He was a Catholic philosopher (1882-1973) who was deeply involved in the political life of the early and mid-twentieth century in Europe and America, and whose work will enrich the Church for centuries.
Also, which few people know, he carried on a many year relationship, brightened by letters now published, with Saul Alinsky, a political activist who influenced our president and secretary of state.
In one of his greatest works, Integral Humanism, he wrote this.
“For medieval thought, man was also a person; and one must remark that this notion of person is a notion, if I may so speak, of Christian indication, since it was disengaged and clarified thanks to theology. A person is a universe of spiritual nature endowed with freedom of choice and constituting to this extent a whole which is independent in face of the world—neither nature nor the State can lay hold of the universe without its permission. And God himself, who is and acts within, acts there in a particular manner and with a particularly exquisite delicacy, which shows the value He sets on it: He respects its freedom, at the heart of which He nevertheless lives; He solicits it, He never forces it.
“And moreover, in his concrete and historical existence man, for medieval thought, is not a simply natural being. He is a dislocated being, wounded—by the devil who wounds him with concupiscence, by God who wounds him with love. On the one hand, he bears the heritage of original sin; he is born divested of the gifts of grace, and not, doubtless, substantially corrupted, but wounded in his nature. On the other hand, he is made for a supernatural end: to see God as God sees himself, he is made to attain to the very life of God; he is traversed by the solicitations of actual grace, and if he does not oppose God his power of refusal, he bears within him even here below the properly divine life of sanctifying grace and its gifts.” (The Collected Works of Jacques Maritain, Volume XI: Integral Humanism, Freedom in the Modern World, and A Letter on Independence. (1996). Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press. p.158)
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
Monday, September 6, 2010
Labor Day
Enjoy the holiday and, as I posted last year, remember that each day is a day of labor embraced by the word and who can say who is working or not, as Guardini in his marvelous work, The Lord, teaches us:
“No one has the right to judge whether or not another lives according to the spirit of the Sermon on the Mount. There is no specific outward behavior that expresses it. Indeed, not even the chosen one himself can be certain how things stand with him. St. Paul says it explicitly: God alone is judge. Dare then to hope that you are chosen! The chance is taken in faith, and neither from the world’s point of view, nor from that of inner or outer experience, can there be any possible objection. But I cannot love my enemy? You can bring yourself to the point of no longer hating him. That is already the beginning of love….I can’t even do that!...Then try at least to keep your dislike out of your speech. That would be a step in the direction of love….
“But surely that would be watering the wine? Isn’t it a question of everything or nothing? To be quite frank, the Either-Or people seldom appear to practice their own severity. Their uncompromising attitude often looks suspiciously like rhetoric. No, what the Sermon on the Mount demands is not everything or nothing, but a beginning and a continuing, a rising again and plodding on after every fall.” (Guardini, R. (1956). The Lord. London: Longmans. (pp. 94-95, ellipsis in original)
“No one has the right to judge whether or not another lives according to the spirit of the Sermon on the Mount. There is no specific outward behavior that expresses it. Indeed, not even the chosen one himself can be certain how things stand with him. St. Paul says it explicitly: God alone is judge. Dare then to hope that you are chosen! The chance is taken in faith, and neither from the world’s point of view, nor from that of inner or outer experience, can there be any possible objection. But I cannot love my enemy? You can bring yourself to the point of no longer hating him. That is already the beginning of love….I can’t even do that!...Then try at least to keep your dislike out of your speech. That would be a step in the direction of love….
“But surely that would be watering the wine? Isn’t it a question of everything or nothing? To be quite frank, the Either-Or people seldom appear to practice their own severity. Their uncompromising attitude often looks suspiciously like rhetoric. No, what the Sermon on the Mount demands is not everything or nothing, but a beginning and a continuing, a rising again and plodding on after every fall.” (Guardini, R. (1956). The Lord. London: Longmans. (pp. 94-95, ellipsis in original)
Sunday, September 5, 2010
The Scientist at the Creation
Stephen Hawking has been taken to task for venturing into the turf of theologians, by the Word on Fire blog.
