from Island of the World by Michael O Brien
"...for Josip and Josip alone, she exercises something akin to diabolic loathing. It is so astounding he takes it on as a challenge. He estimates it will take 3 - 4 years to tame her, but he is resolved that even if can not tame her, he is willing to spend a lifetime enduring her as reparation.
Reparations for what? I have not hurt the woman. We have never met before. My parents and ancestors surely did her no harm. General reparation then. He can accept the insult as a mild form of humiliation offered for her soul and offered as a payment for sins committed against her people by Croats. The disproportion in this seems incredibly unfair because most of the victims of Yugoslavia's confusion were not, are not and probably will not be Serbs. Even so she has an eternal soul and he feels pity for her. Whenever she throws a dart, he takes it in the chest and says a silent prayer for her."
The Great Adventure
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
Monday, July 4, 2011
from Island of the World
by Michael o Brien
"...a messenger is is in his words, if the messenger is truly himself. His life is his primary word, and his spoken word bears his life. He learns to be this when he has discovered that a man can give to others only what he truly is."
Seek nothing for yourself.
stand ready to serve
in quietness,
demanding nothing,
expecting nothing sacrificing and praying without anyone knowing
Silence
Silence
Silence
"...a messenger is is in his words, if the messenger is truly himself. His life is his primary word, and his spoken word bears his life. He learns to be this when he has discovered that a man can give to others only what he truly is."
Seek nothing for yourself.
stand ready to serve
in quietness,
demanding nothing,
expecting nothing sacrificing and praying without anyone knowing
Silence
Silence
Silence
Thursday, June 30, 2011
The Trinitarian theology of Hans Urs von Balthasar and theodicy by Friesenhahn, Jacob H., Ph.D
http://gradworks.umi.com/33/56/3356159.html
Balthasar's interpersonal model of the Trinity as a life of communal self-giving love and Balthasar's grounding of the economy of salvation in the immanent Trinity provide the proper framework for answering the problem of evil from a Christian theological perspective. I conclude that human suffering, united to the Cross of Christ, becomes a participation in the life of the Triune God in a way that renders such suffering of great salvific value to the one who suffers and that thus justifies God's permission of innocent suffering. Finally, as a connection between Balthasar's work and American popular culture, I observe the trinitarian features of the response to the problem of evil found in William P. Young's recent best-selling novel The Shack and discover claims concerning the Trinity and theodicy that resonate deeply with the theology of Balthasar.
Balthasar's interpersonal model of the Trinity as a life of communal self-giving love and Balthasar's grounding of the economy of salvation in the immanent Trinity provide the proper framework for answering the problem of evil from a Christian theological perspective. I conclude that human suffering, united to the Cross of Christ, becomes a participation in the life of the Triune God in a way that renders such suffering of great salvific value to the one who suffers and that thus justifies God's permission of innocent suffering. Finally, as a connection between Balthasar's work and American popular culture, I observe the trinitarian features of the response to the problem of evil found in William P. Young's recent best-selling novel The Shack and discover claims concerning the Trinity and theodicy that resonate deeply with the theology of Balthasar.
All the sufferings in our past are a gift
from Island of the World by Michael Obrien - page 587-588
"would I like the gift rescinded? of course! Yet in the strangest level of myself I know that it is a gift none the less. how else do we know God's rescue unless we have been drowning. Can healing be demonstrated without injury or love proven without trail? Still there is an ache within me that cries out: what of those who are not protected, who are left unhealed, who do not know love? the reply is articulated by - and can only be articulated by - God dying with us on our cross."
"would I like the gift rescinded? of course! Yet in the strangest level of myself I know that it is a gift none the less. how else do we know God's rescue unless we have been drowning. Can healing be demonstrated without injury or love proven without trail? Still there is an ache within me that cries out: what of those who are not protected, who are left unhealed, who do not know love? the reply is articulated by - and can only be articulated by - God dying with us on our cross."
