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The Challenge of Internal Unity

1/20/2021

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On the occasion of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity 2021, here is a brief reflection on one of the preconditions for Christian unity: the spiritual and doctrinal unity of Catholics.

Christ clearly called his disciples to unity, so that all may believe (cf. Jn 17:21). In God's plan, the unity of all Christians, gathered together by the Spirit, was to reflect the unity of the Father and the Son, united by the same Spirit. But Christian unity has been undermined over the centuries: to a division between Catholics and Orthodox, in the year 1053 AD, was added a division between Catholics and Protestants, at the beginning of the 16th century. It is true that much work has been done to restore unity over the past hundred years, but many obstacles still prevent the return of the undivided Church.

Unity is the sign of good community health. It has a value in itself, because it is an actualization of the supernatural love that keeps the faithful together. It also has (or would have had) a prophetic function, because it reflects (or would have reflected) the unity of the gospel message, making it clearer for all. The disunity of Christians, on the contrary, makes evident the discordance between the discourses of the different Churches, and makes less clear the message we are called to spread throughout the world.

For the love of the people whom we seek to gather in God, we must therefore work for Christian unity. But this outreach risks being compromised today by divisions within the Churches themselves, split between different tendencies. Working for Christian unity can therefore only be done today by keeping in mind the challenge of internal unity. To disregard this challenge is to risk building on sand. Churches that want to serve as a “material” for the building of unity must be as solid as rock.

Working for Christian unity thus implies, at the same time, ensuring the unity of one's Church, which is particularly difficult at this time. However, we Catholics are blessed to have received, preserved and developed, according to God's will, the Petrine ministry, which is a source and a principle of unity. Around the Pope, Peter's successor, and in communion with the bishops, the successors of the apostles, unity is achieved. This is because the Pope has received a mandate from Christ Jesus to strengthen his brothers in the one Catholic faith (cf. Lk 22:32).

What does it mean, exactly, to "strengthen in faith"? It means to anchor the believer in the supernaturally revealed and lived knowledge of the true God manifested in Jesus Christ. This anchoring is ensured first of all by baptism, which gives us the Spirit of God, and thus the supernatural ability to understand God's revelation with God's understanding. "No one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God," Paul says. "Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is from God, that we might understand the gifts bestowed on us by God.” (1 Cor 2:11-12)

But we know that baptism is only one step in the appropriation of the deposit of faith. Then comes the conscious and sustained effort to grow in the knowledge and love of God, through the reception of a solid catechetical teaching, irrigated by the prayer of the one who gives it as much as by that of the one who receives it. Obviously, this teaching proves its fruitfulness when it leads us to live uprightly and impels us to give ourselves to others, in a spirit of charity and service, both in the world and within the Church.
 

Thanks to an integral and ongoing formation based on the meditation of the Word that shapes the intelligence and the will, Christians find the truly supernatural capacity to go to the Temple "with one accord" (Acts 2:46), that is, to live and celebrate in the unity of the true faith - a faith constantly renewed at the sources of the sacraments, which are the usual means by which Jesus communicates his life to us. Clearly, integral and ongoing formation drives away the continuous risk of intellectual and moral deformation.

The effort for Christian unity begins, so to speak, at home, I mean in our own Church, whose authentically Christian wisdom we must appropriate, which alone can preserve us from moral and doctrinal deviations. In fact, rootedness in the apostolic tradition confirmed by Peter conditions our ability to embody the religion received from Jesus Christ and understood at the same time as a theology, a cult, an ethic and a spirituality enlivened by grace and manifested in active charity.
   

Christian unity therefore depends, first of all, within our Church, on the quality of the transmission of the deposit of faith and on the learning of the Christian virtues. It depends on the quality of Christian education and, of course, on the supernatural love that drives the ecclesial effort of transmission. “For apart from him we can do nothing” (cf. Jn 15:5). Him being, of course, the risen Christ, who teaches through the mouth of this enthusiastic priest, or who gives himself as a model to be imitated in the exemplarity of that devoted lay person, etc.
  

The theme of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity 2021 is "Abide in my love and you shall bear much fruit" (cf. John 15:5-9). It reminds us that the fruit of unity will come only if we know how to expose ourselves to God's love and rest in him. This love is also communicated to us through the teaching of revealed truth, which the Church has the custody of. The study, meditation and deepening of the Catholic tradition is therefore offered to us as a path to unity. Internal unit, first, and, after that, external unit.
  

This effort to assimilate the deposit of faith will not simply lead to a familiarization with dogmatic formulas, whose function is to normatively define the content of Christian doctrine. The learning of "a common language of faith, normative for all and uniting all in the same confession of faith" (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 185) is certainly an obligatory stage for those who truly want to commune with other Christians. But, as a system of signs, this language points to a reality, and it is because it gives us real and mysterious access to this supernatural reality that it is so dear to us.

Surely, the common language of the Church can somewhat put us off. The technical terms of theology may seem too abstract to us. The very abstruseness of certain passages of Scripture (from which the Church's teaching is drawn) can discourage us from ever understanding anything. But to begin to see more clearly, we must remember that these truths of faith have been conquered in and through prayer, and that it is through prayer alone that they will be revealed to us as they are, that is, as sources of life. 

Under the guidance of the Spirit of Truth, the strangest pages of the Bible suddenly reveal themselves to be of unprecedented depth and richness. And to more than mere transcendent truths, the dogmas, illuminated from within by the Spirit, give us access to the Transcendent itself. They root us in it, so that we can bear fruit. It is by this rooting in God, made possible by the revealed Word and the Spirit poured out, that we can most effectively work for the great cause of Christian unity.

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Hope to Visit - Reflection on Two Mysteries of Our Faith

12/16/2020

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Here is the text of the small meditation on Scripture that I read during my appearance on the Hope to Visit program broadcast on Wednesday, December 16th on TVRS.

In the skits we just saw played by Chris, Diane, Karen, and narrated by Anne-Marie, two great mysteries of our faith were represented: the Annunciation and the Visitation. These two mysteries are the first two the Church invites us to meditate upon, on Mondays and Saturdays, where Catholics are traditionally praying the five Joyful mysteries of the rosary.
  

