SPECIAL ASSEMBLY FOR THE MIDDLE EAST OF THE SYNOD OF BISHOPS
MEDITATION OF HIS HOLINESS BENEDICT XVI DURING THE FIRST GENERAL CONGREGATION
Synod HallMonday, 11 October 2010
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
On 11 October 1962, 48 years ago, Pope John XXIII inaugurated Vatican Council II. At the time, on 11 October, the feast day of the Divine Motherhood of Mary was celebrated and, with this gesture, with this date, Pope John wished to entrust the whole Council into the motherly hands and maternal heart of Our Lady. We too begin on 11 October. We too wish to entrust this Synod, with all its problems, with all its challenges, with all its hopes, to the maternal heart of the Our Lady, the Mother of God.
Pius XI, introduced this feast day in 1931, 1,500 years after the Council of Ephesus, which had legitimated, for Mary, the title of Theotókos, Dei Genitrix. With this great word Dei Genitrix, Theotókos, the Council of Ephesus had summarized the entire doctrine of Christ, of Mary, the whole of the doctrine of redemption. So it would be worthwhile to reflect briefly, for a moment, on what was said during the Council of Ephesus, on what this day means.
In reality, Theotókos is a courageous title. A woman is the Mother of God. One could say: how is this possible? God is eternal, he is the Creator. We are creatures, we are in time: how could a human being be the Mother of God, of the Eternal One, since we are all in time, we are all creatures? Therefore one can understand that there was some strong opposition, in part, to this term. The Nestorians used to say: one can speak about Christotókos, yes, but Theotókos no: Theós, God, is beyond, above the events of history. But the Council decided this, and thus enlightened the adventure of God, the greatness of what he has done for us. God did not remain in Himself: he came out of himself, He united himself so closely, so radically to this man, Jesus, that this man Jesus is God, and if we speak about Him, we can also speak always about God. Not only was a man born who had something to do with God, but in Him was born God on earth. God came from himself. But we could also say the opposite: God drew us to Himself, so that we are no longer outside of God, but we are within the intimate, the intimacy of God Himself.
Aristotelian philosophy, as we well know, tells us that between God and man there is only a non-reciprocal relationship. Man refers to God, but God, the Eternal, is in Himself, He does not change: He cannot have this relationship today and another relationship tomorrow. He is within Himself, He does not have ad extra relations. It is a very logical term, but it is also a word that makes us despair: so God himself has no relationship with me. With the Incarnation, with the event of the Theotókos, this radically changed, because God drew us into Himself and God in Himself is the relationship and allows us to participate in His interior relationship. Thus we are in His being Father, Son and Holy Spirit, we are within His being in relationship, we are in relationship with Him and He truly created a relationship with us. At that moment, God wished to be born from woman and to remain Himself always: this is the great event. And thus we can understand the depth of the act of Pope John, who entrusted the Council, the Synodal Assembly to the central mystery, to the Mother of God who is drawn by the Lord into Himself, and thus all of us with Her.
The Council began with the icon of the Theotókos. Upon its closure, Pope Paul VI recognized Our Lady with the title of Mater Ecclesiae. And these two icons, which begin and end the Council, are intrinsically linked, and are, in the end, a single icon because Christ was not born like any other individual. He was born to create a body for Himself: He was born as John says in Chapter 12 of his Gospel to attract all to Him and in Him. He was born as it says in the Letters to the Colossians and to the Ephesians to deliver the whole world. He was born as the firstborn of many brothers. He was born to unite the cosmos in Him, so that He is the Head of a great Body. Where Christ is born, the movement of recapitulation begins, the moment of the calling begins, of construction of his Body, of the Holy Church. The Mother of Theós, the Mother of God, is the Mother of the Church, because she is the Mother of the One who came to unite all in His resurrected Body.
St Luke leads us to understand this in the parallel between the first chapter of his book and the first chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, which repeat the same mystery on two different levels. In the first chapter of the Gospel the Holy Spirit comes upon Mary and thus she gives birth, giving us the Son of God. In the first chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, Mary is in the midst of Jesus' disciples who are praying together, pleading with the cloud of the Holy Spirit. And thus from the believing Church, with Mary at its heart, is born the Church, the Body of Christ. This dual birth is the only birth of the Christus totus, of the Christ who embraces the world and all of us.
Birth in Bethlehem, birth of the Upper Room. Birth of the Infant Jesus, birth of the Body of Christ, of the Church. These are two events or the one event. But between the two lie truly the Cross and the Resurrection. And only through the Cross is the way towards the totality of Christ, towards His resurrected Body, towards the universalization of His being in the unity of the Church. And thus, bearing in mind that only from a grain of wheat fallen into the earth can a great harvest be reaped, from the Lord pierced on the Cross comes the universality of His disciples gathered in this His Body, dead and risen.
Keeping this connection between Theotókos and Mater Ecclesiae in mind, we turn our attention to the last book of the Holy Scripture, Revelation, where, in chapter 12, we can find this synthesis. The woman clothed with the sun, with 12 stars on her head and the moon at her feet, gives birth. And she gives birth with a cry of pain. She gives birth with great suffering. Here the Marian mystery is the mystery of Bethlehem extended to the cosmic mystery. Christ is always reborn in every generation and thus he assumes the gathering of humanity within Himself. And this cosmic birth is achieved in the cry of the Cross, in the suffering of the Passion. And the blood of the martyrs belongs to this cry of the Cross.
So, at this moment, we can look at the second Psalm of this Midday Prayer, Psalm 81, where we can see part of this process. God is among gods they are still considered as gods in Israel. In this Psalm, in a great concentration, in a prophetic vision, we can see the power taken from the gods. Those that seemed gods are not gods, lose their divine characteristics, and fall to earth. Dii estis et moriemini sicut nomine (cf. Ps 81: 6-7): the weakening of power, the fall of the divinities.
This process that is achieved along the path of faith of Israel, and which is summed up here in one vision, is the true process of the history of religion: the fall of the gods. And thus the transformation of the world, the knowledge of the true God, the loss of power by the forces that dominate the world, is a process of suffering. In the history of Israel we can see how this liberation from polytheism, this recognition "Only He is God" is achieved with great pain, beginning with the path of Abraham, the exile, the Maccabeans, to Christ. And this process of the loss of power, spoken in the Book of Revelation, chapter 12 continues throughout history; it mentions the fall of the angels, which are not truly angels, they are not divinities on earth. And it is achieved truly, right at the time of the rising Church, where we can see how with the blood of the martyrs comes the weakening of the divinities, starting with the divine emperor, from all these divinities. It is the blood of the martyrs, the suffering, the cry of Mother Church that brings about their fall and thus transforms the world.
This fall is not only the knowledge that they are not God; it is the process of transformation of the world, which costs blood, costs the suffering of witnesses of Christ. And, if we look closely, we can see that this process never ends. It is achieved in various periods of history in ever new ways; even today, at this moment in which Christ, the only Son of God, must be born for the world with the fall of the gods, with pain, the martyrdom of witnesses. Let us remember all the great powers of the history of today. Let us remember the anonymous capital that enslaves man which is no longer in man's possession but is an anonymous power served by men, by which men are tormented and even killed. It is a destructive power that threatens the world. And then there is the power of terroristic ideologies. Violent acts are apparently made in the name of God, but this is not God: they are false divinities that must be unmasked; they are not God. And then drugs, this power that, like a voracious beast, extends its claws to all parts of the world and destroys it: it is a divinity, but a false divinity that must fall. Or even the way of living proclaimed by public opinion: today we must do things like this, marriage no longer counts, chastity is no longer a virtue, and so on.
These ideologies that dominate, that impose themselves forcefully, are divinities. And in the pain of the Saints, in the suffering of believers, of the Mother Church which we are a part of, these divinities must fall. What is said in the Letters to the Colossians and to the Ephesians must be done: the domination, the powers fall and become subjects of the one Lord Jesus Christ. Concerning this battle in which we find ourselves, of this taking power away from God, of this fall of false gods, that fall because they are not deities, but powers that can destroy the world, chapter 12 of Revelations mentions these, even if with a mysterious image, for which, I believe, there are many different and beautiful interpretations. It has been said that the dragon places a large river of water before the fleeing woman to overcome her. And it would seem inevitable that the woman will drown in this river. But the good earth absorbs this river and it cannot be harmful. I think that the river is easily interpreted: these are the currents that dominate all and wish to make faith in the Church disappear, the Church that seems no longer to have a place in the face of the force of these currents that impose themselves as the only rationality, as the only way to live. And the earth that absorbs these currents is the faith of the simple people, that does not allow itself to be overcome by these rivers and that saves the Mother and saves the Son. This is why the Psalm says the first psalm of the Hour the faith of the simple at heart is the true wisdom (cf. Ps 118: 130). This true wisdom of simple faith, that does not allow itself to be swamped by the waters, is the force of the Church. And we have returned to the Marian mystery.
And there is also a final word in Psalm 81, "movebuntur omnia fundamenta terrae" (Ps 81: 5), the foundations of the earth are shaken. We see this today, with the climatic problems, how the foundations of the earth are shaken, how they are threatened by our behavior. The external foundations are shaken because the internal foundations are shaken, the moral and religious foundations, the faith that follows the right way of living. And we know that faith is the foundation, and, undoubtedly, the foundations of the earth cannot be shaken if they remain close to the faith, to true wisdom.