Monday, June 27, 2011
THE SCAPEGOAT AND THE TRINITY
By Hans Urs Von Balthasar
When what is required of us seems too burdensome, when the pains become unbearable and the fate we are asked to accept seems simply meaningless—then we have come very close to the man nailed on the Cross at the Place of the Skull, for he has already undergone this on our behalf and, moreover, in unimaginable intensity.
Nearly two thousand years ago a trial took place that resulted in the death of the condemned man. Why is it that, even today, it will not allow mankind to forget about it? Have there not been countless other show trials down the years, particularly in our own time, and should the crying injustice of these trials not stir us up and preoccupy us just as much as that ancient trial at the Passover in Jerusalem? To judge by the constant and even increasing flood of books and discussions about Jesus, however, all the horrors of the extermination camps and the Gulag Archipelago matter less to mankind than the sentencing of this one innocent man whom, according to the Bible, God himself championed and vindicated—as is evident from his Resurrection from the dead.
The question is: Was he the one, great and final scapegoat for mankind? Did mankind load him with all its guilt, and did he, the Lamb of God, carry this guilt away? This is the thesis of a modern ethnologist, René Girard, whose books have attracted much attention in America, France and recently in Germany. According to this view, all human civilization, right from the outset, is constructed on the principle of the scapegoat. That is, men have cunningly invented a way of overcoming their reciprocal aggression and arriving at an at least temporary peace: thus they concentrate this aggression on an almost randomly chosen scapegoat and appoint this scapegoat as the sacrificial victim, in order to pacify an allegedly angry god. According to Girard, however, this divine anger is nothing other than men's reciprocal rage. This mechanism always needs to be set in motion again after a period of relative peace if world history is to proceed in any half-tolerable way; in this context it reached its absolute peak in the general rejection of Jesus by the gentiles, the Jews and the Christians too: Jesus really did take over and carry away the sins of all that were loaded onto him, in such a way that anyone who believes this can live in peace with his brother from now on.
Girard's ideas are interesting; they bring the trial of Jesus to life in a new way. But we can still ask why this particular murder, after so many others, should be the conclusive event of world history, the advent of the end time? Men have cast their guilt onto many innocent scapegoats; why did this particular bearer of sins bring about a change in the world as a whole?
For the believer the answer is easy: the crucial thing is not that this is an instance of our wanting to rid ourselves of guilt. Naturally, no one wants to admit guilt. Pilate washes his hands and declares himself guiltless; the Jews hide behind their law, which requires them to condemn a blasphemer; they act in a pious and God-fearing way. Judas himself has remorse for his deed; he brings the blood money back and, when no one will take it from him, throws it at the high priests. No one is prepared to accept responsibility. But precisely by attempting to extricate themselves, they are convinced by God that they are guilty of the death of this innocent man. Ultimately it is not what men do that is the determining factor.
The crucial thing is that there is Someone who is both ready and able to take their guilt upon himself. None of the other scapegoats was able to do this. According to the New Testament understanding, the Son of God became man in order to take this guilt upon himself. He lived with a view to the "hour" that awaited him at the end of his earthly existence, with a view to the terrible baptism with which he would have to be baptized, as he says. This "hour" would see him chained and brought to trial not merely outwardly; it would not only tear his body to pieces with scourges and nail it to the wood but also penetrate into his very soul, his spirit, his most intimate relationship with God, his Father. It would fill everything with desolation and the mortal fear of having been forsaken—as it were, with a totally alien, hostile and deadly poisonous substance that would block his every access to the source from which he lived.
It is in the horror of this darkness, of this emptiness and alienation from God, that the words on the Mount of Olives are spoken: "My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me. " The cup of which he here speaks is well known in the Old Testament: it is the cup full of God's anger and wrath, which sinners must drink to the dregs; often it is threatened or forced upon unfaithful Jerusalem or enemy peoples like Babylon. The cry from the Cross is uttered out of the same horror of spiritual blackness, the cry asking why God has forsaken this tortured man. The man who cries out knows only that he is forsaken; in this darkness he no longer knows why. He is not permitted to know why, for the idea that the darkness he is undergoing might be on behalf of others would constitute a certain comfort; it would give him a ray of light. No such comfort can be granted him now, for the issue, in absolute seriousness, is that of purifying the relationship between God and the guilty world.