An excerpt.
“Father Barron weighs in on renown scientist Stephen Hawking's upcoming book release in which he offers his "scientific" view on the existence of a creator.
“So another prominent British academic has weighed in on the God question. Stephen Hawking, probably the best-known scientist in the world, has said, in a book to be published a week before the Pope’s visit to Britain, that the universe required no Creator. (I’m sure, of course, that there was no “intelligent design” behind that choice of publication date!). I confess that something in me tightens whenever I hear a scientist pontificating on issues that belong to the arena of philosophy or metaphysics. I will gladly listen to Stephen Hawking when he holds forth on matters of theoretical physics, but he’s as qualified to talk about philosophical and religious issues as any college freshman. There is a qualitative difference between the sciences, which speak of objects, forces, and phenomena within the observable universe, and philosophy or religion which speak of ultimate origins and final purposes. Science, as such, simply cannot adjudicate questions that lie outside of its proper purview—and this is precisely why scientists tend to make lots of silly statements when they attempt to philosophize.
“Here’s an example from Hawking’s latest book: “Because there is a law such as gravity, the Universe can and will create itself from nothing.” Well, first of all, which is it: nothing or the law of gravity? There’s quite a substantial difference between the two. If Hawking is saying that the universe, which is marked in every nook and cranny by stunning and mathematically describable intelligibility, simply came forth from Nothing, then I just throw up my hands. The classical philosophical tradition gives us an adage that is still hard to improve upon: ex nihilo nihil fit (from nothing comes nothing). Any teacher worth his salt would take a student to task if, in trying to explain why and how a given phenomenon occurred, the student were to say, “well, it just spontaneously happened.” Yet we are expected to be satisfied with precisely that explanation when it comes to the most pressing and fascinating question of all: why is there something rather than nothing? In my dialogues with atheists, I often come up against this total non-explanation, and I can only smile ruefully. Apparently, the affirmation of God involves far too great a leap of faith, yet the assertion that the universe just popped into being is rationally compelling!
“So suppose we say (to return to Hawking’s rather incoherent statement) that gravity is the ultimate cause of the universe. This would mean that a force within nature is the source of the being of the world. To be sure, this sort of claim has a long pedigree, stretching back at least to the pre-Socratics, but it remains highly problematic. The question “why is there something rather than nothing?” is not searching after a thing within the universe, but rather the being of the universe. It is wondering why (to use the technical term) contingent things exist, that is to say, things that do not contain within themselves the reason for their own being. You and I are contingent in the measure that we had parents, that we eat and drink, and that we breathe. In a word, we don’t explain ourselves. Now if we want to understand why we exist, we cannot go on endlessly appealing to other contingent things. We must come finally to some reality which exists through the power of its own essence, some power whose very nature it is to be. But that whose very nature it is to be cannot, in any sense, be limited or imperfect in being, and this is precisely why Catholic philosophy has identified this non-contingent ground of contingency, this ultimate explanation of the being of the universe, as “God.” To claim that something as finite and variable as the force of gravity is this ultimate explaining value is simply ludicrous. However all-embracing or powerful it is, gravity is still a worldly nature, something within the contingent cosmos.”
An excerpt.
“Father Barron weighs in on renown scientist Stephen Hawking's upcoming book release in which he offers his "scientific" view on the existence of a creator.
“So another prominent British academic has weighed in on the God question. Stephen Hawking, probably the best-known scientist in the world, has said, in a book to be published a week before the Pope’s visit to Britain, that the universe required no Creator. (I’m sure, of course, that there was no “intelligent design” behind that choice of publication date!). I confess that something in me tightens whenever I hear a scientist pontificating on issues that belong to the arena of philosophy or metaphysics. I will gladly listen to Stephen Hawking when he holds forth on matters of theoretical physics, but he’s as qualified to talk about philosophical and religious issues as any college freshman. There is a qualitative difference between the sciences, which speak of objects, forces, and phenomena within the observable universe, and philosophy or religion which speak of ultimate origins and final purposes. Science, as such, simply cannot adjudicate questions that lie outside of its proper purview—and this is precisely why scientists tend to make lots of silly statements when they attempt to philosophize.