Then the Psalm says: "Arise, God, judge the world" (Ps 81: 8). Thus we say to the Lord: "Arise at this moment, take the world in your hands, protect your Church, protect humanity, protect the earth". And we once again entrust ourselves to the Mother of God, Mary, and pray: "You, the great believer, you who have opened the earth to the heavens, help us, open the doors today as well, that truth may win, the will of God, which is the true good, the true salvation of the world". Amen.
Friday, December 31, 2010
Sunday, December 26, 2010
BXVI Christmas Address
Benedict XVI's Christmas Message
"May the Birth of the Savior Open Horizons of Lasting Peace"
VATICAN CITY, DEC. 25, 2010 (Zenit.org)
* * *
Verbum caro factum est" – "The Word became flesh" (Jn 1:14).
Dear brothers and sisters listening to me here in Rome and throughout the world, I joyfully proclaim the message of Christmas: God became man; he came to dwell among us. God is not distant: he is "Emmanuel", God-with-us. He is no stranger: he has a face, the face of Jesus.
This message is ever new, ever surprising, for it surpasses even our most daring hope. First of all, because it is not merely a proclamation: it is an event, a happening, which credible witnesses saw, heard and touched in the person of Jesus of Nazareth! Being in his presence, observing his works and hearing his words, they recognized in Jesus the Messiah; and seeing him risen, after his crucifixion, they were certain that he was true man and true God, the only-begotten Son come from the Father, full of grace and truth (cf. Jn 1:14).
"The Word became flesh". Before this revelation we once more wonder: how can this be? The Word and the flesh are mutually opposed realities;
i.e. how can the Creator and the created form one single reality, one being?
how can the eternal and almighty Word become a frail and mortal man? There is only one answer: Love.
by "Love," Benedict is not talking about an action of will, but a divine Person as pure Relation! We cannot know this except by experiencing it as becoming relational ourselves.
Those who love desire to share with the beloved, they want to be one with the beloved, and Sacred Scripture shows us the great love story of God for his people which culminated in Jesus Christ.
God in fact does not change: he is faithful to himself. He who created the world is the same one who called Abraham and revealed his name to Moses: "I am who I am … the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob … a God merciful and gracious, abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness (cf. Ex 3:14-15; 34:6). God does not change; he is Love, ever and always. In himself he is communion, unity in Trinity, and all his words and works are directed to communion. The Incarnation is the culmination of creation. When Jesus, the Son of God incarnate, was formed in the womb of Mary by the will of the Father and the working of the Holy Spirit, creation reached its high point. The ordering principle of the universe, the Logos, began to exist in the world, in a certain time and space.
"The Word became flesh". The light of this truth is revealed to those who receive it in faith, for it is a mystery of love. Only those who are open to love are enveloped in the light of Christmas. So it was on that night in Bethlehem, and so it is today. The Incarnation of the Son of God is an event which occurred within history, while at the same time transcending history. In the night of the world a new light was kindled, one which lets itself be seen by the simple eyes of faith, by the meek and humble hearts of those who await the Saviour. If the truth were a mere mathematical formula, in some sense it would impose itself by its own power. But if Truth is Love, it calls for faith, for the "yes" of our hearts.
And what do our hearts, in effect, seek, if not a Truth which is also Love? Children seek it with their questions, so disarming and stimulating; young people seek it in their eagerness to discover the deepest meaning of their life; adults seek it in order to guide and sustain their commitments in the family and the workplace; the elderly seek it in order to grant completion to their earthly existence.
"The Word became flesh". The proclamation of Christmas is also a light for all peoples, for the collective journey of humanity. "Emmanuel", God-with-us, has come as King of justice and peace. We know that his Kingdom is not of this world, and yet it is more important than all the kingdoms of this world. It is like the leaven of humanity: were it lacking, the energy to work for true development would flag: the impulse to work together for the common good, in the disinterested service of our neighbour, in the peaceful struggle for justice. Belief in the God who desired to share in our history constantly encourages us in our own commitment to that history, for all its contradictions. It is a source of hope for everyone whose dignity is offended and violated, since the one born in Bethlehem came to set every man and woman free from the source of all enslavement.
May the light of Christmas shine forth anew in the Land where Jesus was born, and inspire Israelis and Palestinians to strive for a just and peaceful coexistence. May the comforting message of the coming of Emmanuel ease the pain and bring consolation amid their trials to the beloved Christian communities in Iraq and throughout the Middle East; may it bring them comfort and hope for the future and bring the leaders of nations to show them effective solidarity. May it also be so for those in Haiti who still suffer in the aftermath of the devastating earthquake and the recent cholera epidemic. May the same hold true not only for those in Colombia and Venezuela, but also in Guatemala and Costa Rica, who recently suffered natural disasters.
"May the Birth of the Savior Open Horizons of Lasting Peace"
VATICAN CITY, DEC. 25, 2010 (Zenit.org)
* * *
Verbum caro factum est" – "The Word became flesh" (Jn 1:14).
Dear brothers and sisters listening to me here in Rome and throughout the world, I joyfully proclaim the message of Christmas: God became man; he came to dwell among us. God is not distant: he is "Emmanuel", God-with-us. He is no stranger: he has a face, the face of Jesus.
This message is ever new, ever surprising, for it surpasses even our most daring hope. First of all, because it is not merely a proclamation: it is an event, a happening, which credible witnesses saw, heard and touched in the person of Jesus of Nazareth! Being in his presence, observing his works and hearing his words, they recognized in Jesus the Messiah; and seeing him risen, after his crucifixion, they were certain that he was true man and true God, the only-begotten Son come from the Father, full of grace and truth (cf. Jn 1:14).
"The Word became flesh". Before this revelation we once more wonder: how can this be? The Word and the flesh are mutually opposed realities;
i.e. how can the Creator and the created form one single reality, one being?
how can the eternal and almighty Word become a frail and mortal man? There is only one answer: Love.
by "Love," Benedict is not talking about an action of will, but a divine Person as pure Relation! We cannot know this except by experiencing it as becoming relational ourselves.
Those who love desire to share with the beloved, they want to be one with the beloved, and Sacred Scripture shows us the great love story of God for his people which culminated in Jesus Christ.
God in fact does not change: he is faithful to himself. He who created the world is the same one who called Abraham and revealed his name to Moses: "I am who I am … the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob … a God merciful and gracious, abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness (cf. Ex 3:14-15; 34:6). God does not change; he is Love, ever and always. In himself he is communion, unity in Trinity, and all his words and works are directed to communion. The Incarnation is the culmination of creation. When Jesus, the Son of God incarnate, was formed in the womb of Mary by the will of the Father and the working of the Holy Spirit, creation reached its high point. The ordering principle of the universe, the Logos, began to exist in the world, in a certain time and space.
"The Word became flesh". The light of this truth is revealed to those who receive it in faith, for it is a mystery of love. Only those who are open to love are enveloped in the light of Christmas. So it was on that night in Bethlehem, and so it is today. The Incarnation of the Son of God is an event which occurred within history, while at the same time transcending history. In the night of the world a new light was kindled, one which lets itself be seen by the simple eyes of faith, by the meek and humble hearts of those who await the Saviour. If the truth were a mere mathematical formula, in some sense it would impose itself by its own power. But if Truth is Love, it calls for faith, for the "yes" of our hearts.
And what do our hearts, in effect, seek, if not a Truth which is also Love? Children seek it with their questions, so disarming and stimulating; young people seek it in their eagerness to discover the deepest meaning of their life; adults seek it in order to guide and sustain their commitments in the family and the workplace; the elderly seek it in order to grant completion to their earthly existence.
"The Word became flesh". The proclamation of Christmas is also a light for all peoples, for the collective journey of humanity. "Emmanuel", God-with-us, has come as King of justice and peace. We know that his Kingdom is not of this world, and yet it is more important than all the kingdoms of this world. It is like the leaven of humanity: were it lacking, the energy to work for true development would flag: the impulse to work together for the common good, in the disinterested service of our neighbour, in the peaceful struggle for justice. Belief in the God who desired to share in our history constantly encourages us in our own commitment to that history, for all its contradictions. It is a source of hope for everyone whose dignity is offended and violated, since the one born in Bethlehem came to set every man and woman free from the source of all enslavement.
May the light of Christmas shine forth anew in the Land where Jesus was born, and inspire Israelis and Palestinians to strive for a just and peaceful coexistence. May the comforting message of the coming of Emmanuel ease the pain and bring consolation amid their trials to the beloved Christian communities in Iraq and throughout the Middle East; may it bring them comfort and hope for the future and bring the leaders of nations to show them effective solidarity. May it also be so for those in Haiti who still suffer in the aftermath of the devastating earthquake and the recent cholera epidemic. May the same hold true not only for those in Colombia and Venezuela, but also in Guatemala and Costa Rica, who recently suffered natural disasters.
Saturday, December 25, 2010
Two Texts of Benedict XVI on the Family
1) Sly Atheism: Since God is a Communion of Three, to undo the “primordial sacrament” of that “Three” by undermining the mutual self-giving of the two with openness to procreation is to impose atheism.