The man who endures this night is the Innocent One. No one else could effectively undergo it on behalf of others. What ordinary or extraordinary man would even have enough room in himself to accommodate the world's guilt? Only someone who is a partner of the eternal Father, distinct from him and yet divine, that is, the Son who, man that he is, is also God, can have such capacity within him.
Here we are faced with a bottomless mystery, for in fact there is an immense difference between the generating womb in God the Father and the generated fruit, the Son, although both are one God in the Holy Spirit. Nowadays many theologians say, quite rightly, that it is precisely at the Cross that this difference becomes clearly manifest: at this precise point the mystery of the divine Trinity is fully proclaimed. The distance is so great—for in God everything is infinite—that there is room in it for all the alienation and sin of the world; the Son can draw all this into his relationship with the Father without any danger of it harming or altering the mutual eternal love between Father and Son in the Holy Spirit. Sin is burnt up, as it were, in the fire of this love, for God, as Scripture says, is a consuming fire that will not tolerate anything impure but must burn it away.
Jesus, the Crucified, endures our inner darkness and estrangement from God, and he does so in our place. It is all the more painful for him, the less he has merited it. As we have already said, there is nothing familiar about it to him: it is utterly alien and full of horror. Indeed, he suffers more deeply than an ordinary man is capable of suffering, even were he condemned and rejected by God, because only the incarnate Son knows who the Father really is and what it means to be deprived of him, to have lost him (to all appearances) forever. It is meaningless to call this suffering "hell", for there is no hatred of God in Jesus, only a pain that is deeper and more timeless than the ordinary man could endure either in his lifetime or after his death.
Nor can we say that God the Father "punishes" his suffering Son in our place. It is not a question of punishment, for the work accomplished here between Father and Son with the cooperation of the Holy Spirit is utter love, the purest love possible; so, too, it is a work of the purest spontaneity, from the Son's side as from the side of Father and Spirit. God's love is so rich that it can also assume this form of darkness, out of love for our dark world.
What, then, can we do? "Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land until the ninth hour." It was as if the cosmos sensed that something decisive was going on here, as if it were participating in the darkness invading the soul of Christ. For our part, we do not need to experience this darkening, for we are already estranged and dark enough. It would suffice if we held onto our faith in a world that has become dark all around us; it would be enough for us to be convinced that all inner light, all inner joy and security, all trust in life owes its existence to the darkness of Golgotha and never to forget to give God thanks for it.
At the very periphery of this thanksgiving to God, it is legitimate to ask that, if God permits it, we may help the Lord to bear a tiny particle of the suffering of the Cross, of his inner anxiety and darkness, if it will contribute to reconciling the world with God. Jesus himself says that it is possible to help him bear it when he challenges us to take up our cross daily. Paul says the same in affirming that he suffers that portion of the Cross that Christ has reserved for him and for other Christians. When life is hard and apparently hopeless, we can be confident that this darkness of ours can be taken up into the great darkness of redemption through which the light of Easter dawns. And when what is required of us seems too burdensome, when the pains become unbearable and the fate we are asked to accept seems simply meaningless—then we have come very close to the man nailed on the Cross at the Place of the Skull, for he has already undergone this on our behalf and, moreover, in unimaginable intensity. When surrounded by apparent meaninglessness, therefore, we cannot ask to be given a calming sense of meaning; all we can do is wait and endure, quite still, like the Crucified, not seeing anything, facing the dark abyss of death. Beyond this abyss there waits for us something that, at present, we cannot see (nor can we even manage to regard it as true), namely, a further abyss of light in which all the world's pain is treasured and cherished in the ever-open heart of God. Then we shall be allowed, like the Apostle Thomas, to put our hand into this gaping wound; feeling it, we shall realize in a very bodily way that God's love transcends all human senses, and with the disciple we shall pray: "My Lord and my God."