Uniting these two key episodes of the Gospel is the central figure of Mary. Mary is the Mother of Jesus, thus the Mother of God. But she is also the first and perfect disciple of Christ. Indeed, discipleship is first and foremost a communion of heart with Jesus, and Mary lived that communion to the full. What her Son went through, she went through in her mother’s heart, just like no other.  

As the number one disciple, Mary is also seen as the perfect image of what the Church is called to be, since the Church is the gathering of the disciples of Christ, united around their Lord and Savior, with the goal of becoming ever more Christlike. Which means that what concerns Mary concerns the Church and that what Mary does, the Church is called to do in turn. As disciple number one, Mary opens the way and we follow in her footsteps.

Let’s have a closer look at what Mary is doing, during these two famous episodes of the Infancy Gospel narrated by Luke. First, in the Annunciation, she is visited by the angel Gabriel and by God himself, who’s Spirit dwells upon her. Second, she is visiting her cousin Elizabeth and at the same time she brings Christ to her and to her preborn son, John the Baptist, who leaps in her womb. 

In the first Joyful mystery, she welcomes the Lord in her life. In the second, she brings the Lord into someone's life.  It is not exaggerated to say that these two key moments in Mary’s life illustrate and sum up the two fundamental aspects of the Christian life: receiving the gift of God, and sharing that same gift with others.
 

On the one hand, indeed, we are called to receive the gift of God through a spiritual and contemplative experience, that opens our eyes on the truthfulness of the Gospel message. On the other hand, we are called to actively engage in the Church’s effort to give access, to as many people as possible, to this same experience of discovering that God truly exists, that God truly loves us, that God truly saves us in Jesus Christ and restores us through the amazing gift of the Holy Spirit. 

We can draw an essential lesson from the contemplation of these two mysteries.
         

If we want our Christian life to be meaningful and fruitful, first, we ought to allow God to visit us on a regular basis. We do so, first and foremost, when we commit and stick to our prayer time. Second, we ought to draw from that meaningful and joyful encounter with God the divine energy, the zeal, and the joy of visiting others on behalf of God, so as to give people a chance to see a glimpse of heaven, in the way we talk, behave and interact with others. 

In these difficult times, where we all experience in one way or another, isolation, exhaustion or deprivation, we face more than ever maybe the double challenge of taking care of our loved ones and taking care of ourselves. This is our mission: to love our neighbours as ourselves. But how are we going to make sure not to fall apart, when the needs are so numerous around us and inside of us?   

This is where we need to remember that the miracle of God who visits us, who comforts us, who strengthens us is always ready to happen.
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The Prince of Peace

12/15/2020

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For several months now we have been in a completely new situation, where the slightest visit becomes a rare, almost unhoped-for moment of rejoicing (when visits are possible!). Because of the pandemic, we are indeed experiencing a kind of strange deprivation, which makes us measure the importance and value of human relationships. Since the month of March, we have all suffered from not being able to visit our elderly parents, to welcome our children and grandchildren, to see our friends, or simply to chat for a few moments with a parishioner in front of the church.
 

The working places are no longer the same, leisure activities are difficult if not impossible to practice, so many contacts are restricted. And the attempt to compensate for the lack of tangible human relations by a more intense online activity, does not make up for the emotional gap. On the contrary, it seems that this diminished form of human relationship that we experience online only increases the thirst for human presence, because virtual encounters never totally replace the experience of the physical presence of the other. For those who can’t even rely on that virtual social life given the lack of meaningful relationships in their lives, the consumption of information and entertainment online becomes a pitiful substitute for social life. In this context of isolation, loneliness and deprivation, the risk is great, among the most fragile, to develop an addiction or to suffer from mental illness.  

If the pandemic has reminded us of one thing, it is how much we are relational beings. And if modern culture marked by individualism has long made us desire, cultivate and appreciate the value of autonomy, we are today able to measure the limits of personal independence as   the ultimate ideal. Today's mass culture, which never ceases to proclaim the ideals of modern liberal philosophy and to promote them to us through the educational system, the Entertainment industries, and the Advertising agencies, is, in fact, focused on the affirmation of the self, the search for self, self-realization, the fulfillment of our dreams, etc. 


In reality, the whole History of the Modern West can be read as a history of the emancipation of the individual from the group, be it the family, the nation or the Church. This ideal of emancipation is certainly a good one. Otherwise, it would not have appealed so much to the heart of man in the last centuries. Every human being is unique, and the sine qua non for the realization of each unique human destiny is to be able to freely use our strength, our intelligence, our wealth and our resources to accomplish what we feel called to do deep down. This inner impulse that leads us towards the full realization of our talents, the full realization of our dreams, sometimes comes up against external norms dictated by parental authority, social conformism, and the weight of old ecclesial traditions. And it is here that an internal law can appear as legitimately opposing external norms, to overturn them or at least reform them in the sense of a greater respect for the deepest aspirations of the human heart.


However, neither the parental rules, nor the culture of a country, nor the traditions of the Church can be reduced to something oppressive and freedom-killing. On the contrary, the environment offered to us by the family, the nation and the Church are, when properly taken care of and developed, the launching pad for the real growth and empowerment of the human person. The life of the group, while it has its own demands, and while it requires the individual to put himself at its service, and even to sacrifice himself for it in those tragic periods of history when it is threatened in its entirety, remains nonetheless the place of birth and growth of the human person.
 

Without family ties, without the specific culture of the nation, without the Tradition of the Church, the human person is incapable of structuring himself internally, nor of adopting viable social attitudes and behaviors. The group, be it family, nation, or Church, is the place where vital links are established between individuals and between generations, so that the treasure of humanity and holiness that we have received from our ancestors (and ultimately from God) can be effectively handed down by the elders and bear new fruits of wisdom and love in the youth. Then this youth becomes ready to assume its share of responsibility in the defense and development of the group. It is ready to take on the weight of the responsibilities once placed on the shoulders of their fathers and mothers. 