“Here’s an example from Hawking’s latest book: “Because there is a law such as gravity, the Universe can and will create itself from nothing.” Well, first of all, which is it: nothing or the law of gravity? There’s quite a substantial difference between the two. If Hawking is saying that the universe, which is marked in every nook and cranny by stunning and mathematically describable intelligibility, simply came forth from Nothing, then I just throw up my hands. The classical philosophical tradition gives us an adage that is still hard to improve upon: ex nihilo nihil fit (from nothing comes nothing). Any teacher worth his salt would take a student to task if, in trying to explain why and how a given phenomenon occurred, the student were to say, “well, it just spontaneously happened.” Yet we are expected to be satisfied with precisely that explanation when it comes to the most pressing and fascinating question of all: why is there something rather than nothing? In my dialogues with atheists, I often come up against this total non-explanation, and I can only smile ruefully. Apparently, the affirmation of God involves far too great a leap of faith, yet the assertion that the universe just popped into being is rationally compelling!
“So suppose we say (to return to Hawking’s rather incoherent statement) that gravity is the ultimate cause of the universe. This would mean that a force within nature is the source of the being of the world. To be sure, this sort of claim has a long pedigree, stretching back at least to the pre-Socratics, but it remains highly problematic. The question “why is there something rather than nothing?” is not searching after a thing within the universe, but rather the being of the universe. It is wondering why (to use the technical term) contingent things exist, that is to say, things that do not contain within themselves the reason for their own being. You and I are contingent in the measure that we had parents, that we eat and drink, and that we breathe. In a word, we don’t explain ourselves. Now if we want to understand why we exist, we cannot go on endlessly appealing to other contingent things. We must come finally to some reality which exists through the power of its own essence, some power whose very nature it is to be. But that whose very nature it is to be cannot, in any sense, be limited or imperfect in being, and this is precisely why Catholic philosophy has identified this non-contingent ground of contingency, this ultimate explanation of the being of the universe, as “God.” To claim that something as finite and variable as the force of gravity is this ultimate explaining value is simply ludicrous. However all-embracing or powerful it is, gravity is still a worldly nature, something within the contingent cosmos.”
Saturday, September 4, 2010
Social Teaching & St. Gregory the Great
A powerful aspect of the social teaching of the Church—too little remarked on but well covered in the magisterial books by Rodger Charles SJ (the two volume work, Christian Social Witness and Teaching :The Catholic Tradition from Genesis to Centesimus Annus, and An Introduction to Catholic Social Teaching)—is the history of acts of charity that far preceded those of the world, noted in this profile of St. Gregory from Saint of the Day.
An excerpt.
“Coming events cast their shadows before: Gregory was the prefect of Rome before he was 30. After five years in office he resigned, founded six monasteries on his Sicilian estate and became a Benedictine monk in his own home at Rome.
“Ordained a priest, he became one of the pope's seven deacons, and also served six years in the East as papal representative in Constantinople. He was recalled to become abbot, and at the age of 50 was elected pope by the clergy and people of Rome.
“He was direct and firm. He removed unworthy priests from office, forbade taking money for many services, emptied the papal treasury to ransom prisoners of the Lombards and to care for persecuted Jews and the victims of plague and famine. He was very concerned about the conversion of England, sending 40 monks from his own monastery. He is known for his reform of the liturgy, for strengthening respect for doctrine. Whether he was largely responsible for the revision of "Gregorian" chant is disputed.
“Gregory lived in a time of perpetual strife with invading Lombards and difficult relations with the East. When Rome itself was under attack, he interviewed the Lombard king.
