Moral Obligation is Our Dignity

Moral obligation is not man's prison, from which he must liberate himself in order finally to be able to do what he wants. It is moral obligation that constitutes his dignity, and he does not become more free if he discards it: on the contrary, he takes a step backward, to the level of a machine, of a mere thing. If there is no longer any obligation to which he can and must respond in freedom, then there is no longer any realm of freedom at all. The recognition of morality is the real substance of human dignity; but one cannot recognize this without simultaneously experiencing it as an obligation of freedom. Morality is not man's prison but rather the divine element in him… For nature is not – as is asserted by a totalitarian scientism – some assemblage built up by chance and its rules of play but is rather a creation. A creation in which the Creator Spiritus expresses himself. This is why there are not only natural laws in the sense of physical functions: the specific natural law itself is a moral law. Creation itself teaches us how we can be human in the right way. The Christian faith, which helps us to recognize creations as creation, does not paralyze reason; it gives practical reason the life-sphere in which it can unfold. The morality that the Church teaches I s not some special burden for Christians: it is the defense of man against the attempt to abolish him. If morality – as we have seen – is not the enslavement of man but his liberation, then the Christian faith is the advance post of human freedom. -- Joseph Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI)

Eye Opener

While reading The Imitation I came to the following paragraph.

"If only a man would never seek passing joys or entangle himself with worldly affairs, what a good conscience he would have. What great peace and tranquillity would be his, if he cut himself off from all empty care and thought only of things divine, things helpful to his soul, and put all his trust in God."

At first I thought this to be a rather ridiculous proposition. How could anyone live in today's modern world, raise a family, hold down a job, become educated, serve their country or be involved in any of the other myriad other facets of daily life, and still remain aloof?
Then I got in my car and heard on a talk radio show of the obscene sex education shenanigans at Northwestern University and an interview with a professional brothel employee (I'm trying to be subtle) who was extoling the safety and professionalism of the industry while the interviewers where tossing out double entendres (pardon me if I don't know the plural) and in general making it an occasion of frivolity and light-hearted fun.

I thought, "Thomas a Kempis, show me how"!
I can hear you screaming at me, "Bob, stop listening to that stuff (another subtlety). That would be a good start!
Ok, let me see what I can do.

Perhaps, Father was paraphrasing the following messages in he readings.

1 Cor 2:1-5
When I came to you, brothers and sisters,
proclaiming the mystery of God,
I did not come with sublimity of words or of wisdom.
For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you
except Jesus Christ, and him crucified.
I came to you in weakness and fear and much trembling,
and my message and my proclamation
were not with persuasive words of wisdom,
but with a demonstration of Spirit and power,
so that your faith might rest not on human wisdom
but on the power of God.

from Mt. 5
Nor do they light a lamp and then put it under a bushel basket;
it is set on a lampstand,
where it gives light to all in the house.
Just so, your light must shine before others,
that they may see your good deeds
and glorify your heavenly Father.

Our excitement and exuberance in our faith should be demonstrated in our Christian actions to be seen by others. Thus seasoned with the salt of our actions and if hearts have eyes to see, our task will be accomplished.

Peace

Salt and Light

Trust a Catholic to focus on the negative side of the "salt and light" gospel reading today. I don't think it's sound pastoral practice to warn against being "too salty" or "too bright"! That's hardly the problem of American Catholics (or American Christians in general). It may be something you could advise to some specific person, and I've known a few at Wheaton, but it's hardly something to preach to a complacent suburban American congregation. Would Father offer this advice to a St. Francis, a St. Ignatius Loyal, or any other number of saints I could cite that we would call "overzealous"? And to put down renewel movements like Cursillo, Marriage Encounter, etc., no matter how many caveats you throw in about how great they are, is uncool. A pastor should encourage his congregation to be MORE salt, MORE light. Unfortunately, this homily just encourages the Evangelical stereotypes of Catholics as being fundamentally unserious about their faith.

Zeal should never be discouraged; complacency should never be encouraged, no matter how unintentionally done.

A Little More Hart

I have posted in the past snippets of writings by the Orthodox theologian/philosopher David Bentley Hart. Occasionally you run into written word that expresses an idea or thought that has been bouncing around in your head, but that you have not had the opportunity or the words to express it. It may be the case that you have made an attempt to verbalize an idea and then you come across that same idea as stated by someone else in a much more succinct expression. Such is the case with the following idea taken from an article in the February issue of First Things written by David Bentley Hart. The article is about the writings of the philosopher, Martin Heidegger.


Quoting the article:

Modernity, for Heidegger, is simply the time of realized nihilism, the age in which the will to power has become the ground of all our values; as a consequence it is all but impossible for humanity to dwell in the world as anything other than its master. As a cultural reality it is the perilous situation of a people that has thoroughly -- one might even say systematically -- forgotten the mystery of being, or forgotten the mystery of the difference between beings and being as such. Nihilism is a way of seeing the world that acknowledges no truth other than what the human intellect can impose on things, according to an excruciatingly limited calculus of utility, or of the barest mechanical laws of cause and effect. It is a "rationality" of the narrowest kind, so obsessed with what things are and how they might be used that it is no longer seized by wonder when it stands in the light of the dazzling truth that things are. It is a rationality that no longer knows how to hesitate before this greater mystery, or even to see that it is there, and thus is a rationality that cannot truly think.

Mike on vacation

Mike Casey posted this quote on Facebook and I'm posting it here with his permission. He read this book on his Kindle while vacationing in Hawaii.

Its take from a book entitled An  Altar in the World by Barbara Brown Taylor. I presume it refers to St. Francis of Assisi.

"Francis could not have told you the difference between “the sacred” and “the secular” if you had twisted his arm behind his back. He read the world as reverently as he read the Bible. For him, a leper was as kissable as a bishop’s ring, a single bird as much a messenger of God as a cloud full of angels. Francis had no discretion. He did not know where to draw the line between the church and the world. For this reason among others, Francis is remembered as a saint."

Paul Evdokimov

Born in 1901 in Russia, Pavel Evdokimov was a lay theologian. He was known by friends as a theologian of the beauty of God.


“While sharing the saints, monasticism, liturgy and iconography of the Orthodox Church, he appreciated and appropriated the holiness of Western Christianity”. This quote is from the introduction to the English translation of his book “Ages of the Spiritual Life”.

I’ve spent some time and energy trying to convince others of the truth of the Christian faith. After experiencing a Cursillo weekend I entered the fourth day convicted and convinced that I could persuade anyone of the truths of the faith. My enthusiasm and powers of persuasion would not be resisted by anyone.

Of course that was sheer folly. I was at a relatively advance age when I realized the error. I’m not going to say how old I was. Not that I don’t want anyone to know my age. It’s just that in knowing my age one might be surprised how little wisdom I’ve attained.

Anyway, the following quote from chapter two of his book speaks to my point.

“The insufficiency of the proofs of God’s existence is explained by a fundamental fact: God alone is the criterion of his truth, God alone is the argument of his being. In every thought concerning God, it is God who thinks himself in the human mind. That is why we can never prove his existence rationally nor convert another by arguments, for we can never do so in the place of God. We cannot submit God to the logic of demonstrations nor enclose him in a chain of causes.

If God is the sole argument of his existence, this means that faith is not invented. It is a gift, and it is to its royal and gratuitous nature that man must bear testimony, for faith is given to all in order that God may effect his Parousia, his coming again, in every human soul.”