Oh, So Reasonable

Idolatry to an idolator seems oh, so reasonable. I am thinking of the worship of Baal by the Hebrews on the verge of entering Caanan. See Numbers 25 and Hosea 9, 10. To a wandering people about to become sedentary and agrarian, the fertility rites of Caanan seemed "just the thing." Primitive peoples were in awe at the "coming together" of water and soil to produce new crops, and they believed Baal, the rain god who accomplished this, needed their help in his divine work of sowing life in otherwise barren soil. Hence Hebrew men's visits to the cult prostitutes and ritual orgies. And it seemed reasonable to think of god as a bull, the most virile of the animal kingdom. See Moses, by Martin Buber in Chapter on Baal.

But Moses, who witnessed this, was aghast. He knew that Yahweh was beyond sexuality, complete, not partial like human males and females. He knew too that the Baalist cult was drawing the people away from a pure and unadulterated worship of the one God who carried them "on eagle's wings" from slavery in Egypt, in effect a disaster that could lead only to death.

Today we snigger at this "idolatry." But aren't we too living in a Baalist cult, with the temptation to make sex our god, as ostensibly the only provider of solace in an otherwise meaningless world? Our faith teaches us otherwise. So let us turn away from the sexual cues, the learing invitations of the temple prostitutes of secular culture whose lust purveys death, and kneel in humble prayer toward our transcendent God who shows us the salvation and life of his son Jesus' love.

If we don't, Hosea's dire prophesies will continue to come to pass in our land too: the brokenness of families through divorce, abortion, pornography, homosexuality, and technology's unchecked hubris in creating life for death.

Facts embedded in Faith = Truth

As I watched the surface of my coffee in its cup this morning, I rotated around first one way and then the other, watching the coffee rotate in the opposite direction each time. Of course, the coffee surface really remained motionless while its "world" moved.

What appears to us is influenced by context; what I experience is a "profile" against a larger background. To me it's a good example of the importance of our faith as that larger background, against which the "brute facts" of life take on meaning. Facts only become meaningful and true when profiled against the background of a faith. Living in the truth is experiencing life "betrothed" to our faith.

Join in the "Energy"

I'll have to admit that I was put off by Fr. Baron's statement that the Kingdom of God "is not something to be admired from the outside, but rather an energy in which to participate." p. 3. He says "the Gospels want us, not outside the energy of Christ, but in it. . ." Ibid. He says, "But when we surrender in trust to the bearing power of God, our souls become great, roomy, expansive. We realize that we are connected to all things and to the creative energy of the whole cosmos." Ibid. p. 5. "To have faith is to allow oneself to be overwhelmed by the power of God, to permit the divine energy to reign at all levels of one's being." Ibid. p. 7.

What's wrong with the use of the word energy? Here are some thoughts:

1. God is not inside the Cosmos, but radically transcends it. Energy, as in E=Mc2, is part of the Cosmos, so not part of God. Wait a minute, God is incarnated in the world in Jesus and yet still God. So His "energy" is in the world, accessible to us. But Christ is not incarnated as "energy," unless we use the term metaphorically for a non-cosmic and non-material power. "Creative energy of the whole cosmos" leads to thinking of the energy as part of the cosmos. I don't think that's correct.

2. Energy, as part of the cosmos, can be manipulated and controlled through technique, to gain power. In fact, energy is another word for power. But the true man of God is not a man of power. In Rieff's Triumph of the Therapeutic, there is a chapter called "Reich's Religion of Energy." In it Rieff says, Reich fancied love "as something like electricity, bouncing off the inside of metal-lined boxes and so to be captured by a technique, like other forms of energy." p. 187.
God's "energy" cannot be captured and used like magic out of a genie's bottle.

3. Energy is not personal. It's an impersonal component of the cosmos which humans can "tap into." This is a characteristic of New Age pantheism/gnosticism.

In Jesus Christ, the Bearer of the Water of Life, the Vatican commented on the differences between Christian spirituality and New Age spirituality:

4. Christian mysticism and New Age Mysticism

For Christians, the spiritual life is a relationship with God which gradually through his grace becomes deeper, and in the process also sheds light on our relationship with our fellow men and women, and with the universe. Spirituality in New Age terms means experiencing states of consciousness dominated by a sense of harmony and fusion with the Whole. So “mysticism” refers not to meeting the transcendent God in the fullness of love, but to the experience engendered by turning in on oneself, an exhilarating sense of being at one with the universe, a sense of letting one's individuality sink into the great ocean of Being.

This fundamental distinction is evident at all levels of comparison between Christian mysticism and New Age mysticism. The New Age way of purification is based on awareness of unease or alienation, which is to be overcome by immersion into the Whole. In order to be converted, a person needs to make use of techniques which lead to the experience of illumination. This transforms a person's consciousness and opens him or her to contact with the divinity, which is understood as the deepest essence of reality.

The techniques and methods offered in this immanentist religious system, which has no concept of God as person, proceed 'from below'. Although they involve a descent into the depths of one's own heart or soul, they constitute an essentially human enterprise on the part of a person who seeks to rise towards divinity by his or her own efforts. It is often an “ascent” on the level of consciousness to what is understood to be a liberating awareness of “the god within”. Not everyone has access to these techniques, whose benefits are restricted to a privileged spiritual 'aristocracy'.