The Home: Unique Space of Salvation
"In the Bible, salvation does not take place in the Temple or synagogue. It takes place in the home. The avenging angel in his mission to destroy the first born of man and animal “passed over” the homes of those who had the blood of the paschal lamb sprinkled over the doorposts of their homes. 1) “Israel’s Passover was and is a family celebration. It is celebrated in the home, not in the Temple. In the history of the foundation of the People of Israel, in Exodus (12, 1-14), it is the home which is the locus of salvation and refuge in that night of darkness in which the Angel of Death walked abroad. For Egypt, in contrast, that night spelled the power of death, of destruction, of chaos, things that continually rise up from the deep places of the world and of man, threatening to wreck the good creation and reduce the world to an uninhabitable wilderness. In this situation it is the home, the family, which provides protection; in other words, the world always needs to be defended against chaos, creation always needs shielding and recreating. In the calendar of the nomads from whom Israel adopted the Passover festival, Passover was New Year’s Day, i.e., the day on which the creation was refounded, when it had to be defended once again against the inroads of the void. The home, the family is life’s protective rampart, the place of security, of `shalom,’ of that peace and togetherness which lives and lets live, which holds the world together. “In the time of Jesus, too, Passover was celebrated in the homes and in families, following the slaughter of the lambs in the Temple. A regulation forbade anyone to leave the city of Jerusalem in the night of the Passover. The entire city was felt to be the locus of salvation over against the chaotic night, its walls the rampart protecting the creation. Israel had to make a pilgrimage, as it were, to the city every year at Passover in order to return to its origins, to be recreated and to experience once again its rescue, liberation and foundation. A very deep insight lies behind this. In the course of a year, a people is always in danger of disintegrating, not only through external causes, but also interiorly, and of losing hold of the inner motivation which sustains it. It needs to return to its fundamental origin. Passover was intended to be this annual event in which Israel returned from the threatening chaos (which lurks in every people) to its sustaining origin; it was meant to be the renewed defense and recreation of Israel in the basis of its origin. And since Israel knew that the star of its election stood in the heavens, it also knew that its fortunes, for good or ill, had consequences of the whole world; it knew that the destiny of the earth and of creation was involved in its response, whether it failed or passed the test. “Jesus too celebrated the Passover according to these prescriptions, at home with his family; that is to say, with the Apostles, who had become his new family. In doing so he was observing a current rule which permitted pilgrims who were traveling to Jerusalem to form companies, the so-called habhuroth, who would constitute a family, a Passover unity, for this night. That is how Passover became a Christian feast. We are Christ’s habhura, his family, formed of his pilgrim company, of the friends who accompany him along the path of the gospel through the terrain of history. Companions of his pilgrimage, we constitute Christ’s house; thus, the Church is the new family, the new city, and for us she signifies all that Jerusalem was – that living home which banishes the powers of chaos and makes an area of peace, which upholds both creation and us. The Church is the new city by being the family of Jesus, the living Jerusalem, and her faith is the rampart and wall against the chaotic powers that threaten to bring destruction upon the world. Her ramparts are strengthened by the blood of the true Lamb, Jesus Christ, that is, by love which goes to the very end and which is endless. It is this love which is the true counterforce to chaos: it is the creative power which continually establishes the world afresh, providing new foundations for peoples and families, thus giving us `shalom,’ the realm of peace in which we can live with, for and unto one another. There are many reasons, I believe, why we should take a new look at these factors at this time and allow ourselves to respond to them. For today we are quite tangibly experiencing the power of chaos. We experience the primal, chaotic powers rising up from the very midst of a progressive society – which seems to know everything and be able to do anything – and attacking the very progress of which it is so proud. We see how, in the midst of prosperity, technological achievement and the scientific domination of the world, a nation can be destroyed from within, we see how the creation can be threatened by the chaotic powers which lurk in the depths of the human heart. We realize that neither money nor technology nor organizational ability alone can banish chaos. Only the real protective wall given to us by the Lord, the new family he has created for us, can do this. From this standpoint, it seems to me, this Passover celebration which has come down to us from the nomads, via Israel and through Christ, also has (in the deepest sense) an eminently political significance. We as a nation, we in Europe, need to be back to our spiritual roots, lest we become lost in self-destruction. “This feast needs to become a family celebration once again, for it is the family that is the real bastion of creation and humanity. Passover is a summons, urgently reminding us that the family is the loving home in which humanity is nurtured, which banishes chaos and futility, that the family can only be this sphere of humanity, this bastion of creation, if it is under the banner of the Lamb, if it is protected by the power of faith which comes from the love of Jesus Christ. The individual family cannot survive; it will disintegrate unless it is kept safe within the larger family which guarantees it and gives it security.”
* * * * * * * * * * * *
2). “In the letter which Saint Ignatius of Antioch – on his way to martyrdom in Rome – wrote to the Christians of Ephesus, there is a phrase, difficult to translate, of great density, which powerfully calls the attention of the reader. I refer to that which appears in chapter 16 of the letter: “My brothers, do not deceive yourselves: Whoever perverts the home will not inherit the Kingdom of God (verse 1). Who are these persons, those who `pervert home’? In what does this action consist that is incompatible with the Kingdom of God, that is, with the goal of all human existence and of the whole history of man? To understand the phrase more deeply, it is necessary to keep in mind that in Greek – in a form that is very similar to the which occurs in Semitic languages – the word `home’ in it first sense does not mean the building of stone, but the family community understood in its widest sense – the grandparents, the parents, the sons, the servants-; life in common is what builds houses of stone or wood. The term `home,’ in its fundamental meaning, alludes, therefore, to something alive, to that original form of community between men which results from ties of descent, or of blood, and that by nature develop necessarily to form the space of fidelity, of living with and for the others, the space in which life is transmitted, learned and protected, not only in the biological sense, but in all its dimensions. Well, since the sources of life of `being a person’ are tied to mystery and since its conservation and adequate development need great protection, the home – understood in this way – is under the protection of the power of the holy: it has a sacred character. Therefore, whoever damages the vital world of the home, has raised his hand at the same time against the holy: this has been the common conviction of all the great and old cultures. “After these considerations, we can return to the letter of Saint Ignatius to the Ephesians. The received Latin version reproduces in a very adequate way – if what we have set forth above is correct – the idea of the martyr bishop: it translates the phrase in question by `familiarum perturbatores,’ that is: those who confuse and destroy families. The passage of Saint Ignatius, besides, is supported by a quotation of Saint Paul which points in the same direction, and which the Bishop of Antioch simplifies and makes exact at the same time. Saint Paul had written: `Don’t deceive yourselves: neither the fornicators, nor the idolaters, nor the effeminate, nor the sodomites… will inherit the Kingdom of God (1 Cor. 6, 9 s.). Saint Ignatius, instead of this variety of sins that Saint Paul mentions, refers to the good that is threatened and must be protected: the home, this protecting space that is the source of `being a person,’ the home which must be protected as a holy place. In this way, the original human way of knowing passes over in an immediate way into Christian faith. However perverts the home, whoever is the cause of the home being lost is destroying the conditions for God to live and reign in the world. On the one hand, man can only live and communicate in peace when he is under the protection of the holy; and on the other, God only can find a `place to live’ among men there where they have become a “home,” where – with other words – the ties and blood relations have converted in an ordered life-with-others where man learns that to live is `to be in relation’ by opening himself thus to the fundamental relation of his life, or obedience to God. When Ignatius of Antioch sums up and classifies the different sins enumerated by Saint Paul, he calls them `perdition and destruction of the family,’ and thus puts in relief that `to destroy’ the family is to go against the Kingdom of God. In doing this, he is, perhaps, the first in expressing with all clarity the eminently theological character of the family. At the same time, it becomes evident that all the forms of disintegration of the life of men cited by Saint Pal come from the perversion of the fundamental relations which mean `home.’ All these sins have their source in `being isolated,’ in the ignorance or the negation of `habitating’ and of `building,’ in the dissolution of that multiform structure of relations on which rest the health – in the most profound sense of the term – of the human condition. “All of these ideas acquire a poignant meaning today before the tremendous rupture with the tradition that postmodernity has introduced and continues to introduce in its extreme radicality. It’s enough to consider that there exist great modern cities in which more than half of their inhabitants are `singles,’ persons who would see establishing a permanent tie or relation as a limitation of their freedom, and who, therefore, are not disposed to commit themselves and leave their `isolation.’ This dissolution of the `home’ is reflected also exteriorly in the construction of houses in the service of the individualism of a fragmented human life, according to which the function of the living quarters consists in `protecting’ the lack of relations. In this context, the family appears as a forma of slavery; paternity and maternity, as an insult. There is no place, for the vision of paternity and maternity understood as service to life, which is, by nature, to make space for a new existence that is a free autonomy. Nor is it possible to see that filiation is to accept being in the sense of `dependency’ and, therefore accepting `being a person’ in all of its open character. And together with this disintegration of `being a person,’ the conditions for knowing God and to give an account of his existence are undermined. More than 40 years ago, Romano Guardini wrote some words full of sense: `The phrase… “He who sees me, sees the Father” (Jn. 14, 9), have also an inverse meaning: “He who does not see the Father, fails to see me also.” We are not trying to accuse concrete persons who suffer `isolation,’ but rather to recall the phrase of Saint Ignatius whereby anyone despising and dissolving the family - and in this way dragging person into `isolation’ - are closing the door on the Kingdom of God and on that form of human life in which `living-together’ with God is the foundation of peace and fullness of the world. “Before these tendencies, an urgent task of the Church consists in being the protector of the family, safeguarding that original evidential character, taken up and deepened by Christianity, the knowledge that the sanctity of the `home’ means defending thus the dignity and the truth of `being person’” Notes:
[1] J. Ratzinger, “Behold the Pierced One, Ignatius (1986) 103-106.
