark asked the school kids if they could describe what "intense love" looks like. Here are some of their answers:

• Sacrifice
• Reaching out to one another
• Loving someone no matter what (i.e. unconditionally).
• Putting others before oneself.
• Never giving up on each other.

Fr. Mark recapped by saying, intense love is putting our whole selves into it.

Let me add my two cents. An activity is intense if it is really experienced, really felt. So to love intensely is to experience love. I feel the pain of loving sacrifice, or of unrequited love. I feel the burden being lifted in forgiving. I experience the joy of friendship, joy in the presence of the other.

To love intensely is really to start living, experiencing life as it happens, moment to moment. As Wendell Berry said (in "Life is a Miracle"), "[L]ife . . . is always emerging beyond expectation or prediction or typicality, . . . is unique, given to the world minute by minute, only once, never to be repeated." When I love intensely I accept the other as herself, in the context of her life. I see her, not as a type, but as a unique and unrepeatable person, living, striving to be. I experience her, and share in her pains and joys, her suffering and fortunes.  Of course, to love anything is to appreciate that being for what it is.  The more intense our love, the more reality we experience.

In our religious sense we find the source of living love. Berry again: "[T]he Bible says that between all creatures and God there is an absolute intimacy. All flesh lives by the spirit and breath of God (Job 34:14-15). We 'live, and move, and have our being' in God (Acts 17:28). In the Gospels it is a principle of faith that God's love for the world includes every creature individually, not just races or species. God knows of the fall of every sparrow; he has numbered 'the very hairs of your head' (Mt 10:29-30)." Ibid. at pp. 94-95.

And so my two cents: Loving intensely is the key to living.