“An Anglican historian has written: "It is impossible to conceive what would have been the confusion, the lawlessness, the chaotic state of the Middle Ages without the medieval papacy; and of the medieval papacy, the real father is Gregory the Great."
An excerpt.
“Coming events cast their shadows before: Gregory was the prefect of Rome before he was 30. After five years in office he resigned, founded six monasteries on his Sicilian estate and became a Benedictine monk in his own home at Rome.
“Ordained a priest, he became one of the pope's seven deacons, and also served six years in the East as papal representative in Constantinople. He was recalled to become abbot, and at the age of 50 was elected pope by the clergy and people of Rome.
“He was direct and firm. He removed unworthy priests from office, forbade taking money for many services, emptied the papal treasury to ransom prisoners of the Lombards and to care for persecuted Jews and the victims of plague and famine. He was very concerned about the conversion of England, sending 40 monks from his own monastery. He is known for his reform of the liturgy, for strengthening respect for doctrine. Whether he was largely responsible for the revision of "Gregorian" chant is disputed.
“Gregory lived in a time of perpetual strife with invading Lombards and difficult relations with the East. When Rome itself was under attack, he interviewed the Lombard king.
“An Anglican historian has written: "It is impossible to conceive what would have been the confusion, the lawlessness, the chaotic state of the Middle Ages without the medieval papacy; and of the medieval papacy, the real father is Gregory the Great."
Friday, September 3, 2010
Reading the Catechism
As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve been reading the Catechism during the ten or fifteen minutes before Mass begins and this morning I read section 737, which helped me understand, at a much deeper level, the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives and that of the Church.
Here it is:
“The Holy Spirit and the Church
“737 The mission of Christ and the Holy Spirit is brought to completion in the Church, which is the Body of Christ and the Temple of the Holy Spirit. This joint mission henceforth brings Christ's faithful to share in his communion with the Father in the Holy Spirit. The Spirit prepares men and goes out to them with his grace, in order to draw them to Christ. The Spirit manifests the risen Lord to them, recalls his word to them and opens their minds to the understanding of his Death and Resurrection. He makes present the mystery of Christ, supremely in the Eucharist, in order to reconcile them, to bring them into communion with God, that they may "bear much fruit."
Here it is:
“The Holy Spirit and the Church
“737 The mission of Christ and the Holy Spirit is brought to completion in the Church, which is the Body of Christ and the Temple of the Holy Spirit. This joint mission henceforth brings Christ's faithful to share in his communion with the Father in the Holy Spirit. The Spirit prepares men and goes out to them with his grace, in order to draw them to Christ. The Spirit manifests the risen Lord to them, recalls his word to them and opens their minds to the understanding of his Death and Resurrection. He makes present the mystery of Christ, supremely in the Eucharist, in order to reconcile them, to bring them into communion with God, that they may "bear much fruit."
Thursday, September 2, 2010
The Poor and Marginalized
In his Sunday Angelus, the Holy Father talked about Christ’s ministry to them, and the meaning of humility and true giving.
An excerpt.
“In this Sunday's Gospel (Lk 14: 1, 7-14), we find Jesus as a guest dining at the house of a Pharisee leader. Noting that the guests were choosing the best places at table, he recounted a parable in the setting of a marriage feast. "When you are invited by any one to a marriage feast, do not sit down in a place of honour, lest a more eminent man than you be invited by him; and he who invited you both will come, and say to you, "Give place to this man'.... But when you are invited, go and sit in the lowest place" (Lk 14: 8-10). The Lord does not intend to give a lesson on etiquette or on the hierarchy of the different authorities. Rather, he insists on a crucial point, that of humility: "Every one who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted" (Lk 14: 11). A deeper meaning of this parable also makes us think of the position of the human being in relation to God. The "lowest place" can in fact represent the condition of humanity degraded by sin, a condition from which the Incarnation of the Only-Begotten Son alone can raise it. For this reason Christ himself "took the lowest place in the world the Cross and by this radical humility he redeemed us and constantly comes to our aid" (Encyclical Deus Caritas Est, n. 35).