[2] J. Ratzinger, “Prologue” Enchiridion Familiae, Vol. Rialp, Madrid1992. pp. CXV.
[1] Vol. Rialp, Madrid1992. pp. CXV.
BXVI on Newman - Roman Curia 12/22/2010
“…we must learn from Newman’s three conversions, because they were steps along a spiritual path that concerns us all. Here I would like to emphasize just the first conversion: to faith in the living God. Until that moment, Newman thought like the average men of his time and indeed like the average men of today, who do not simply exclude the existence of God, but consider it as something uncertain, something with no essential role to play in their lives. What appeared genuinely real to him, as to the men of his and our day, is the empirical, matter that can be grasped. This is the “reality” according to which one finds one’s bearings. The “real” is what can be grasped, it is the things that can be calculated and taken in one’s hand. In his conversion, Newman recognized that it is exactly the other way round: that God and the soul, man’s spiritual identity, constitute what is genuinely real, what counts. These are much more real than objects that can be grasped. This conversion was a Copernican revolution. What had previously seemed unreal and secondary was now revealed to be the genuinely decisive element. Where such a conversion takes place, it is not just a person’s theory that changes: the fundamental shape of life changes. We are all in constant need of such conversion: then we are on the right path.
The driving force that impelled Newman along the path of conversion was conscience. But what does this mean? In modern thinking, the word “conscience” signifies that for moral and religious questions, it is the subjective dimension, the individual, that constitutes the final authority for decision. The world is divided into the realms of the objective and the subjective. To the objective realm belong things that can be calculated and verified by experiment. Religion and morals fall outside the scope of these methods and are therefore considered to lie within the subjective realm. Here, it is said, there are in the final analysis no objective criteria. The ultimate instance that can decide here is therefore the subject alone, and precisely this is what the word “conscience” expresses: in this realm only the individual, with his intuitions and experiences, can decide. Newman’s understanding of conscience is diametrically opposed to this. For him, “conscience” means man’s capacity for truth: the capacity to recognize precisely in the decision-making areas of his life – religion and morals – a truth, the truth. At the same time, conscience – man’s capacity to recognize truth – thereby imposes on him the obligation to set out along the path towards truth, to seek it and to submit to it wherever he finds it. Conscience is both capacity for truth and obedience to the truth which manifests itself to anyone who seeks it with an open heart. The path of Newman’s conversions is a path of conscience – not a path of self-asserting subjectivity but, on the contrary, a path of obedience to the truth that was gradually opening up to him. His third conversion, to Catholicism, required him to give up almost everything that was dear and precious to him: possessions, profession, academic rank, family ties and many friends. The sacrifice demanded of him by obedience to the truth, by his conscience, went further still. Newman had always been aware of having a mission for England. But in the Catholic theology of his time, his voice could hardly make itself heard. It was too foreign in the context of the prevailing form of theological thought and devotion. In January 1863 he wrote in his diary these distressing words: “As a Protestant, I felt my religion dreary, but not my life - but, as a Catholic, my life dreary, not my religion”. He had not yet arrived at the hour when he would be an influential figure. In the humility and darkness of obedience, he had to wait until his message was taken up and understood. In support of the claim that Newman’s concept of conscience matched the modern subjective understanding, people often quote a letter in which he said – should he have to propose a toast – that he would drink first to conscience and then to the Pope. But in this statement, “conscience” does not signify the ultimately binding quality of subjective intuition. It is an expression of the accessibility and the binding force of truth: on this its primacy is based. The second toast can be dedicated to the Pope because it is his task to demand obedience to the truth.”[1]
[1] Benedict XVI To the Curia Romana, December 22, 2010.
The driving force that impelled Newman along the path of conversion was conscience. But what does this mean? In modern thinking, the word “conscience” signifies that for moral and religious questions, it is the subjective dimension, the individual, that constitutes the final authority for decision. The world is divided into the realms of the objective and the subjective. To the objective realm belong things that can be calculated and verified by experiment. Religion and morals fall outside the scope of these methods and are therefore considered to lie within the subjective realm. Here, it is said, there are in the final analysis no objective criteria. The ultimate instance that can decide here is therefore the subject alone, and precisely this is what the word “conscience” expresses: in this realm only the individual, with his intuitions and experiences, can decide. Newman’s understanding of conscience is diametrically opposed to this. For him, “conscience” means man’s capacity for truth: the capacity to recognize precisely in the decision-making areas of his life – religion and morals – a truth, the truth. At the same time, conscience – man’s capacity to recognize truth – thereby imposes on him the obligation to set out along the path towards truth, to seek it and to submit to it wherever he finds it. Conscience is both capacity for truth and obedience to the truth which manifests itself to anyone who seeks it with an open heart. The path of Newman’s conversions is a path of conscience – not a path of self-asserting subjectivity but, on the contrary, a path of obedience to the truth that was gradually opening up to him. His third conversion, to Catholicism, required him to give up almost everything that was dear and precious to him: possessions, profession, academic rank, family ties and many friends. The sacrifice demanded of him by obedience to the truth, by his conscience, went further still. Newman had always been aware of having a mission for England. But in the Catholic theology of his time, his voice could hardly make itself heard. It was too foreign in the context of the prevailing form of theological thought and devotion. In January 1863 he wrote in his diary these distressing words: “As a Protestant, I felt my religion dreary, but not my life - but, as a Catholic, my life dreary, not my religion”. He had not yet arrived at the hour when he would be an influential figure. In the humility and darkness of obedience, he had to wait until his message was taken up and understood. In support of the claim that Newman’s concept of conscience matched the modern subjective understanding, people often quote a letter in which he said – should he have to propose a toast – that he would drink first to conscience and then to the Pope. But in this statement, “conscience” does not signify the ultimately binding quality of subjective intuition. It is an expression of the accessibility and the binding force of truth: on this its primacy is based. The second toast can be dedicated to the Pope because it is his task to demand obedience to the truth.”[1]
[1] Benedict XVI To the Curia Romana, December 22, 2010.
Christmas 2010
With the Incarnation, the hegemonic epistemology of sense experience and abstract knowing is shattered. There is something else going on than adding the divine to the human. It is not that God is infinitely greater than man. He is. But even more significant is the fact that He is Other. As Creator and a fortiori as Redeemer, He is in the world. But His intrinsic Self is not part of the world. It’s not that God is Spirit that is different. Spirit is also part of the world. Rather, as everything is in itself, He is for other. When He became flesh, His flesh was in the world, but what He took from the Virgin became for other and therefore could not be perceived in its for-otherness. It could be sensed as in the world, but it could not be recognized as His because He is not for himself, and the world without Him is for itself. Therefore, He is not in the world as world is in itself. And so, the flesh that He assimilated from the Virgin went through a profound change. It entered another dimension of being and therefore another way of knowing. It continued to be flesh, but not existing in itself. It is flesh for others.
Newman: Subject, Object and Relation.
Below, you will see that Benedict XVI speaks of subject and object to the Roman Curia in his comments on John Henry Newman. The large point is that subject is experienced and known as self – i.e. real self experienced – only in the activity of being in relation. If there is experience and consciousness of self, it is always in relation; and relation always involves “other.” There is no relation if there is no “other,” and there is no self if there is no relation. And there is self as freedom only if there is other. If there is no “other” but only “me,” there is no freedom. Freedom makes no sense when thereis only me. If there is only me, me and me, what is there to be free about?
Consider here the remarks of the BXVI on the reality of the Word of God: Furthermore, the Word of God is the foundation of everything, it is the true reality. And to be realistic, we must rely upon this reality. We must change our idea that matter, solid things, things we can touch, are the more solid, the more certain reality. At the end of the Sermon on the Mount the Lord speaks to us about the two possible foundations for building the house of one's life: sand and rock. The one who builds on sand builds only on visible and tangible things, on success, on career, on money. Apparently these are the true realities. But all this one day will pass away. We can see this now with the fall of large banks: this money disappears, it is nothing. And thus all things, which seem to be the true realities we can count on, are only realities of a secondary order. The one who builds his life on these realities, on matter, on success, on appearances, builds upon sand. Only the Word of God is the foundation of all reality, it is as stable as the heavens and more than the heavens, it is reality. Therefore, we must change our concept of realism. The realist is the one who recognizes the Word of God, in this apparently weak reality, as the foundation of all things. Realist is the one who builds his life on this foundation, which is permanent. Thus the first verses of the Psalm invite us to discover what reality is and how to find the foundation of our life, how to build life” (Keynote Address: Synod on the Word of God, October 6, 2008).