From these few reflections, we can certainly retain this: that the group should not stifle the inner life and intimate aspirations of the individual. And that the aspirations of the individual must not unjustly jeopardize the cohesion of the group.  How will this be done? The essential thing, I believe, is to ensure that the bonds that unite us, whether from near or far, as members of the same family, nation or Church, are bonds that both nourish the growth of the individual and strengthen the unity of the group. Ultimately, therefore, it all depends on the quality of the relationships we establish among us. And on our awareness that good relationships guarantee both the fulfillment of individuals and the continuity of the group. 
So let's learn how to cultivate good relationships, paying close attention to the people around us, but also to the social environment, considered globally, in which these people evolve. 

We all know how difficult it is to maintain good relationships between members of the same family, nation, or church. The unity of a parish is also a constant challenge. It is here that, as Catholics, we need to have a renewed awareness of the immense importance of the mission of Jesus, who came to restore the broken bond between God and men and the bonds that unite people to one another in our common humanity.       


Jesus is the way and the bond of unity. In his person, humanity and divinity are united in a mysterious but real way. That is why, in the deepest sense, he deserves the name Emmanuel. God with us (Mt 1, 23). Because In him, God is with us, human beings. And on this first reconciliation between God and man, all other reconciliations depend. And that is why the little child who will make Mary a mother, also deserves the name given to him by Isaiah: The Prince of Peace (Is 9, 6). 
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Blessed time of Advent to all.

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What is the Good News? - Part II

9/14/2020

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You’ll find the first part of this blog post here.
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As I kept talking with my wife, I realized, at some point, how her first definition of the Good News was perfect, as it was somehow containing Thomas’ answer, without explicitly phrasing it as he did nor using the words he himself used to name it. In a sense, we can say that Thomas’ answer is an explanation of Jn 3:16, or a distillation of its core message. I will share this message in a moment, but before doing so, I’d like to talk about another very common response we get, when we ask the question “What is the Good News?, namely, that “God loves us”. 

Make no mistake. This is also a very very very good answer. It stresses the first part of Jn 3:16 : “For God so loved the world” and leads us to the greatest mystery of all: that God is Love (see 1Jn 4:8) because he is trinitarian. Compared to the classical answer focusing on the salvific deeds of Christ that I consider “too narrow”, I would say that this one has the downside of being too general or too vague. God’s love is the efficient cause of everything, including the Good News. If we want to know what is the Good News, we need not only to remind people that God loves them, but to zero in on the reason why this love operated our salvation through the Incarnation of Jesus, is redemptive sacrifice and the sharing with us of his divine sonship through the outpouring of his Spirit. The success of Christ's mission on Earth was entirely played out during these three pivotal moments, that are referred to somehow in Jn 3:16: incarnation, redemption and partial divinization through the outpouring of the Spirit (in preparation and for the complete divinization in heaven).  But all three had the same one and only purpose. They aimed at the same effect. This is why we can’t say that the Good News is first and foremost that the Word became flesh or that man is saved or that man is divinized in Christ.

Incarnation and divinization are two aspects of the Good News that Orthodox theologians and believers tend to stress more than Catholics (or Protestants) do, when it comes to defining what is the Good News. More than Catholics, Orthodox are aware of the fact that salvation began and somehow was achieved already with the Incarnation of the Son of God, because in Jesus, God and man were reunited for good. With respect to "divinization", it is a very important word in the orthodox spirituality. Much more than in our Catholic mainly Latin mystical tradition, where the more common word is "sanctification". The end result is the same (the partaking in the divine life), but where Catholics focus maybe more on the process of becoming a saint (i.e., being consecrated to God, and therefore separated from worldly realities so as to commune to the divine) the word "divinization" points more towards the “becoming like God'' aspect of the process. But in the end, both traditions include an ascetical dimension (separation from the profane) and a mystical dimension (becoming like God).

Now, the question remains: What is the purpose of the whole mission of Christ on Earth? What is the purpose of the Incarnation? What is the purpose of the Redemption and filial adoption in baptism? What is the purpose of our entering into Heaven thanks to the divinizing process of becoming holy? The answer to these questions is the answer to the question we've been asking ourselves since the beginning: “What is the Good News?”. Thomas Aquinas defines the expression “Good News” in his commentary on the first verse of the letter to the Romans, where the great evangelizer presents himself as: "Paul, a slave of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle and set apart for the gospel of God". In Thomas’ Latin, "Gospel" or "Good News" is "bona annuntiatio". And here’s what he says about that annuntiatio :
 

“"Gospel" means good news. For it announces the news of man’s union with God, which is man’s good: "It is good for me to cleave to God" (Ps 73:28).”
 

There you go. Here’s our answer. For Thomas Aquinas, the good news is a news about the good that is happening to man. What good? His union, in an unprecedented way, after the fall, with God. And Thomas goes on to explain that this process of reuniting man with God is a three-step process :

“Indeed, a threefold union of man with God is announced in the gospel. The first is by the grace of union: "The Word was made flesh" (Jn 1:14). The second is by the grace of adoption, as implied in Psalm 82(:6) "I say, ‘You are gods, sons of the Most High, all of you.’" The third is by the glory of attainment: "This is eternal life, that they know you" (Jn 17:3)”
 

The three great mysteries of our faith related to Christ's mission are great because it is through them that the plan of uniting man with God is achieved. And you have already noticed that it is precisely these mysteries that are contained in Jn 3:16 (besides the very first one through which the identity of God is declined, "God is love", and which simultaneously declines the identity of man which is to be a creature capable of God). See how incarnation, redemption and divinization can easily be found in Jn 3:16 : “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son (Incarnation), so that everyone who believes in him might not perish (redemption) but might have eternal life (divinization).” The Good News is that, between the God of love and his beloved creature, a bridge was built, that is made of the very being, life, deeds and Spirit of Jesus Christ. That’s the reason why, apart from saying that the bona annuntiatio is referring to man’s union with God, Thomas Aquinas also says that Jesus Christ himself, and all what we say about him, is the Good News. For he is the one through whom the process of unification is achieved and the plan of God accomplished. In sum, God is the Good News: his coming among us, his fighting for us, his sharing of the divine life with us.
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Those who taught Christianity to my wife did a good job at passing her on the core message of our religion when they based their proclamation of the Good News on Jn 3:16. Just as the priests and pastoral agents are doing a good job on a daily basis when they center their message on the importance of building a personal relationship with God, through Christ, in the Spirit. For through that relationship, the union between God and man becomes ever more a reality. Something that shows. And this is how the life of a Christian can truly become good news to others.
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What Is the Good News? - Part I