When what is required of us seems too burdensome, when the pains become unbearable and the fate we are asked to accept seems simply meaningless—then we have come very close to the man nailed on the Cross at the Place of the Skull, for he has already undergone this on our behalf and, moreover, in unimaginable intensity.
Nearly two thousand years ago a trial took place that resulted in the death of the condemned man. Why is it that, even today, it will not allow mankind to forget about it? Have there not been countless other show trials down the years, particularly in our own time, and should the crying injustice of these trials not stir us up and preoccupy us just as much as that ancient trial at the Passover in Jerusalem? To judge by the constant and even increasing flood of books and discussions about Jesus, however, all the horrors of the extermination camps and the Gulag Archipelago matter less to mankind than the sentencing of this one innocent man whom, according to the Bible, God himself championed and vindicated—as is evident from his Resurrection from the dead.
The question is: Was he the one, great and final scapegoat for mankind? Did mankind load him with all its guilt, and did he, the Lamb of God, carry this guilt away? This is the thesis of a modern ethnologist, René Girard, whose books have attracted much attention in America, France and recently in Germany. According to this view, all human civilization, right from the outset, is constructed on the principle of the scapegoat. That is, men have cunningly invented a way of overcoming their reciprocal aggression and arriving at an at least temporary peace: thus they concentrate this aggression on an almost randomly chosen scapegoat and appoint this scapegoat as the sacrificial victim, in order to pacify an allegedly angry god. According to Girard, however, this divine anger is nothing other than men's reciprocal rage. This mechanism always needs to be set in motion again after a period of relative peace if world history is to proceed in any half-tolerable way; in this context it reached its absolute peak in the general rejection of Jesus by the gentiles, the Jews and the Christians too: Jesus really did take over and carry away the sins of all that were loaded onto him, in such a way that anyone who believes this can live in peace with his brother from now on.
Girard's ideas are interesting; they bring the trial of Jesus to life in a new way. But we can still ask why this particular murder, after so many others, should be the conclusive event of world history, the advent of the end time? Men have cast their guilt onto many innocent scapegoats; why did this particular bearer of sins bring about a change in the world as a whole?
For the believer the answer is easy: the crucial thing is not that this is an instance of our wanting to rid ourselves of guilt. Naturally, no one wants to admit guilt. Pilate washes his hands and declares himself guiltless; the Jews hide behind their law, which requires them to condemn a blasphemer; they act in a pious and God-fearing way. Judas himself has remorse for his deed; he brings the blood money back and, when no one will take it from him, throws it at the high priests. No one is prepared to accept responsibility. But precisely by attempting to extricate themselves, they are convinced by God that they are guilty of the death of this innocent man. Ultimately it is not what men do that is the determining factor.
The crucial thing is that there is Someone who is both ready and able to take their guilt upon himself. None of the other scapegoats was able to do this. According to the New Testament understanding, the Son of God became man in order to take this guilt upon himself. He lived with a view to the "hour" that awaited him at the end of his earthly existence, with a view to the terrible baptism with which he would have to be baptized, as he says. This "hour" would see him chained and brought to trial not merely outwardly; it would not only tear his body to pieces with scourges and nail it to the wood but also penetrate into his very soul, his spirit, his most intimate relationship with God, his Father. It would fill everything with desolation and the mortal fear of having been forsaken—as it were, with a totally alien, hostile and deadly poisonous substance that would block his every access to the source from which he lived.
It is in the horror of this darkness, of this emptiness and alienation from God, that the words on the Mount of Olives are spoken: "My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me. " The cup of which he here speaks is well known in the Old Testament: it is the cup full of God's anger and wrath, which sinners must drink to the dregs; often it is threatened or forced upon unfaithful Jerusalem or enemy peoples like Babylon. The cry from the Cross is uttered out of the same horror of spiritual blackness, the cry asking why God has forsaken this tortured man. The man who cries out knows only that he is forsaken; in this darkness he no longer knows why. He is not permitted to know why, for the idea that the darkness he is undergoing might be on behalf of others would constitute a certain comfort; it would give him a ray of light. No such comfort can be granted him now, for the issue, in absolute seriousness, is that of purifying the relationship between God and the guilty world.