Albacete – Stephen Hawking - Christ
Now consider the remarks of Msgr. Lorenzo Albacete on Stephen Hawking and the remarks Christ makes about Himself. And in that light, consider the meaning of Christmas.
“During these days, I have been reading The Grand Design (Bantam Books, NY) by the eminent physicist Stephen Hawking (written with a physicist and author named Leonard Mlodinow, who, among other things, wrote for the TV series “Star Trek, the Next Generation”!). I love physics, especially theoretical physics, “from the microcosm to the macrocosm” (to borrow a phrase of Pope Paul VI). My heart and mind completely resonate with the quest to learn the “mysteries of the universe” and the possible single mystery, the theory of everything.
Suppose, I thought, that Hawking came into town to present his new book to the public. I imagined myself being there in the packed auditorium, seeing him wheeled in to center stage, hearing the endless applause of his admirers, then the spotlight in the darkness as he said, “I would like you to see a DVD that I prepared about my book. After it is over, I will say a few words and try to answer your questions.”
At the end of the DVD, the spotlight on Hawking sitting center stage would come back on. I imagined the murmur of the crowd commenting on the majesty of the presentation and then silence as all eyes are fixed on Hawking, waiting for him to speak.Finally, he speaks: “I have this to announce to you tonight. Everything you have seen in the DVD, all the mysteries of the universe, every single reality that exists or can be imagined, everything known, proposed, or totally unknown–all of it is about me. I am the reason for the existence of everything. I am the reason for the Big Bang and for the future of the universe, the multiverse, the parallel universes… everything is about me and for me.”
I ask myself, “Have I heard him correctly? Is he serious? Is he insane?” I imagine that everyone there would be asking themselves and each other these questions. One thing is clear: I can’t imagine anyone there saying, “Wait a minute. Let us not dismiss what he says because it doesn’t fit the way we think about what is true or false. If he is not joking, if he has not gone crazy, then what he is saying has a hidden meaning that we should investigate.” In this case, Hawking’s announcement would be more fascinating and mysterious than the mysteries of the universe presented in the book and DVD. This is how a proclamation can be called a mystery: the mystery of Stephen Hawking himself.
Now, consider the following incident in the Gospel of Luke: “Jesus went to Nazareth, where He had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day He went into the synagogue, as was His custom. He stood up to read, and the scroll of the Prophet Isaiah was handed to Him. Unrolling it, He found the place where it is written: ‘The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because He has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.’ Then He rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on Him. He began by saying to them, ‘Today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.’”
The fulfillment of a prophecy from Scripture probably does not have the impact it had on those at the Synagogue in Nazareth. In presenting Himself as the fulfillment of the prophecy, Jesus was identifying Himself as the presence of the Kingdom of God, that is, as the presence of the fulfillment of God’s purpose in creating the universe. The shock to those present must have been like the shock of that audience that I imagined listening to Hawking’s claim. I wonder how I would have reacted if I had been there when Jesus proclaimed Himself as the presence of the Kingdom of God. Would I have rejected the proclamation because it challenged my way of looking at reality or would I have been like the imagined observer willing to at least ask for evidence of His claim, accepting His proclamation as a mystery to be pursued?” (Traces, No. 10, 2010).
The Epistemology of the Creator in His Creation:
“…we must learn from Newman’s three conversions, because they were steps along a spiritual path that concerns us all. Here I would like to emphasize just the first conversion: to faith in the living God. Until that moment, Newman thought like the average men of his time and indeed like the average men of today, who do not simply exclude the existence of God, but consider it as something uncertain, something with no essential role to play in their lives. What appeared genuinely real to him, as to the men of his and our day, is the empirical, matter that can be grasped. This is the “reality” according to which one finds one’s bearings. The “real” is what can be grasped, it is the things that can be calculated and taken in one’s hand. In his conversion, Newman recognized that it is exactly the other way round: that God and the soul, man’s spiritual identity, constitute what is genuinely real, what counts. These are much more real than objects that can be grasped. This conversion was a Copernican revolution. What had previously seemed unreal and secondary was now revealed to be the genuinely decisive element. Where such a conversion takes place, it is not just a person’s theory that changes: the fundamental shape of life changes. We are all in constant need of such conversion: then we are on the right path.
The driving force that impelled Newman along the path of conversion was conscience. But what does this mean? In modern thinking, the word “conscience” signifies that for moral and religious questions, it is the subjective dimension, the individual, that constitutes the final authority for decision. The world is divided into the realms of the objective and the subjective. To the objective realm belong things that can be calculated and verified by experiment. Religion and morals fall outside the scope of these methods and are therefore considered to lie within the subjective realm. Here, it is said, there are in the final analysis no objective criteria. The ultimate instance that can decide here is therefore the subject alone, and precisely this is what the word “conscience” expresses: in this realm only the individual, with his intuitions and experiences, can decide. Newman’s understanding of conscience is diametrically opposed to this. For him, “conscience” means man’s capacity for truth: the capacity to recognize precisely in the decision-making areas of his life – religion and morals – a truth, the truth. At the same time, conscience – man’s capacity to recognize truth – thereby imposes on him the obligation to set out along the path towards truth, to seek it and to submit to it wherever he finds it. Conscience is both capacity for truth and obedience to the truth which manifests itself to anyone who seeks it with an open heart. The path of Newman’s conversions is a path of conscience – not a path of self-asserting subjectivity but, on the contrary, a path of obedience to the truth that was gradually opening up to him. His third conversion, to Catholicism, required him to give up almost everything that was dear and precious to him: possessions, profession, academic rank, family ties and many friends. The sacrifice demanded of him by obedience to the truth, by his conscience, went further still. Newman had always been aware of having a mission for England. But in the Catholic theology of his time, his voice could hardly make itself heard. It was too foreign in the context of the prevailing form of theological thought and devotion. In January 1863 he wrote in his diary these distressing words: “As a Protestant, I felt my religion dreary, but not my life - but, as a Catholic, my life dreary, not my religion”. He had not yet arrived at the hour when he would be an influential figure. In the humility and darkness of obedience, he had to wait until his message was taken up and understood. In support of the claim that Newman’s concept of conscience matched the modern subjective understanding, people often quote a letter in which he said – should he have to propose a toast – that he would drink first to conscience and then to the Pope. But in this statement, “conscience” does not signify the ultimately binding quality of subjective intuition. It is an expression of the accessibility and the binding force of truth: on this its primacy is based. The second toast can be dedicated to the Pope because it is his task to demand obedience to the truth.”[1]
In a word, there can be no Incarnation of God with the fullness of being God and being man, unless the assumed humanity is taken up fully into the ontological subjectivity of what we have come to understand of God’s Self-revelation as “I Am.” The objective reality of humanity would constantly have to be reduced to “co-exist” with divinity if we were not to migrate from object to subject without losing reality – which is subject. What is meant by reality now – as BXVI attested in October 6, 2008 – is the Word of God: Subject. Full humanity is able to be assumed into subjectivity without losing a mite of its ontological density as object. Hence, the need to accept Chalcedon fully, but with the critical nuance that nature is object and divine Person is subject as two irreducibly different ways of being with subject being the key to the reality of object.
[1] Benedict XVI To the Curia Romana, December 22, 2010.
Newman: Subject, Object and Relation.
Below, you will see that Benedict XVI speaks of subject and object to the Roman Curia in his comments on John Henry Newman. The large point is that subject is experienced and known as self – i.e. real self experienced – only in the activity of being in relation. If there is experience and consciousness of self, it is always in relation; and relation always involves “other.” There is no relation if there is no “other,” and there is no self if there is no relation. And there is self as freedom only if there is other. If there is no “other” but only “me,” there is no freedom. Freedom makes no sense when thereis only me. If there is only me, me and me, what is there to be free about?
Consider here the remarks of the BXVI on the reality of the Word of God: Furthermore, the Word of God is the foundation of everything, it is the true reality. And to be realistic, we must rely upon this reality. We must change our idea that matter, solid things, things we can touch, are the more solid, the more certain reality. At the end of the Sermon on the Mount the Lord speaks to us about the two possible foundations for building the house of one's life: sand and rock. The one who builds on sand builds only on visible and tangible things, on success, on career, on money. Apparently these are the true realities. But all this one day will pass away. We can see this now with the fall of large banks: this money disappears, it is nothing. And thus all things, which seem to be the true realities we can count on, are only realities of a secondary order. The one who builds his life on these realities, on matter, on success, on appearances, builds upon sand. Only the Word of God is the foundation of all reality, it is as stable as the heavens and more than the heavens, it is reality. Therefore, we must change our concept of realism. The realist is the one who recognizes the Word of God, in this apparently weak reality, as the foundation of all things. Realist is the one who builds his life on this foundation, which is permanent. Thus the first verses of the Psalm invite us to discover what reality is and how to find the foundation of our life, how to build life” (Keynote Address: Synod on the Word of God, October 6, 2008).
Albacete – Stephen Hawking - Christ
Now consider the remarks of Msgr. Lorenzo Albacete on Stephen Hawking and the remarks Christ makes about Himself. And in that light, consider the meaning of Christmas.