The essential element in Christian faith, however, is God's descent towards his creatures, particularly towards the humblest, those who are weakest and least gifted according to the values of the “world”. There are spiritual techniques which it is useful to learn, but God is able to by-pass them or do without them. A Christian's “method of getting closer to God is not based on any technique in the strict sense of the word. That would contradict the spirit of childhood called for by the Gospel. The heart of genuine Christian mysticism is not technique: it is always a gift of God; and the one who benefits from it knows himself to be unworthy.

For Christians, conversion is turning back to the Father, through the Son, in docility to the power of the Holy Spirit. The more people progress in their relationship with God – which is always and in every way a free gift – the more acute is the need to be converted from sin, spiritual myopia and self-infatuation, all of which obstruct a trusting self-abandonment to God and openness to other men and women.

All meditation techniques need to be purged of presumption and pretentiousness. Christian prayer is not an exercise in self-contemplation, stillness and self-emptying, but a dialogue of love, one which “implies an attitude of conversion, a flight from 'self' to the 'You' of God”.

(Emphasis added)

I don't claim Fr. Baron is a New Ager. But his use of New Age lingo is troubling. His emphasis on escaping "fear" (p.4) also seems to be an earmark of the New Age (see above). Rather, isn't the problem usually complacency rather than fear? And aren't we to experience God in "fear and trembling"?

The Vatican selection stresses that there is no cheap way to salvation, no "technique" to tap into "divine energy." Salvation is the way of the cross, and proceeds through humiliation, renunciation, continual self-examination, and re-dedication (i.e., ascetic work, practice, discipline), not a glass of wine on the patio. Self-awakening is initially shameful and only then joyful. Joy comes only by way of the cross.

Our Struggle To Know Ourselves as God Knows Us

At lunch my mom happened to say that she always felt that her fondest desire was to know herself the way God knows her. I've sometimes had a similar idea: I don't want to be a Pinnochio but a "real boy."

For Rieff, God knows each of us personally, in our uniqueness, in who we really are, in our "ideal." That "ideal" we ourselves can know through the "intense practice of faith, as free men - free to 'take the shape of Christ' (Galatians 4:19)."

In other words, we "live" to the extent we are given the grace to know our ideal, our godly, self. "To recognize such a person is to be indebted to him for his existence, for his presence in one's self. . ." and to recognize the one to whom we should more like. "Thus there can be no charisma of perception without guilt." Charisma, p. 36.

"But to make this ideal character takes relentless practice, through the charisms, and moreover, through each examining 'his own conduct for himself.' [Gal. 6:4] Ibid. at p.83.

Through this "intense practice of faith," this "relentless practice" through charisms and examination of conscience, we are inducted into the person God sees in us.

In this practice, we are guided to avoid "the kind of behavior that belongs to the lower nature," [Gal. 5:20]; but if we persevere, we garner "love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, fidelity, gentleness, and self-control." Gal. 5:22. These are the goodly qualities of the godly person God knows in us.

Can there be an apter struggle in life? And isn't the outcome worth the extraordinary energies we put into it?

Pillars of Christian Spirituality

Mt 6 gives the three pillars of Christian spirituality, Prayer, Fasting and Almsgiving. These are activities not only for Lent, but for all of Christian life. Indeed, these "keys to life" are also found in Islam and Judaism. In this way, spiritual life is worked out on the body, through the body.

A Wedding Toast by Richard Wilbur

My son Brian is getting married this Saturday, and I ran across a very nice wedding poem by Richard Wilbur, who was US Poet Laureate in 1987-88, which I share with you:

Wedding Toast

St. John tells how, at Cana's wedding feast,
The water-pots poured wine in such amount
That by his sober count
There were a hundred gallons at the least.

It made no earthly sense, unless to show
How whatsoever love elects to bless
Brims to a sweet excess
That can without depletion overflow.

Which is to say that what love sees is true;
That this world's fullness is not made but found.
Life hungers to abound
And pour its plenty out for such as you.

Now, if your loves will lend an ear to mine,
I toast you both, good son and dear new daughter.
May you not lack for water,
And may that water smack of Cana's wine.

St. Augustine

At our last meeting St. Augustine's "Confessions" popped up in our discussion. A version that I found extremely readable is a translation by F. J. Sheed, published by Hackett Publishing Co., latest revision, 1993. It still has the Thy's and the Thou's but still very easy to read. Most people object to Augustine's emphasis on man's corrupt nature and his portrayal of the degrees to which man can degrade himself, but, he also exhibits a worshipful and awe-filled love of the Lord that we would do well to imitate. I offer the following as an example (I translated the Thous and Thys).

What then is my God, what but the Lord God? For Who is Lord but the Lord, or who is God but our God? O You, the greatest and the best, mightiest, almighty, most merciful and most just, utterly hidden and utterly present, most beautiful and most strong, abiding yet mysterious, suffering no change and changing all things: never new, never old, making all things new, bringing age upon the proud and they know it not; ever in action, ever at rest, gathering all things to Yourself and needing none; sustaining and fulfilling and protecting, creating and norishing and making perfect; ever seeking though lacking nothing.
You love without subjection to passion, You are jealous but not with fear, You can know repentance but not sorrow, be angry yet unperturbed by anger.
You can change the works You have made but Your mind stands changeless. You find and receive back what You have never lost; are never in need but rejoice in Your gains, are not greedy but exact interest manifold. Men pay You more than is of obligation to win return from You, yet who has anything that is not already Yours? You owe nothing yet You pay as if in debt to Your creature, forget what is owed to You yet do not lose thereby. And with all this, what have I said,
my God, my Life and my sacred Delight?

Book One, IV, p.4