The man who endures this night is the Innocent One. No one else could effectively undergo it on behalf of others. What ordinary or extraordinary man would even have enough room in himself to accommodate the world's guilt? Only someone who is a partner of the eternal Father, distinct from him and yet divine, that is, the Son who, man that he is, is also God, can have such capacity within him.
Here we are faced with a bottomless mystery, for in fact there is an immense difference between the generating womb in God the Father and the generated fruit, the Son, although both are one God in the Holy Spirit. Nowadays many theologians say, quite rightly, that it is precisely at the Cross that this difference becomes clearly manifest: at this precise point the mystery of the divine Trinity is fully proclaimed. The distance is so great—for in God everything is infinite—that there is room in it for all the alienation and sin of the world; the Son can draw all this into his relationship with the Father without any danger of it harming or altering the mutual eternal love between Father and Son in the Holy Spirit. Sin is burnt up, as it were, in the fire of this love, for God, as Scripture says, is a consuming fire that will not tolerate anything impure but must burn it away.
Jesus, the Crucified, endures our inner darkness and estrangement from God, and he does so in our place. It is all the more painful for him, the less he has merited it. As we have already said, there is nothing familiar about it to him: it is utterly alien and full of horror. Indeed, he suffers more deeply than an ordinary man is capable of suffering, even were he condemned and rejected by God, because only the incarnate Son knows who the Father really is and what it means to be deprived of him, to have lost him (to all appearances) forever. It is meaningless to call this suffering "hell", for there is no hatred of God in Jesus, only a pain that is deeper and more timeless than the ordinary man could endure either in his lifetime or after his death.
Nor can we say that God the Father "punishes" his suffering Son in our place. It is not a question of punishment, for the work accomplished here between Father and Son with the cooperation of the Holy Spirit is utter love, the purest love possible; so, too, it is a work of the purest spontaneity, from the Son's side as from the side of Father and Spirit. God's love is so rich that it can also assume this form of darkness, out of love for our dark world.
What, then, can we do? "Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land until the ninth hour." It was as if the cosmos sensed that something decisive was going on here, as if it were participating in the darkness invading the soul of Christ. For our part, we do not need to experience this darkening, for we are already estranged and dark enough. It would suffice if we held onto our faith in a world that has become dark all around us; it would be enough for us to be convinced that all inner light, all inner joy and security, all trust in life owes its existence to the darkness of Golgotha and never to forget to give God thanks for it.
At the very periphery of this thanksgiving to God, it is legitimate to ask that, if God permits it, we may help the Lord to bear a tiny particle of the suffering of the Cross, of his inner anxiety and darkness, if it will contribute to reconciling the world with God. Jesus himself says that it is possible to help him bear it when he challenges us to take up our cross daily. Paul says the same in affirming that he suffers that portion of the Cross that Christ has reserved for him and for other Christians. When life is hard and apparently hopeless, we can be confident that this darkness of ours can be taken up into the great darkness of redemption through which the light of Easter dawns. And when what is required of us seems too burdensome, when the pains become unbearable and the fate we are asked to accept seems simply meaningless—then we have come very close to the man nailed on the Cross at the Place of the Skull, for he has already undergone this on our behalf and, moreover, in unimaginable intensity. When surrounded by apparent meaninglessness, therefore, we cannot ask to be given a calming sense of meaning; all we can do is wait and endure, quite still, like the Crucified, not seeing anything, facing the dark abyss of death. Beyond this abyss there waits for us something that, at present, we cannot see (nor can we even manage to regard it as true), namely, a further abyss of light in which all the world's pain is treasured and cherished in the ever-open heart of God. Then we shall be allowed, like the Apostle Thomas, to put our hand into this gaping wound; feeling it, we shall realize in a very bodily way that God's love transcends all human senses, and with the disciple we shall pray: "My Lord and my God."