“During these days, I have been reading The Grand Design (Bantam Books, NY) by the eminent physicist Stephen Hawking (written with a physicist and author named Leonard Mlodinow, who, among other things, wrote for the TV series “Star Trek, the Next Generation”!). I love physics, especially theoretical physics, “from the microcosm to the macrocosm” (to borrow a phrase of Pope Paul VI). My heart and mind completely resonate with the quest to learn the “mysteries of the universe” and the possible single mystery, the theory of everything.
Suppose, I thought, that Hawking came into town to present his new book to the public. I imagined myself being there in the packed auditorium, seeing him wheeled in to center stage, hearing the endless applause of his admirers, then the spotlight in the darkness as he said, “I would like you to see a DVD that I prepared about my book. After it is over, I will say a few words and try to answer your questions.”
At the end of the DVD, the spotlight on Hawking sitting center stage would come back on. I imagined the murmur of the crowd commenting on the majesty of the presentation and then silence as all eyes are fixed on Hawking, waiting for him to speak.Finally, he speaks: “I have this to announce to you tonight. Everything you have seen in the DVD, all the mysteries of the universe, every single reality that exists or can be imagined, everything known, proposed, or totally unknown–all of it is about me. I am the reason for the existence of everything. I am the reason for the Big Bang and for the future of the universe, the multiverse, the parallel universes… everything is about me and for me.”
I ask myself, “Have I heard him correctly? Is he serious? Is he insane?” I imagine that everyone there would be asking themselves and each other these questions. One thing is clear: I can’t imagine anyone there saying, “Wait a minute. Let us not dismiss what he says because it doesn’t fit the way we think about what is true or false. If he is not joking, if he has not gone crazy, then what he is saying has a hidden meaning that we should investigate.” In this case, Hawking’s announcement would be more fascinating and mysterious than the mysteries of the universe presented in the book and DVD. This is how a proclamation can be called a mystery: the mystery of Stephen Hawking himself.
Now, consider the following incident in the Gospel of Luke: “Jesus went to Nazareth, where He had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day He went into the synagogue, as was His custom. He stood up to read, and the scroll of the Prophet Isaiah was handed to Him. Unrolling it, He found the place where it is written: ‘The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because He has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.’ Then He rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on Him. He began by saying to them, ‘Today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.’”
The fulfillment of a prophecy from Scripture probably does not have the impact it had on those at the Synagogue in Nazareth. In presenting Himself as the fulfillment of the prophecy, Jesus was identifying Himself as the presence of the Kingdom of God, that is, as the presence of the fulfillment of God’s purpose in creating the universe. The shock to those present must have been like the shock of that audience that I imagined listening to Hawking’s claim. I wonder how I would have reacted if I had been there when Jesus proclaimed Himself as the presence of the Kingdom of God. Would I have rejected the proclamation because it challenged my way of looking at reality or would I have been like the imagined observer willing to at least ask for evidence of His claim, accepting His proclamation as a mystery to be pursued?” (Traces, No. 10, 2010).
The Epistemology of the Creator in His Creation:
“…we must learn from Newman’s three conversions, because they were steps along a spiritual path that concerns us all. Here I would like to emphasize just the first conversion: to faith in the living God. Until that moment, Newman thought like the average men of his time and indeed like the average men of today, who do not simply exclude the existence of God, but consider it as something uncertain, something with no essential role to play in their lives. What appeared genuinely real to him, as to the men of his and our day, is the empirical, matter that can be grasped. This is the “reality” according to which one finds one’s bearings. The “real” is what can be grasped, it is the things that can be calculated and taken in one’s hand. In his conversion, Newman recognized that it is exactly the other way round: that God and the soul, man’s spiritual identity, constitute what is genuinely real, what counts. These are much more real than objects that can be grasped. This conversion was a Copernican revolution. What had previously seemed unreal and secondary was now revealed to be the genuinely decisive element. Where such a conversion takes place, it is not just a person’s theory that changes: the fundamental shape of life changes. We are all in constant need of such conversion: then we are on the right path.
The driving force that impelled Newman along the path of conversion was conscience. But what does this mean? In modern thinking, the word “conscience” signifies that for moral and religious questions, it is the subjective dimension, the individual, that constitutes the final authority for decision. The world is divided into the realms of the objective and the subjective. To the objective realm belong things that can be calculated and verified by experiment. Religion and morals fall outside the scope of these methods and are therefore considered to lie within the subjective realm. Here, it is said, there are in the final analysis no objective criteria. The ultimate instance that can decide here is therefore the subject alone, and precisely this is what the word “conscience” expresses: in this realm only the individual, with his intuitions and experiences, can decide. Newman’s understanding of conscience is diametrically opposed to this. For him, “conscience” means man’s capacity for truth: the capacity to recognize precisely in the decision-making areas of his life – religion and morals – a truth, the truth. At the same time, conscience – man’s capacity to recognize truth – thereby imposes on him the obligation to set out along the path towards truth, to seek it and to submit to it wherever he finds it. Conscience is both capacity for truth and obedience to the truth which manifests itself to anyone who seeks it with an open heart. The path of Newman’s conversions is a path of conscience – not a path of self-asserting subjectivity but, on the contrary, a path of obedience to the truth that was gradually opening up to him. His third conversion, to Catholicism, required him to give up almost everything that was dear and precious to him: possessions, profession, academic rank, family ties and many friends. The sacrifice demanded of him by obedience to the truth, by his conscience, went further still. Newman had always been aware of having a mission for England. But in the Catholic theology of his time, his voice could hardly make itself heard. It was too foreign in the context of the prevailing form of theological thought and devotion. In January 1863 he wrote in his diary these distressing words: “As a Protestant, I felt my religion dreary, but not my life - but, as a Catholic, my life dreary, not my religion”. He had not yet arrived at the hour when he would be an influential figure. In the humility and darkness of obedience, he had to wait until his message was taken up and understood. In support of the claim that Newman’s concept of conscience matched the modern subjective understanding, people often quote a letter in which he said – should he have to propose a toast – that he would drink first to conscience and then to the Pope. But in this statement, “conscience” does not signify the ultimately binding quality of subjective intuition. It is an expression of the accessibility and the binding force of truth: on this its primacy is based. The second toast can be dedicated to the Pope because it is his task to demand obedience to the truth.”[1]
In a word, there can be no Incarnation of God with the fullness of being God and being man, unless the assumed humanity is taken up fully into the ontological subjectivity of what we have come to understand of God’s Self-revelation as “I Am.” The objective reality of humanity would constantly have to be reduced to “co-exist” with divinity if we were not to migrate from object to subject without losing reality – which is subject. What is meant by reality now – as BXVI attested in October 6, 2008 – is the Word of God: Subject. Full humanity is able to be assumed into subjectivity without losing a mite of its ontological density as object. Hence, the need to accept Chalcedon fully, but with the critical nuance that nature is object and divine Person is subject as two irreducibly different ways of being with subject being the key to the reality of object.
[1] Benedict XVI To the Curia Romana, December 22, 2010.
Approaching Amazement at Christmas
Before beginning, consider Benedict's 11/22/2010 Christmas remarks to the Roman Curia concerning the epistemology of John Henry Newman: "I would like to emphasize just the first conversion: to faith in the living God. Until that moment, Newman thought like the average men of his time and indeed like the average men of today, who do not simply exclude the existence of God, but consider it as something uncertain, something with no essential role to play in their lives. What appeared genuinely real to him, as to the men of his and our day, is the empirical, matter that can be grasped. This is the “reality” according to which one finds one’s bearings. The “real” is what can be grasped, it is the things that can be calculated and taken in one’s hand. In his conversion, Newman recognized that it is exactly the other way round: that God and the soul, man’s spiritual identity, constitute what is genuinely real, what counts. These are much more real than objects that can be grasped. This conversion was a Copernican revolution. What had previously seemed unreal and secondary was now revealed to be the genuinely decisive element. Where such a conversion takes place, it is not just a person’s theory that changes: the fundamental shape of life changes. We are all in constant need of such conversion: then we are on the right path."
With the Incarnation, the regnant and exclusive epistemology of sense experience and abstract knowing is shattered. There is something else going on than adding the divine to the human. It is not that God is infinitely greater than man. He is Other. He is in the world, but He is not part of the world. It’s not that God is Spirit that is different. Spirit is also part of the world. Rather, as everything is in itself, He is for other. When He became flesh, His flesh was in the world, but what He took from the Virgin became for other and therefore could not be perceived in its for-otherness. It could be sensed as in the world, but it could not be recognized as His because He is not for himself, and the world without Him is for itself. Therefore, He is not in the world as world is in itself. And so, the flesh that He assimilated from the Virgin went through a profound change. It entered another dimension of being and therefore another way of knowing. It continued to be flesh, but not existing in itself. It is flesh for others.