9/1/2020

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In a book on St. Thomas Aquinas that I recently finished reading, I discovered what was exactly the Good News that we are called to spread as missionaries, according to this great theologian known as the “angelic doctor”. The words "Good News" are so commonly used in evangelization, catechesis, Sunday homilies, that very often we no longer bother to define them, assuming that everyone knows what we are talking about. And indeed, we all understand, more or less, what these words refer to, thanks to our many hours spent in church. But there is a growing risk of confusion if we do not take the time to meditate on them on a regular basis, or at least from time to time. During a lectio divina exercise for instance, where we really take the time to ponder these things in our heart.

To help us regain a good understanding of what the "Good News" really means, we can turn to our Catholic brothers and sisters, who can enlighten us. That’s what I did, the other day, with my wife, right after having read the passage where Thomas gives his definition of the Good News. I told her that I had just made a discovery while reading, and that before sharing it with her, I wanted to ask her a question. "Tell me, I said, what is the Good News we are supposed to proclaim to the world?". My wife hates it when it feels like a quiz. She didn’t want to play any game. So, I told her: “No, I really want to know what the average Catholic would answer to that question, before sharing Thomas’ answer with you”. My goal was to see if there was a great discrepancy between the answer given by the greatest theologian of the Catholic Church and that of an "ordinary" lay faithful of the 21st century.

So she reluctantly answered with a quote from the Gospel according to John: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life.” (Jn 3: 16). I thought to myself “that’s a pretty good answer”. But I also thought to myself that there were many distinct elements in that answer, and I was looking for one single element, knowing that Thomas’ answer, though very elaborated, could also be summed up in one precise idea. So, I asked my wife this other question: “Given that the quote you just gave is quite dense and elaborated, what would you point out as the key element in it, the precise part that expresses the central message of the Gospel?” She answered “so that everyone who believes in him might not perish”. In other words, she was pointing out to the salvific action of Christ. 

Now that I am recounting this little conversation with my wife, I realize that she responded as Protestants usually do. Not because she was catechized by Protestants, but because this part of the Good News that says we are saved by the Cross touches her in a very special way in spiritual sensitivity.  And that’s the good thing about the Good News: it is so rich that it speaks differently to different people, depending on where they are in their spiritual journey, what they are most in need of at a given time, and what is their basic spiritual profile and sensitivity. Luther, the founder of Protestantism, had himself a very clearly defined personality, and was therefore more concerned with certain types of spiritual problems and the answers to them, especially questions related to soteriology. Soteriology is that part of the theology that deals with the problem of sin and the response to that problem which is the saving death of Jesus Christ on the Cross.

So for Luther and for my wife, the Good News is, first and foremost , that we are saved thanks to Jesus; that we can exit the trap of sin and death thanks to Jesus; that there is a possibility of reversing the tide thanks to Jesus; that there is a turning point in mankind’s history where the chains of sin have been broken, thanks to Jesus' sacrifice. The whole Exodus narrative is based on that idea that God brings liberation. And at Pentecost, after having received the power to proclaim boldly the Good News, Peter also focuses on the idea that Christ is risen (see Acts 2:32), in other words that he has conquered sin and death for us. And what does strike us most often when we listen to personal testimonies of conversion if not the power with which God has freed people from all kinds of bondage?

What I realized though, thanks to my reading of saint Thomas Aquinas, is that “Luther’s answer” or “Peter’s proclamation” focus only on one of the great mysteries of our faith, namely redemption, leaving Incarnation, for instance, in the background. And this is probably why, having in mind what saint Thomas wrote about the Good News, I thought that this definition centered on the salvific action of Christ on the Cross was good, but somewhat unsatisfying. The truth is, my wife’s first answer was the best one could give to the question: “What is the Good News?”. Actually, I would go as far as to defend the idea that her answer is Thomas Aquinas’ answer, presented differently. I’ll explain why in my next post.


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Humanism and Theology

8/26/2020

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Classical Greek culture and scholastic theology still informed our worldview three quarters of a century ago. When I say "our" worldview, I am referring to that of a significant part of the cultured elites of yesteryear, responsible for keeping alive our connection with the great Western tradition, in order to train new generations of men and women in wisdom.

Before the civilizational disruption of the 1960s, the expression "cultured elites" was redundant. Today it is an unpardonable oxymoron. However, at the back of obscure libraries and dusty bookstores, there are remnants of a time when the work of a university professor in Human Sciences consisted of something other than fostering the new radical left social agenda.

A book such as Humanism and Theology (1943), by German Hellenist Werner Jaeger (1888-1961), is a good example of an academic work that allows us to penetrate the mental universe of the great scholars of the last century, and, through them, to reconnect with the great intellectual tradition of the West, which dates back to Ancient Greece.

The purpose of Jaeger’s book is to study the relationship between the anthropocentric cultural tradition of Ancient Greece and the theocentric scholastic theology of St. Thomas Aquinas. In an age of both fantasized and programmed posthumanism, the careful study of the relationship between classical humanism and Christian theology sounds terribly anachronistic, I know. 

For the ancient Greeks, the "enhanced man” was not a genetically modified human body. It was a man cultivated by the paideia (the classical educational program) and elevated by intellectual contemplation. For the Fathers of the Church, the monks of the Middle Ages and the masters of medieval scholasticism, it was a man sanctified by grace and divinized in the beatific vision.