Cancer's Unexpected Blessings by Tony Snow
When you enter the Valley of the Shadow of Death, things change
posted 7/20/2007 02:30PM
Commentator and broadcaster Tony Snow announced that he had colon cancer in 2005. Following surgery and chemo-therapy, Snow joined the Bush administration in April 2006 as press secretary. Unfortunately, on March 23 Snow, 51, a husband and father of three, announced that the cancer had recurred, with tumors found in his abdomen—leading to surgery in April, followed by more chemotherapy. Snow went back to work in the White House Briefing Room on May 30, but resigned August 31. CT asked Snow what spiritual lessons he has been learning through the ordeal.
Blessings arrive in unexpected packages—in my case, cancer.
Those of us with potentially fatal diseases—and there are millions in America today—find ourselves in the odd position of coping with our mortality while trying to fathom God's will. Although it would be the height of presumption to declare with confidence What It All Means, Scripture provides powerful hints and consolations.
The first is that we shouldn't spend too much time trying to answer the why questions: Why me? Why must people suffer? Why can't someone else get sick? We can't answer such things, and the questions themselves often are designed more to express our anguish than to solicit an answer.
I don't know why I have cancer, and I don't much care. It is what it is—a plain and indisputable fact. Yet even while staring into a mirror darkly, great and stunning truths begin to take shape. Our maladies define a central feature of our existence: We are fallen. We are imperfect. Our bodies give out.
But despite this—because of it—God offers the possibility of salvation and grace. We don't know how the narrative of our lives will end, but we get to choose how to use the interval between now and the moment we meet our Creator face-to-face.
Second, we need to get past the anxiety. The mere thought of dying can send adrenaline flooding through your system. A dizzy, unfocused panic seizes you. Your heart thumps; your head swims. You think of nothingness and swoon. You fear partings; you worry about the impact on family and friends. You fidget and get nowhere.
To regain footing, remember that we were born not into death, but into life—and that the journey continues after we have finished our days on this earth. We accept this on faith, but that faith is nourished by a conviction that stirs even within many nonbelieving hearts—an intuition that the gift of life, once given, cannot be taken away. Those who have been stricken enjoy the special privilege of being able to fight with their might, main, and faith to live—fully, richly, exuberantly—no matter how their days may be numbered.
Third, we can open our eyes and hearts. God relishes surprise. We want lives of simple, predictable ease—smooth, even trails as far as the eye can see—but God likes to go off-road. He provokes us with twists and turns. He places us in predicaments that seem to defy our endurance and comprehension—and yet don't. By his love and grace, we persevere. The challenges that make our hearts leap and stomachs churn invariably strengthen our faith and grant measures of wisdom and joy we would not experience otherwise.
'You Have Been Called'
Picture yourself in a hospital bed. The fog of anesthesia has begun to wear away. A doctor stands at your feet; a loved one holds your hand at the side. "It's cancer," the healer announces.
The natural reaction is to turn to God and ask him to serve as a cosmic Santa. "Dear God, make it all go away. Make everything simpler." But another voice whispers: "You have been called." Your quandary has drawn you closer to God, closer to those you love, closer to the issues that matter—and has dragged into insignificance the banal concerns that occupy our "normal time."
There's another kind of response, although usually short-lived—an inexplicable shudder of excitement, as if a clarifying moment of calamity has swept away everything trivial and tinny, and placed before us the challenge of important questions.
The moment you enter the Valley of the Shadow of Death, things change. You discover that Christianity is not something doughy, passive, pious, and soft. Faith may be the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. But it also draws you into a world shorn of fearful caution. The life of belief teems with thrills, boldness, danger, shocks, reversals, triumphs, and epiphanies. Think of Paul, traipsing though the known world and contemplating trips to what must have seemed the antipodes (Spain), shaking the dust from his sandals, worrying not about the morrow, but only about the moment.
There's nothing wilder than a life of humble virtue—for it is through selflessness and service that God wrings from our bodies and spirits the most we ever could give, the most we ever could offer, and the most we ever could do.
Finally, we can let love change everything. When Jesus was faced with the prospect of crucifixion, he grieved not for himself, but for us. He cried for Jerusalem before entering the holy city. From the Cross, he took on the cumulative burden of human sin and weakness, and begged for forgiveness on our behalf.