Consider here the remarks of the BXVI on the reality of the Word of God: Furthermore, the Word of God is the foundation of everything, it is the true reality. And to be realistic, we must rely upon this reality. We must change our idea that matter, solid things, things we can touch, are the more solid, the more certain reality. At the end of the Sermon on the Mount the Lord speaks to us about the two possible foundations for building the house of one's life: sand and rock. The one who builds on sand builds only on visible and tangible things, on success, on career, on money. Apparently these are the true realities. But all this one day will pass away. We can see this now with the fall of large banks: this money disappears, it is nothing. And thus all things, which seem to be the true realities we can count on, are only realities of a secondary order. The one who builds his life on these realities, on matter, on success, on appearances, builds upon sand. Only the Word of God is the foundation of all reality, it is as stable as the heavens and more than the heavens, it is reality. Therefore, we must change our concept of realism. The realist is the one who recognizes the Word of God, in this apparently weak reality, as the foundation of all things. Realist is the one who builds his life on this foundation, which is permanent. Thus the first verses of the Psalm invite us to discover what reality is and how to find the foundation of our life, how to build life” (Keynote Address: Synod on the Word of God, October 6, 2008).
Now consider the remarks of Msgr. Lorenzo Albacete on Stephen Dawking and the remarks Christ makes about Himself. And in that light, consider the meaning of Christmas.
“During these days, I have been reading The Grand Design (Bantam Books, NY) by the eminent physicist Stephen Hawking (written with a physicist and author named Leonard Mlodinow, who, among other things, wrote for the TV series “Star Trek, the Next Generation”!). I love physics, especially theoretical physics, “from the microcosm to the macrocosm” (to borrow a phrase of Pope Paul VI). My heart and mind completely resonate with the quest to learn the “mysteries of the universe” and the possible single mystery, the theory of everything.
Suppose, I thought, that Hawking came into town to present his new book to the public. I imagined myself being there in the packed auditorium, seeing him wheeled in to center stage, hearing the endless applause of his admirers, then the spotlight in the darkness as he said, “I would like you to see a DVD that I prepared about my book. After it is over, I will say a few words and try to answer your questions.”
At the end of the DVD, the spotlight on Hawking sitting center stage would come back on. I imagined the murmur of the crowd commenting on the majesty of the presentation and then silence as all eyes are fixed on Hawking, waiting for him to speak.
Finally, he speaks: “I have this to announce to you tonight. Everything you have seen in the DVD, all the mysteries of the universe, every single reality that exists or can be imagined, everything known, proposed, or totally unknown–all of it is about me. I am the reason for the existence of everything. I am the reason for the Big Bang and for the future of the universe, the multiverse, the parallel universes… everything is about me and for me.”
I ask myself, “Have I heard him correctly? Is he serious? Is he insane?” I imagine that everyone there would be asking themselves and each other these questions. One thing is clear: I can’t imagine anyone there saying, “Wait a minute. Let us not dismiss what he says because it doesn’t fit the way we think about what is true or false. If he is not joking, if he has not gone crazy, then what he is saying has a hidden meaning that we should investigate.” In this case, Hawking’s announcement would be more fascinating and mysterious than the mysteries of the universe presented in the book and DVD. This is how a proclamation can be called a mystery: the mystery of Stephen Hawking himself.
Now, consider the following incident in the Gospel of Luke: “Jesus went to
The fulfillment of a prophecy from Scripture probably does not have the impact it had on those at the Synagogue in
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
Nice evil by Hilary White
Tue Dec 14, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) -
I read Dr. Celia Wolf-Devine’s interesting piece the other day with great interest. I’ve been thinking about her assertion that people, ordinary, nice, regular people are not necessarily “moral monsters” simply because they hold that abortion should be legal. I read this and wondered, all respect to Dr. Wolf-Devine and her superior education and knowledge, if she is correct.Is it possible that the belief that children may legally be killed by their mothers is a definitive component of moral monsterhood? I realize it is an unpleasant thought that the great majority of our fellow-citizens hold moral opinions that are profoundly evil, but how can we, in these deadly times, dare to shy away from unpleasant possibilities?I don’t pretend to know the technical philosophical definition of “moral monster” but, to paraphrase a Supreme Court justice on pornography, I think we can know one when we see one. But we have to know what we are looking for. I believe that in modern times, deliberate human evil is more pervasive than it has ever been, but it is disguised.For some years now, I have mulled over the existence of something I have labeled “nice evil,” the ability of people whom we easily regard as “decent,” “ordinary,” or “nice” people, to hold, and on occasion act upon, moral ideas that our Christian forefathers would have instantly recognized as monstrously evil:The idea that it must be legal for children to be killed before birth at their mothers’ convenience. That elderly people owe it to society to commit suicide. That a man may contract a marriage-like legal arrangement with another man. That marriages can be contracted and tossed aside at a whim. That children can, and should be manufactured to the specifications of paying customers, like a luxury car. That the populous and fecund peoples of the world are a menace solely on the basis of their fertility. That human beings when they are very small, may be used as experimental test subjects.I had started my researches in human evil about ten years ago, when I spent two years bringing myself up to speed on the development of modern, post-Christian philosophy, and I made a horrible discovery.I had started to understand the vast scale of the shift in nearly all political and ethical thought in the west from its ancient Judeo-Greco-Christian to Cartesian, Hobbesian, Lockian, “Enlightenment” philosophies of utilitarianism and radical materialism. I had begun to see how totally pervasive these ideas have become, embedded into the minds of nearly every person in the western world, albeit largely unconsciously. And how they have grown and developed under the power of their own depraved logic.One day, I was struck by a horrifying thought. Under an old, Christian-based legal definition, insanity is understood to be the incapacity of a person to tell the difference between good and evil, right and wrong. If we propose that most people in the modern western world, people raised under the new, post-Christian, post-absolutist philosophical dispensation, truly do not know that abortion is wrong – that it is a monstrous evil to kill an innocent human being – nearly everyone around us is, in some sense, murderously insane. It was a bad moment.I don’t actually believe that (completely), but it is at least true that moral relativism – the idea that morality can be a flexible thing subject to individual circumstances and personal preference – has become the guiding principle, or perhaps anti-principle, for most people in our culture. But is this idea, moral relativism, not simply another word for the evil that men choose? The evil they refuse to give up in the face of “old fashioned” moral absolutism? Does this make the common man a “moral monster”?The 20th century political philosopher Hannah Arendt coined the term “banality of evil” when she observed the trial of Nazi war criminal Rudolph Eichmann. Eichmann was the very epitome of modern, banal, “nice” evil - an unthinking bureaucrat who, even to the end, could not seem to grasp the enormity of the evil in which he had taken part as a cog in the machine, a mere functionary.Observers of the Nuremburg trials often commented that many of Eichmann’s fellow Nazis were to all outward appearances perfectly ordinary, bland, modern, well-educated, even cultured men: bureaucrats whose mass murders were committed from a distance with the stroke of a pen, and with the most prosaic and dispassionate of justifications.We look back on this kind of man with the comfortable assurance that we are observing an undisputed monstrous evil, and are able to see it clearly. That man, those men, clearly ought to have known, and their facades of civilization are not enough to cover their shame. It is not enough, we can say, confident that the world will agree, to like Beethoven and Bach, to read Schiller and enjoy sports and be attentive husbands and fathers. We must know the difference between good and evil, or we are lost, we become those men, those civilized monsters. I have seen myself, many times, the existence of this new, passionless “nice evil.” I have met it nearly every time I discuss abortion with a member of the “personally opposed but…” culture. These are the “perfectly nice” people who believe that it is perfectly justifiable to murder an innocent infant or helpless old person, and for no other reason than the momentary inconvenience he creates for another. Is there not something even more monstrous about this banal and complacent evil? Is this not the smiling, reasonable face of our worst dystopian nightmares?Pro-life apologists like to compare our current abortion culture with that of slavery, one of the greatest evils ever perpetrated under (nominally) Christian princes.In the centuries during which it was practiced, and whole economies were based on it, millions of people lived and prospered on its arrears. Until William Wilberforce forced the British public to look the realities of slavery in the face, it seems probable that the majority of them would, as the saying goes, not wish to own a slave themselves, but would not want to impose their personal beliefs on others. Buy and sell human beings, kidnap and torture and murder them, if your morality says you can. It is none of my business to tell you what to do.Were these millions “moral monsters”? We are so sure of these evils now, but the question haunts us: why did they not know? And how are we different from them? Should these ordinary people not have instinctively known these evils?Should they not all have done what Wilberforce finally did? Should there not have been a mass movement of decent, ordinary people against the atrocity of slavery? Why did Wilberforce’s crusade meet with such determined opposition, and take so long to accomplish?To this day, we ask of the people who lived in the German and Polish towns adjacent to the Death Camps: how much did they know?We are desperate, in some sense, to believe that they did not know because we want to believe that ordinary people simply could not ignore such a horror. We are desperate, I think, because we are they. They are us. They were the ordinary modern people, whose complacency and prejudices we probably share.Under normal circumstances our common human tendency for complacency, for “going along,” for prejudice, whatever its particular targets, would not have deadly consequences. Under a sane government, in a sane culture, opportunities for sins of omission of such magnitude are not presented to the common man.But how long has it been since we have had a sane culture? It is governments, not individuals, who commit the great atrocities. But how complicit are we when we accept these political realities?If the all-encompassing philosophical background to our lives is an evil one, are we not all steeped in evil, largely unknowing, as a fish is unaware of the water in which he lives? It is the work of philosophy to create definitions and distinctions. Perhaps we should examine seriously this concept of “moral monster” and develop a definition. Maybe we would learn something about our world in the process.