At the end of the long process of cultural and spiritual disaffiliation known as modernity, culture and grace have both been discarded, to be replaced by mass entertainment and the faith in technoscience, while the university has gradually and mostly confined itself short-sightedly to the role of supplier of manpower, out of pure venality, it seems. 

As the late Simon Leys wrote it in The Hall of Uselessness (2013), “The university is now under increasing pressure to justify its existence in utilitarian and quantitative terms. Such pressure is deeply corrupting... When a university yields to the utilitarian temptation, it betrays its vocation and sells its soul.” (p. 464) And it widens the gap between us and our intellectual heritage.

Only half a century separates us from scholars like Werner Jaeger or Henri-Irénée Marrou, but the cultural situation has deteriorated itself so much that entering their intellectual universe is now a matter of historical anthropology. We must make a real effort of “mental migration” to familiarize ourselves with their cultural and intellectual frame of reference.

We cannot help thinking that it is precisely because contact has been lost with the life of the spirit promoted by these great scholars that postmodern people, called to greatness by God like all other generations before them, are today rushing to embrace the utopian dream of transcending our natural human limits, not through divinization, but through transhumanism.

If only people knew that there are other ways to be “enhanced” than surrendering to the medical-pharmaceutical complex, which trivializes more and more every day the industrial treatment of human life, genetic engineering and the commodification of human reproduction. If only they could come across a book like Humanism and Theology… or the Bible.

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Without being a work of Christian apologetics (as far as I know, Werner Jaeger never claimed to be a believer), this little book has the much valuable interest of correcting a certain number of preconceived ideas about the intellectual history of the West, and of restoring the Christian tradition to its central place in the conservation and development of Western civilization.

Delivered in 1943 as part of the Aquinas Lectures, at Marquette University, in Milwaukee (Wisconsin) - a place where Yves Simon (1940), Jacques Maritain (1942) and Étienne Gilson (1947, 1951) also gave lectures over the years -, the text published that same year under the title Humanism and Theology addresses the "problem of the theocentric view of the world represented by St. Thomas and its relationship to the Greek ideal of culture and the classical tradition which is the foundation of all humanism” (p. 2). The examination of this problem provided the Hellenist with an opportunity to recall some historical truths about Christianity that are too often overlooked.

First of all, W. Jaeger insists upon the fact that the best of classical humanism didn’t flourish in relativistic views and the seeking of material gain in the teachings and way of life of the Sophists, these Greeks rhetoricians of the time, who were paid to teach eloquence, and who boasted of their ability to defend the pros or cons on any subject, depending on the desired effect on the audience, thereby showing their little concern for morality and true knowledge. Rather, it flourished, Jaeger claims, in theology and contemplative life with Plato and Aristotle. Consequently, the humanistic tradition is in perfect harmony with Thomasian theocentrism, which promises man the most formidable destiny: that of divinization in the beatific vision.

Then, secondly, the Hellenist rightly reminds us that the Humanist Renaissance of the 15th and 16th centuries was preceded by other revivals of the classical Greek culture, in “the Roman civilization of Cicero’s own time and of the Augustan age” (p. 23), in the fourth century patristic culture, during the Carolingian reign and especially during the scholastic period. Without the Aristotelian-inspired rationalism “of the time of St. Thomas”, “the Renaissance of the 15th century certainly would not have been what it was” (p. 28), says W. Jaeger. For the theological rationalism of the Scholastics has “laid the foundations for any further rational development, both religious and profane.” (p. 28). Hence, the Middle Ages made the Renaissance possible. 

Finally, third point, theses Aquinas Lectures were an opportunity for W. Jaeger to recall that the formation of man (the paideia, as the Greeks used to say when talking about education) is fully accomplished, as Plato knew it in his own way, through man's participation in the divine life. For W. Jaeger, the unwillingness of modern humanism to recognize that man has access to God through natural theology, that is, through reason alone, and eventually through Revelation when the grace of conversion and faith is bestowed, is ultimately a profoundly anti-humanist attitude. One that impedes man from knowing himself as he is, from living to the full as he could live, from being what he is: a creature called to communion with the origin, end and purpose of all that is, that is to say, with God.

In short, Humanism and Theology is a little-known gem. A forgotten one, even. Just like the sunken continent of classical studies, to which it belongs, and whose disappearance, like that of Christianity, dramatically weakens the West. To read such a book is to return to the vital sources of our culture.


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A Trip to The Middle Ages

8/22/2020

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In this article, I just want to briefly present the best book I read last year: L’amour des lettres et le désir de Dieu. It was originally published in French in 1957, and then translated into English three year later under the title The Love of Learning and the Desire for God. It truly is a masterpiece, authored by 20th century French monk and scholar Jean Leclercq o.s.b. (1911-1993).

Let me say it again, this is a masterpiece. Benedict XVI referred to it in his speech at the Collège des Bernardins in Paris, in 2008. I had kept the title in mind, but I don't remember when I got my hands on it. It has been sitting in my bookshelf for a few years without me ever touching it. And then last fall, in preparation for a workshop on lectio divina (which is a spiritual way of praying while reading the Bible) I took the time to read it. I discovered a work according to my heart, made for those who want to deepen their knowledge by entering the literary and cultural world of medieval monks (The Love of Learning...), as well as for those who seek spiritual elevation through an initiation to monastic theology (...and the Desire for God).

This gem of scholarship does not have the dryness of academic works, but it does have the solidity of it. It is factual like a good history book, but it offers us the keys to the spiritual world. It was written to introduce young monks to the history of their spiritual tradition, but it nourishes the soul of anyone who seeks God in His Word. For the secret of the monks is that their daily life was, so to speak, bathed in the Word, as it was read, copied, meditated upon, sung during the Divine Office, ruminated at any time of the day, and tasted during periods of work and periods of leisure. The soul of the Middle Ages is brought to light, explained and resolved in some way when we look at this constant companionship with the Word. For the Benedictine and Cistercian monks of the Middle Ages, it was their way to respond to the call “to walk humbly with [their] God” (Mi 6:8).