“At the end of the parable Jesus suggests to the Pharisee leader that he invite to his table not his friends, kinsmen or rich neighbours, but rather poorer and more marginalized people who can in no way reciprocate (cf. Lk 14: 13-14), so that the gift may be given freely. The true reward, in fact, will ultimately be given by God, "who governs the world.... We offer him our service only to the extent that we can, and for as long as he grants us the strength" (Encyclical Deus Caritas Est, n. 35). Once again, therefore, let us look to Christ as a model of humility and of giving freely: let us learn from him patience in temptation, meekness in offence, obedience to God in suffering, in the hope that the One who has invited us will say to us: "Friend, go up higher" (cf. Lk 14: 10). Indeed, the true good is being close to him. St Louis IX, King of France whose Memorial was last Wednesday put into practice what is written in the Book of Sirach: "The greater you are, the more you must humble yourself; so you will find favour in the sight of the Lord" (3: 18). This is what the King wrote in his "Spiritual Testament to his son": "If the Lord grant you some prosperity, not only must you humbly thank him but take care not to become worse by boasting or in any other way, make sure, that is, that you do not come into conflict with God or offend him with his own gifts" (cf. Acta Sanctorum Augusti 5 [1868], 546).
An excerpt.
“In this Sunday's Gospel (Lk 14: 1, 7-14), we find Jesus as a guest dining at the house of a Pharisee leader. Noting that the guests were choosing the best places at table, he recounted a parable in the setting of a marriage feast. "When you are invited by any one to a marriage feast, do not sit down in a place of honour, lest a more eminent man than you be invited by him; and he who invited you both will come, and say to you, "Give place to this man'.... But when you are invited, go and sit in the lowest place" (Lk 14: 8-10). The Lord does not intend to give a lesson on etiquette or on the hierarchy of the different authorities. Rather, he insists on a crucial point, that of humility: "Every one who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted" (Lk 14: 11). A deeper meaning of this parable also makes us think of the position of the human being in relation to God. The "lowest place" can in fact represent the condition of humanity degraded by sin, a condition from which the Incarnation of the Only-Begotten Son alone can raise it. For this reason Christ himself "took the lowest place in the world the Cross and by this radical humility he redeemed us and constantly comes to our aid" (Encyclical Deus Caritas Est, n. 35).
“At the end of the parable Jesus suggests to the Pharisee leader that he invite to his table not his friends, kinsmen or rich neighbours, but rather poorer and more marginalized people who can in no way reciprocate (cf. Lk 14: 13-14), so that the gift may be given freely. The true reward, in fact, will ultimately be given by God, "who governs the world.... We offer him our service only to the extent that we can, and for as long as he grants us the strength" (Encyclical Deus Caritas Est, n. 35). Once again, therefore, let us look to Christ as a model of humility and of giving freely: let us learn from him patience in temptation, meekness in offence, obedience to God in suffering, in the hope that the One who has invited us will say to us: "Friend, go up higher" (cf. Lk 14: 10). Indeed, the true good is being close to him. St Louis IX, King of France whose Memorial was last Wednesday put into practice what is written in the Book of Sirach: "The greater you are, the more you must humble yourself; so you will find favour in the sight of the Lord" (3: 18). This is what the King wrote in his "Spiritual Testament to his son": "If the Lord grant you some prosperity, not only must you humbly thank him but take care not to become worse by boasting or in any other way, make sure, that is, that you do not come into conflict with God or offend him with his own gifts" (cf. Acta Sanctorum Augusti 5 [1868], 546).
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
Facing the Altar Together
Part of what drew us to attend a Latin Mass parish for some time awhile ago, were two major aspects, the mutual facing towards the altar and not performing the disruptive sign of peace, both of which contribute mightily to the individual interiority of the mass as one long prayer.
This article from Insight Scoop addresses one aspect.
An excerpt.