We get repeated chances to learn that life is not about us—that we acquire purpose and satisfaction by sharing in God's love for others. Sickness gets us partway there. It reminds us of our limitations and dependence. But it also gives us a chance to serve the healthy. A minister friend of mine observes that people suffering grave afflictions often acquire the faith of two people, while loved ones accept the burden of two people's worries and fears.
Learning How to Live
Most of us have watched friends as they drifted toward God's arms not with resignation, but with peace and hope. In so doing, they have taught us not how to die, but how to live. They have emulated Christ by transmitting the power and authority of love.
I sat by my best friend's bedside a few years ago as a wasting cancer took him away. He kept at his table a worn Bible and a 1928 edition of the Book of Common Prayer. A shattering grief disabled his family, many of his old friends, and at least one priest. Here was a humble and very good guy, someone who apologized when he winced with pain because he thought it made his guest uncomfortable. He retained his equanimity and good humor literally until his last conscious moment. "I'm going to try to beat [this cancer]," he told me several months before he died. "But if I don't, I'll see you on the other side."
His gift was to remind everyone around him that even though God doesn't promise us tomorrow, he does promise us eternity—filled with life and love we cannot comprehend—and that one can in the throes of sickness point the rest of us toward timeless truths that will help us weather future storms.
Through such trials, God bids us to choose: Do we believe, or do we not? Will we be bold enough to love, daring enough to serve, humble enough to submit, and strong enough to acknowledge our limitations? Can we surrender our concern in things that don't matter so that we might devote our remaining days to things that do?
When our faith flags, he throws reminders in our way. Think of the prayer warriors in our midst. They change things, and those of us who have been on the receiving end of their petitions and intercessions know it.
It is hard to describe, but there are times when suddenly the hairs on the back of your neck stand up, and you feel a surge of the Spirit. Somehow you just know: Others have chosen, when talking to the Author of all creation, to lift us up—to speak of us!
This is love of a very special order. But so is the ability to sit back and appreciate the wonder of every created thing. The mere thought of death somehow makes every blessing vivid, every happiness more luminous and intense. We may not know how our contest with sickness will end, but we have felt the ineluctable touch of God.
What is man that Thou art mindful of him? We don't know much, but we know this: No matter where we are, no matter what we do, no matter how bleak or frightening our prospects, each and every one of us, each and every day, lies in the same safe and impregnable place—in the hollow of God's hand.
posted 7/20/2007 02:30PM
Commentator and broadcaster Tony Snow announced that he had colon cancer in 2005. Following surgery and chemo-therapy, Snow joined the Bush administration in April 2006 as press secretary. Unfortunately, on March 23 Snow, 51, a husband and father of three, announced that the cancer had recurred, with tumors found in his abdomen—leading to surgery in April, followed by more chemotherapy. Snow went back to work in the White House Briefing Room on May 30, but resigned August 31. CT asked Snow what spiritual lessons he has been learning through the ordeal.
Blessings arrive in unexpected packages—in my case, cancer.
Those of us with potentially fatal diseases—and there are millions in America today—find ourselves in the odd position of coping with our mortality while trying to fathom God's will. Although it would be the height of presumption to declare with confidence What It All Means, Scripture provides powerful hints and consolations.
The first is that we shouldn't spend too much time trying to answer the why questions: Why me? Why must people suffer? Why can't someone else get sick? We can't answer such things, and the questions themselves often are designed more to express our anguish than to solicit an answer.
I don't know why I have cancer, and I don't much care. It is what it is—a plain and indisputable fact. Yet even while staring into a mirror darkly, great and stunning truths begin to take shape. Our maladies define a central feature of our existence: We are fallen. We are imperfect. Our bodies give out.
But despite this—because of it—God offers the possibility of salvation and grace. We don't know how the narrative of our lives will end, but we get to choose how to use the interval between now and the moment we meet our Creator face-to-face.