Experienced as a time of fruitful intimacy with God, lectio divina (which literally means “divine reading” [of the divine Word]) made them lean, like the apostle John, on Jesus’ bosom, to hear and fathom the heart of God. In Dom Leclercq's work, this spirituality based on divine reading is recovered and offered for us to imitate. This is all the more inviting because not only does the scholar give it to us to understand, but he makes us enter into communion with its deepest impulses. As we close the book, we know that in the end it is up to us to ensure that these impulses continue through the vicissitudes of our 21st century lay people lives, like a succession of waves, raised by a wind that comes from above, thanks to frequent meditation on the Word of Life.

Monastic theology derives entirely from this particular way for the disciples of Saint Benedict and Saint Bernard to seek God in the Word, to find him in meditation, to call upon him in prayer and to meet him in contemplation, as Guigo II, the Carthusian monk, successor of Saint Bruno at la Grande Chartreuse, explains in his book The Ladder of the Monks (Scala claustralium, 12th century). Distinct from scholastic theology, because it developed in monasteries, and not in Universities, without the logical practices of disputatio (oral performance) and questio (written work), but by the means proper to monks, which are the meditative reading of Scripture, the study of the Fathers of the Church and liturgical prayer, monastic theology pursues, as a specific end, not the sanctification of our intelligence through the development of speculative activity and rationally organized theological knowledge, but the deepening of an intuitive and tasty knowledge, which emanates from the heart, that is to say, which is received from God in the depths of our subjectivity, and which blossoms, of course, in greater understanding of the mystery, but above all in the intimate experience of God, in the contemplative life.

Monastic theology then expresses itself in oral or literary forms which stylistically bear the imprint of this subjectivity when it addresses other souls, in order to better induce in them the same relationship of loving closeness to God, while scholastic theology, by contrast, is written in an impersonal language, and in a style which leaves nothing of the author's interior life to be seen, in order to better understand and show God in himself or in the objectivity of his mysteries.

Monastic theology and scholastic theology commune with each other and share the same fundamental desire for God, but the latter, it would seem, focuses all its attention on the seminal moment where the spirit of man is fecundated by infused grace and indulges in contemplation of the transcendent God, perceived as Eternal Truth in the crystalline clarity of an unblemished intelligence, while the former seeks to draw its joy from the full penetration of this same infused grace in the entirety of the soul, and from the divine inebriation that this enveloping experience of God, which is accomplished in mystical espousals, provides. One, the monastic, is above all relational and experiential, while the other, the scholastic, lives the relational aspect of faith through the rational apprehension of God enhanced by grace.

Having made this distinction, one can understand what is so compelling about monastic literature, whose spiritual aim is essentially relational, and how its presentation by J. Leclercq o.s.b., far from simply informing us, has the power to transform us. Or should I say to move and to transport us, since to be informed is already to be transformed. We also see how scholastic theology, no less spiritual at its source, is formally subject to the demands of logic, and why it requires, in order to be appreciated, a form of asceticism in the effort of abstraction which is certainly not for everyone. In the end, however, the two theologies are in communion. The love of Love that is God cannot help but encounter the love of Truth that is God, for in God “Love and truth will meet” (Ps 85:11).


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And What About Vatican II? - Part II

8/14/2020

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This blog post is the second part of And What About Vatican II? The first part is here.

Group n° 3: The Unsatisfied

The third group is that of those who have been disappointed by Vatican II, because of a lack of audacity on the part of the episcopate, they say. These disappointed Catholics:

1) Acknowledge that Vatican II has made it possible to break with the rigid and dogmatic habits of the pre-conciliar Church, which was killing the life of the Spirit within its walls, and they welcome as great advances all the developments that occurred in the ecumenical and interreligious fields, because it was a recognition of the fact that the Spirit also moves outside the Church.

2) stress the importance of Dignitatis Humanae, because of its acceptance of religious freedom as a basic human right (a right that quickly served as a justification, for some Catholics who sought to distance themselves from certain Church teachings that seemed superstitious, retrograde or oppressive to them.)

But these same people also consider that:

3) The conciliar Fathers stopped too early on the path of reform and that their work must be continued through an ongoing process of questioning and criticizing the old forms of ecclesial life, with a view to the emergence of a new Church, capable of entering into relationship with today's world.

4) The unwillingness to adopt a truly progressive agenda for reform is due to the existence, in Rome and elsewhere, of a Catholic conservatism opposed to the true spirit of the Gospel, and whose influence persists despite 60 years of liberalization of our religious practices and beliefs in the Church.

Group n° 4: The Opponents

A fourth category of people is extremely critical of Vatican II and considers that:

1) Vatican II is a disaster from almost every point of view (ecclesiological, because of the confusion about the role that each one is supposed to play in the Church; theological, because of the promotion of flagrant heresies; liturgical, because of the replacement of the traditional Mass, etc.).

2) Vatican II erred seriously on various subjects (religious freedom, relations with the modern world, ecumenism, interreligious dialogue), first because the Fathers of the Council lost sight of the primary mission of the Church, which is to defend and propagate the revealed truth, and second, because they replaced this mission with a strategy inspired by humanism and atheism, whose ultimate goal seems to be to live a good neighbourly relationship with the modern world.

3) Vatican II officialized the Church's submission to modernity (and postmodernity), which soon resulted in Catholics adopting all modern ways of thinking and living, to the detriment of the Catholic worldview and ethics.

4) The condition for a true "Renaissance" of the Church lies in the abolition of Vatican II and a return to the mentality and morality that were normative before 1962, but the progressive mentality that predominates in the Church today is an obstacle preventing the rapid realization of this project. 

Where I stand (the short version)

Personally, I have points of agreement and disagreement with each of these groups or each of these theological positions. Except for the second one, with which I fully agree. I therefore belong to the second group: those who are both in solidarity with and critical of the Council. In solidarity, because it was needed in its time and theologically well inspired for the most part. Critical, because Vatican II initiated changes that were more than necessary, but in a way and in a spirit that probably lacked foresight and prudence. Moreover, it has often been poorly understood, promoted and implemented on the pastoral ground.