Assembling the Global Baby
WSJ Sunday, December 12, 2001 Section C.
With an international network of surrogate mothers and egg and sperm donors, a new industry is emerging to produce children on the cheap and outside the reach of restrictive laws.
By TAMARA AUDI and ARLENE CHANG
In a hospital room on the Greek
She won't be keeping the child. The parents-to-be—an infertile Italian woman and her husband (who provided the sperm)—will take custody of the baby this summer, on the day of birth.
The birth mother is Katia Antonova, a surrogate. She emigrated to
Related
· Donors With Dossiers (and Star Looks)
The man bringing together this disparate group is Rudy Rupak, chief executive of PlanetHospital.com LLC, a
Mr. Rupak is a pioneer in a controversial field at the crossroads of reproductive technology and international adoption. Prospective parents put off by the rigor of traditional adoptions are bypassing that system by producing babies of their own—often using an egg donor from one country, a sperm donor from another, and a surrogate who will deliver in a third country to make what some industry participants call "a world baby."
They turn to PlanetHospital and a handful of other companies. "We take care of all aspects of the process, like a concierge service," says Mr. Rupak, a 41-year-old Canadian.
For years couples have turned to sperm donors, egg donors or surrogate mothers to help them become parents. Now the process is being taken to a level that is stretching legal and ethical boundaries. WSJ's Linda Blake reports from
Clients tend to be people who want children but can't do it themselves: families suffering from infertility; gay male couples. They may also have trouble adopting because of age or other obstacles.
And they're price sensitive. PlanetHospital's services run from $32,000 to around $68,000, versus up to $200,000 for a
Overseas surrogacy has other advantages. Surrogates in some poorer countries have little or no legal right to the baby. In
The process can bring profound dilemmas. In some cases, clinics end up creating more fetuses than a couple needs, forcing a decision over whether to abort one or more pregnancies. Babies carried to term occasionally find themselves temporarily unable to get a passport.
Mr. Rupak is learning to navigate the uncharted nature of his field—the stateless babies, the ethical complexities. His expansion to
Some of his own clients have faced the abortion decision, Mr. Rupak says. "Sometimes they find the money" to pay for more children than they expected, he says. After all, they went to such lengths. And if they decide otherwise, Mr. Rupak says, "We don't judge."
PlanetHospital's most affordable package, the "India bundle," buys an egg donor, four embryo transfers into four separate surrogate mothers, room and board for the surrogate, and a car and driver for the parents-to-be when they travel to India to pick up the baby.
Pricier packages add services like splitting eggs from the same donor to fertilize with different sperm, so children of gay couples can share a genetic mother. In
Nobody accurately tallies surrogate births abroad, but critics and industry insiders agree the numbers are growing. Since it started offering fertility services abroad in 2007, PlanetHospital has orchestrated 459 births, Mr. Rupak says. Last year, 280 clients hired the company for reproductive services, and that year 210 babies were born—168 of them twins. This year, 200 clients signed contracts, and 75 surrogates are currently pregnant.
“The 'India bundle' buys an egg donor, four embryo transfers into four separate surrogate mothers, room and board for the surrogate and a car and driver for the parents-to-be when they travel to India to pick up the baby.”
Critics say the business is strewn with pitfalls. "The potential for abuse on many levels is big," says Arthur Caplan, director of the Center for Bioethics at the
Laws are vague and can conflict from country to country. In 2008, baby Manji was born to an Indian surrogate just weeks after the divorce of her Japanese parents-to-be. (The family wasn't a PlanetHospital client.) According to a Duke University case study in legal ethics, it led to a tangle of Indian and Japanese law that first prevented the little girl from being issued a birth certificate, and later made it difficult for her father bring her home to Japan. Months went by. To fix the problem,
"This area of law is very unsettled," says Evgenia Terehova, PlanetHospital's lawyer. "There can be all sorts of unforeseen circumstances."
Ms. Terehova says PlanetHospital clients agree to settle disputes using arbitration under
Greek surrogacy is regulated by a 2005 law, but the business takes advantage of a legal loophole. Surrogate mothers are not supposed to act for profit. However, they can accept money for pregnancy-related expenses. Typically, the expenses are set at up to $50,000.
"The judge never asks" about the money, says Maria Kouloumprakis, a surrogacy lawyer in
Egg donors often come from the
Unlike traditional adoption, there is relatively little vetting of would-be parents either by agencies like PlanetHospital, regulators or clinics. There are also fewer restrictions, such as strict age limits, on who can participate.
Mr. Rupak says individual clinics use their own standards to make some of these decisions. He sometimes advises his clients to get a lawyer to be sure they're in compliance with the laws of their home country.
"Our ethics are agnostic," Mr. Rupak says. "How do you prevent a pedophile from having a baby? If they're a pedophile then I will leave that to the
Mr. Rupak says he has rejected clients. In one case, he suspected a woman wanted to use her own eggs and her son's sperm. "Whatever the case was, these people weren't honest. It worried us, so we said 'no.'"
Mr. Rupak, a former screenwriter and movie producer (his credits include "
Conversations between Mr. Rupak and his customers can be an odd mix of frank talk about sperm counts and menstrual cycles and good old-fashioned salesmanship. During one client meeting over tea in
His client, Caroline Lu, smiles. "That's great," she says. Ms. Lu later says she and her husband passed on the teeth-cleaning.
Many factors drive surrogacy's global spread.
PlanetHospital recently launched a website touting "surrogaycy" aimed at gay couples. "In some states you cannot marry, let alone adopt; but not a law in the land can take away a child that is biologically yours," the site says.
"We are so excited, we are just gleaming," says Marc Loeb, a 33-year-old sales director for a women's apparel company in
Mr. Loeb and his spouse, Wolf Ehrblatt, (the two were legally married in
The couple made a $10,000 down payment and decided to try for a child using a college-educated American egg donor and their own sperm.
PlanetHospital steered Mr. Loeb toward
Mr. Loeb says he didn't want to ask. "It's an emotional enough experience," he said.
A few weeks later, Mr. Loeb says, Mr. Rupak called to say, "You're pregnant, man."
The couple made payments as the pregnancy progressed, with the final amount due at birth. Of the $35,000, PlanetHospital keeps around $3,600. Another $5,000 goes to the egg donor, plus another $3,000 or so for travel expenses. The surrogate gets $8,000. The rest, around $15,000, is paid to the clinic.
In the case of gay couples, the surrogate's name appears on the birth certificate as the mother. In the case of heterosexual couples, the adoptive mother's name appears.
Mr. Loeb and Mr. Ehrblatt learned of
The couple will stay in
Mr. Loeb says PlanetHospital arranged for them to live in a modern apartment in
Another gay couple, Jocelyn LaFleur and Denis Doyon of
This past Thursday, they received the news of a successful pregnancy of their surrogate, on a second attempt. If all goes well, they will travel back to
"Having our baby be born in
No country has become a greater magnet for the business than
Suzanne and Thomas Lloyd of
They tried in vitro fertilization with no luck. They also looked into adoption but didn't qualify in many countries because they were either too old or hadn't been married long enough. The Lloyds are college sweethearts who split up after school, only to reunite and marry four years ago.
The couple paid $10,000 to PlanetHospital to try the surrogate route. Mr. Lloyd says there have been some aggravating lapses in communications: Their first contact at PlanetHospital was with a caseworker who would let weeks go by without responding to emails, they say. Since then, he said, Mr. Rupak became their primary contact and communications have improved.
Mr. Rupak acknowledges the communication problem and said he has learned from his mistakes. He recently hired someone in
Surrogacy's complexity can give rise to extraordinarily difficult decisions, such as whether or not to abort. This can happen because clinics sometimes implant multiple embryos into multiple surrogates to improve the odds: If one miscarries, there are still viable pregnancies. However, if several implants successfully lead to pregnancy, clients face ending up with not just one or two children, but many.
Mike Aki and his husband, a
At 12 weeks into the pregnancies, Mr. Aki and his husband decided to abort two of the fetuses, one from each woman. It was a very painful call to make, Mr. Aki says. "You start thinking to yourself, 'Oh, my god, am I killing this child?'"
He didn't think of his decision as an abortion, but as a "reduction," he says. "You're reducing the pregnancies to make sure you have a greater chance of healthy children," Mr. Aki says. "If you're going to bring a child into this world, you have an obligation to take care of that child to the best of your abilities."
Today, Mr. Aki and his husband have two 21-month-old daughters. The girls share the same genetic mother. Each man is the genetic father of one of the girls. Next week, Mr. Aki and his husband will officially adopt each other's genetic daughter.
Initially in 2008, Mr. Aki was a
The dispute arose because of poor communication and book-keeping at the clinic, Mr. Rupak says. He has since cut ties with that clinic. "We've improved upon all those things since."
Mr. Rupak says he is vigilant about the risks inherent in a lightly regulated business. He says he stopped using egg donors from
And Mr. Rupak says he is looking to expand into
On the
"It's good that I can help these people have a family, and it's good for my family too," says Mrs. Antonova, who is 40. "I will have this baby, and move on with my life."
—James Oberman contributed to this article.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)