“A few days ago I made some passing remarks about ad orientem, which I did not flesh out for lack of time. Here, then, are some further thoughts—none of them my own, actually—on the topic, drawn from men (all priests, save one) who know far more than I do about the topic.
“Nearly thirty years ago, Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, in Feast of Faith: Approaches to a Theology of the Liturgy (Ignatius Press, 1986; German original, 1981. Also available as an e-book), "There is only one inner direction of the Eucharist, namely, from Christ in the Holy Spirit to the Father. The only question is how this can be best expressed in liturgical form" (p. 139). One of his concerns was to address the perception that the priest, celebrating Mass ad orientem, is "facing the wall" or, at best, "facing the tabernacle." This "misunderstanding alone," Ratzinger argued, "can explain the sweeping triumph of the new celebration facing the people, a change that has taken place with amazing unanimity and speed, without any mandate (and perhaps for that very reason!). All this would be inconceivable if it had not been preceded by a prior loss of meaning from within" (p. 142). The general view of the new celebration, he remarked:“is totally determined by the strongly felt community character of the eucharistic celebration, in which people and priest face each other in a dialogue relationship. This does express one aspect of the Eucharist. But the danger is that it can make the congregation into a closed circle which is no longer aware of the explosive trinitarian dynamism which gives the Eucharist its greatness. A truly liturgical education will have to use all its resources to counter this idea of an autonomous, complacent community. The community does not carry on a dialogue with itself; it is engaged on a common journey toward the returning Lord.” (pp. 142-3).
“In The Spirit of the Liturgy (Ignatius Press, 2000), Cardinal Ratzinger was even more direct: “On the other hand, a common turning to the East during the Eucharistic Prayer remains essential. This is not a case of something accidental, but of what is essential. Looking at the priest has no importance. What matters is looking together at the Lord. It is not now a question of dialogue, but of common worship, of setting off towards the One who is to come. What corresponds with the reality of what is happening is not the closed circle, but the common movement forward expressed in a common direction for prayer.”
This article from Insight Scoop addresses one aspect.
An excerpt.
“A few days ago I made some passing remarks about ad orientem, which I did not flesh out for lack of time. Here, then, are some further thoughts—none of them my own, actually—on the topic, drawn from men (all priests, save one) who know far more than I do about the topic.
“Nearly thirty years ago, Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, in Feast of Faith: Approaches to a Theology of the Liturgy (Ignatius Press, 1986; German original, 1981. Also available as an e-book), "There is only one inner direction of the Eucharist, namely, from Christ in the Holy Spirit to the Father. The only question is how this can be best expressed in liturgical form" (p. 139). One of his concerns was to address the perception that the priest, celebrating Mass ad orientem, is "facing the wall" or, at best, "facing the tabernacle." This "misunderstanding alone," Ratzinger argued, "can explain the sweeping triumph of the new celebration facing the people, a change that has taken place with amazing unanimity and speed, without any mandate (and perhaps for that very reason!). All this would be inconceivable if it had not been preceded by a prior loss of meaning from within" (p. 142). The general view of the new celebration, he remarked:“is totally determined by the strongly felt community character of the eucharistic celebration, in which people and priest face each other in a dialogue relationship. This does express one aspect of the Eucharist. But the danger is that it can make the congregation into a closed circle which is no longer aware of the explosive trinitarian dynamism which gives the Eucharist its greatness. A truly liturgical education will have to use all its resources to counter this idea of an autonomous, complacent community. The community does not carry on a dialogue with itself; it is engaged on a common journey toward the returning Lord.” (pp. 142-3).
“In The Spirit of the Liturgy (Ignatius Press, 2000), Cardinal Ratzinger was even more direct: “On the other hand, a common turning to the East during the Eucharistic Prayer remains essential. This is not a case of something accidental, but of what is essential. Looking at the priest has no importance. What matters is looking together at the Lord. It is not now a question of dialogue, but of common worship, of setting off towards the One who is to come. What corresponds with the reality of what is happening is not the closed circle, but the common movement forward expressed in a common direction for prayer.”
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