The group that I find the hardest to agree with and that I criticize the most is the third group. First of all because its progressive theology is excessively influenced by the rationalism of the Enlightenment and by Marxist or socialist thought. Second, because it's the most widespread type of Catholicism in Quebec, and therefore, very concretely, it is the one I'm fighting in a fraternal way most often, on most pastoral and ecclesial grounds.

With the first group, that of the enthusiastic Supporters, I share the conviction that we must avoid the two pitfalls of antimodernism and hypermodernism. With the third group, that of the Unsatisfied, I share the conviction that the Spirit moves beyond the Church’s walls. With the fourth group, that of the Opponents, I share the conviction that the pre-conciliar Church is full of treasures (I am thinking, in particular, of Neo- Thomist philosophy and theology), which it is in our interest to re-appropriate, if we want to be well armed, intellectually speaking, to deal with the worst aspects of the irrational postmodern society.

But unlike the first group, I find that some aspects of Vatican II deserve to be criticized, and that it is bad for the intellectual health of the Church to turn the “spirit of the Council” into an untouchable idol. Unlike the third group, I consider that a progressive agenda is as bad as a reactionary one, and more damaging, insofar as progressives are more numerous in Quebec and that they can therefore lead us into more massive theological and pastoral drifts. Unlike the fourth group, I consider that Vatican II prompted much needed changes, and that the pre-conciliar Church can serve as an inspiration in some areas only, while in others its deficiencies are obvious, and need not be replicated.

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And What About Vatican II? - Part I

8/14/2020

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Among Catholics, the debate about the value (or lack of value) of the theological outcomes of the Second Vatican Council is endless.

Recently, we've seen Bishop Robert Barron produce a video series on the purpose and legacy of the Council, in order to highlight the best aspects of it, and to help the faithful, "especially young Catholics", "to fully understand and re-appropriate Vatican II". Secondarily, Bishop Barron’s initiative also aims at countering the influence of a host of opponents to the Council, who are obviously gaining influence on social networks.

I believe that there are four essential ways for Catholics to position themselves today in relation to Vatican II. If we ask a group of faithful "Was the Second Ecumenical Council of the Vatican a good thing for the Church?", some will enthusiastically answer "Yes!", others will say "Yes, but something went wrong somewhere", others will respond "Yes, obviously, but it's just the beginning of what’s really needed in the Church today", and finally others will declare, "No, it’s a catastrophe”!  

So, there is a group of enthusiastic supporters of Vatican II, who give thanks to God for it; a group of perplexed observers, welcoming the Council, but deploring what finally came out of it or what was done with it, often without respecting the original intention of the Council Fathers; a group of unsatisfied supporters, anxious to go further in the modernization of the Church; and a group of fierce opponents who would like to return to the antimodern Church of Pius X. In my next two articles, I would like to examine each of these viewpoints on the Council in more detail. 

Group n° 1: The Supporters

The supporters of the Council, who consider its reforms to be balanced and make the case for their full implementation, avoiding any form of liberal or fundamentalist deviation, put forward the fact that:

1) the tremendous value of Vatican II comes from the fact that, in a way, it synthesizes all the renewal efforts that preceded it in the 20th century (biblical renewal, liturgical renewal, patristic renewal, etc.)

2) The work of the Council Fathers allowed this effort of renewal to prevail and the spirit of reform to triumph, in a context where, no long before, such a spirit had often been suspected, by a reluctant Roman authority, of introducing into the Church ideas and practices considered theologically problematic or pastorally questionable. 

3) The seal of the Council and the authority of the Church have made it possible to perpetuate this precious heritage to this day. In this regard, the Church is especially indebted to John Paul II and Benedict VXI.

4) we must defend this heritage today (which is in continuity with the Church's great two-thousand-year-old tradition), against anti-modern reactionary movements and hypermodern progressive movements.  

Group n° 2: The Bewildered :

Those who have mixed feelings about the Council:

1) recognize the merits of John XXIII's plan of aggiornamento, which aimed at breaking with the siege mentality that prevailed in the Church at that time and which too exclusively conditioned her relations with the modern world, seen above all as a mortal threat by the antimodernist current.

2) consider the main theological and pastoral developments of Vatican II in the ecclesiological field (role of the laity, episcopal collegiality, etc.), the ecumenical and interreligious fields, and the political field (recognition of religious freedom) to be well inspired and well balanced.

But these same people:

3) cannot fail to see what misappropriation and distortion of their message the documents of Vatican II have been subjected to in the name of the Council’s spirit.

4) cannot fail to observe that Vatican II's attempt at ecclesial renewal was followed by a dramatic fall in the participation of the faithful in the sacraments and an acceleration of the secularization process of the West. Without seeing the Council as an exclusive cause or sufficient explanation for this obvious decline, they however allow themselves to examine what went wrong at, in or around the Council, in terms of theological reflection, renewal management and pastoral implementation. 

The second and final part of this article is to be found here.

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The Love of Knowledge and The Desire for God in Ancient Greece - Part V

8/12/2020

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Academic tradition teaches us that philosophy began in the 7th century in Miletus, an important city in Asia Minor, and that the first thinker in this city to initiate philosophical reflection was called Thales. In this article, we will therefore examine how the geographical and cultural location of Miletus may have contributed to the emergence of philosophy, and what were Thales' main reflections in the field of natural theology. 


I. Miletus: capital city of 7th Century Greek culture

For an intellectual revolution such as the birth of philosophy to take place, certain material and cultural conditions were needed, among which are political stability, economic prosperity and cultural creativity. The geographical location of Miletus provided these conditions, as well as its many political connections and economic exchanges with both the Mediterranean and the Near East region, which made possible the cultural influence of the city all the way to Athens, the direct inheritor of the Ionian philosophical legacy.

The creativity and fecundity of Miletus became obvious in different technical and theoretical fields, where new types of intellectual disciplines and knowledge appeared, to reshape the way Greeks were relating to their natural and cultural environment. The critical treatment of their ancestors’ polytheistic religious tradition brought about a new kind of knowledge. And the new type of knowledge that emerged in turn induced a different relationship to the world. The demythologization of culture gradually emptied the universe of traditional gods, and opened the way to philosophy.

The new way of producing knowledge was no longer to invoke the gods and ask for divine inspiration, like the poets did. Inquiring into nature and society was the new method. Thus, the new type of knowledge depended on investigation, observation, experimentation. It was first and foremost exploratory. This empirical basis then allowed the exercise of critical and inductive reasoning. At the end of the rational process, a description and explanation of the phenomena involved was produced. Most often, the knowledge thus accumulated was put in writing, in prose (contrary to the mythological tradition, transmitted in verse) and disseminated within the networks of scholars.

Let us now look at the theological ideas put forward by the Milesians Presocratics philosophers, who first contributed to the foundation of natural theology as a specific branch of philosophy. For each figure, I’ll specify which of their concepts, judgments or logical reasoning have advanced the development of natural theology, whether we find them in the cosmological, anthropological or metaphysical portion of their research. As we survey the constitution of a network of thinkers disseminated throughout the Mediterranean Greek world, and the foundation of an enduring intellectual tradition of rationalization of our knowledge, we should be able to follow step by step the development of natural theology which will culminate in the metaphysical works of Aristotle, in the 4th century BC.   


II. The First Presocratic Philosopher: Thales of Miletus

Cosmology - Since Platon and Aristotle, Thales is renowned for having initiated the study of nature (phusis, in Greek). Rejecting the mythological traditions, Thalès endeavoured to find an empirical and rational cause or explanation to nature that was internal to it. His thesis, reported in Aristotle's Metaphysics, is that everything comes from water. In other words, that water is the archè (the one principle), explaining the existence of nature, its development, and its current composition. Water is the fundamental principle from which everything comes, and from what everything is made of. The idea of the unity of the cosmos stems from this vision of a world structured around a single principle. In Thales philosophy of nature, there is also an attempt to reach systematicity, for water is construed not only as the origin and foundation of the whole reality, it is also the explanation of more specific natural phenomenon, like the fact that the earth stays still. It is, argues Thales, because it is floating on water, “like a piece of wood” (Aristotle). So, Thales’ understanding of nature is based on a set of key concepts:

  1. empiricity (of our experience of the world) and rationality (of the approach) (5)
  2. causality (the search for one or many principles) (4)
  3. unicity (search, if possible, for one general and universal of principle) (4)
  4. naturality (of the cause) (3)
  5. unity (of the world seen as an orderly totality) (2) and systematicity (of our knowledge of it [intelligibility] (6))

We find here, next to each concept, the points (2) to (6) of the list I produced in my previous article.  In sum, Thales is looking rationally for a natural cause, the single cause that will give an account of the world’s unity and intelligible structure.

Theology - We’ve already stressed elsewhere Thales’ idea of an omnipresence of the divine (everything is full of gods, he says), and the idea that magnets endowed with a soul). There is obviously still much confusion here, between the theological, the cosmological and the psychological levels. How is the divine present to the world? How is the soul invisibly present in the matter and moving it? The information we have from tradition about the thesis from Thales is too incomplete to answer these questions. But the things we know for sure is that the matter is not all that matters for Thalès. We also know that Diogenes Laërtius (3rd century AD), a biographer of the Greek philosophers, ascribes the following statement to Thales: "Of all beings, the oldest is God, because he was not begotten; the most beautiful is the world, because it is the work of God..." We have every reason to doubt the authenticity of such an attribution, for the idea of the word being created by God is not Greek at all, it is a Jewish one. Conversely, the idea that reality is internally determined by a spiritual principle (the gods or the soul) is a very Greek one.

philosophical Anthropology - The clues that could give us an idea of Thales' anthropology are extremely meager. We know that Thales had a conception of animate beings as being capable of moving things. Based on this empirical observation, he deduced that magnets are also endowed with a soul, since they move metals. On the basis of the same judgement, it is obvious that Thales conceived man as an animated being. However, we don’t have enough information about his theories to qualify and characterize this human soul.

Thales could also be the one who coined the famous Greek aphorism “Know thyself”. So the tradition of philosophy as a disciple or self-awareness that would lead to the development of a series of spiritual exercises aimed at pacifying the soul could go back as far as the 6th century, B.C.

Other reports mention Thales activities as an astronomist, an engineer and a political adviser and even a smart businessman. Over time the figure of Thales has been so magnified that it is likely that legend is mixed in with the true accounts. Today, in the case of Thales, it is not possible for us to make a clear distinction between what is history and what is mythical amplification.

What we know for sure is that he was looking for a first explanatory principle, and that spiritual entities such as "gods" or the soul were always part of his worldview. Werner Jaeger fully understood the importance of Thales' idea that "everything is full of gods" and gave a brilliant explanation of how critical thinking, while rejecting the old mythical explanation, did not reject the divine itself, but simply its more commonly accepted understanding.

This is what W. Jaeger concluded from Thales' affirmation of the omnipresence of the divine in nature:

Thales’ gods do not dwell apart in some sequestered and inaccessible region, but everything - that is, the whole familiar world about us, which our reason takes so soberly - is full of gods and the effects of their power. This conception is not without its paradox, for it clearly presupposes that these effects can be experienced, and experienced in a new way: they must be something that can be seen with the eyes and grasped with the hands. We no longer need to look for any mythical figures in or behind the given reality in order to discern that it is itself a theater where high powers hold sway. So in restricting our cognition to that which we find immediately before us, we are not necessarily compelled to abandon the Divine. Of course our mere understanding is hardly sufficient in itself to give us any adequate evidence for the gods of popular belief ; but experience of the reality of ϕύσις  [physis]  provides it with a new source of knowledge of the Divine: it is there for us to grasp as if with our own hands, everywhere in the world.”

Here we see, masterfully described, the very beginning of natural theology as an understanding of the Divine based on a rational inquiry into nature.
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    Alex La Salle is currently working as a pastoral agent for the Saint John Paul II Pastoral Unit, which is part of the Diocese of Saint-Jean-Longueuil, Quebec.

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