Second, we need to get past the anxiety. The mere thought of dying can send adrenaline flooding through your system. A dizzy, unfocused panic seizes you. Your heart thumps; your head swims. You think of nothingness and swoon. You fear partings; you worry about the impact on family and friends. You fidget and get nowhere.
To regain footing, remember that we were born not into death, but into life—and that the journey continues after we have finished our days on this earth. We accept this on faith, but that faith is nourished by a conviction that stirs even within many nonbelieving hearts—an intuition that the gift of life, once given, cannot be taken away. Those who have been stricken enjoy the special privilege of being able to fight with their might, main, and faith to live—fully, richly, exuberantly—no matter how their days may be numbered.
Third, we can open our eyes and hearts. God relishes surprise. We want lives of simple, predictable ease—smooth, even trails as far as the eye can see—but God likes to go off-road. He provokes us with twists and turns. He places us in predicaments that seem to defy our endurance and comprehension—and yet don't. By his love and grace, we persevere. The challenges that make our hearts leap and stomachs churn invariably strengthen our faith and grant measures of wisdom and joy we would not experience otherwise.
'You Have Been Called'
Picture yourself in a hospital bed. The fog of anesthesia has begun to wear away. A doctor stands at your feet; a loved one holds your hand at the side. "It's cancer," the healer announces.
The natural reaction is to turn to God and ask him to serve as a cosmic Santa. "Dear God, make it all go away. Make everything simpler." But another voice whispers: "You have been called." Your quandary has drawn you closer to God, closer to those you love, closer to the issues that matter—and has dragged into insignificance the banal concerns that occupy our "normal time."
There's another kind of response, although usually short-lived—an inexplicable shudder of excitement, as if a clarifying moment of calamity has swept away everything trivial and tinny, and placed before us the challenge of important questions.
The moment you enter the Valley of the Shadow of Death, things change. You discover that Christianity is not something doughy, passive, pious, and soft. Faith may be the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. But it also draws you into a world shorn of fearful caution. The life of belief teems with thrills, boldness, danger, shocks, reversals, triumphs, and epiphanies. Think of Paul, traipsing though the known world and contemplating trips to what must have seemed the antipodes (Spain), shaking the dust from his sandals, worrying not about the morrow, but only about the moment.
There's nothing wilder than a life of humble virtue—for it is through selflessness and service that God wrings from our bodies and spirits the most we ever could give, the most we ever could offer, and the most we ever could do.
Finally, we can let love change everything. When Jesus was faced with the prospect of crucifixion, he grieved not for himself, but for us. He cried for Jerusalem before entering the holy city. From the Cross, he took on the cumulative burden of human sin and weakness, and begged for forgiveness on our behalf.
We get repeated chances to learn that life is not about us—that we acquire purpose and satisfaction by sharing in God's love for others. Sickness gets us partway there. It reminds us of our limitations and dependence. But it also gives us a chance to serve the healthy. A minister friend of mine observes that people suffering grave afflictions often acquire the faith of two people, while loved ones accept the burden of two people's worries and fears.
Learning How to Live
Most of us have watched friends as they drifted toward God's arms not with resignation, but with peace and hope. In so doing, they have taught us not how to die, but how to live. They have emulated Christ by transmitting the power and authority of love.
I sat by my best friend's bedside a few years ago as a wasting cancer took him away. He kept at his table a worn Bible and a 1928 edition of the Book of Common Prayer. A shattering grief disabled his family, many of his old friends, and at least one priest. Here was a humble and very good guy, someone who apologized when he winced with pain because he thought it made his guest uncomfortable. He retained his equanimity and good humor literally until his last conscious moment. "I'm going to try to beat [this cancer]," he told me several months before he died. "But if I don't, I'll see you on the other side."
His gift was to remind everyone around him that even though God doesn't promise us tomorrow, he does promise us eternity—filled with life and love we cannot comprehend—and that one can in the throes of sickness point the rest of us toward timeless truths that will help us weather future storms.
Through such trials, God bids us to choose: Do we believe, or do we not? Will we be bold enough to love, daring enough to serve, humble enough to submit, and strong enough to acknowledge our limitations? Can we surrender our concern in things that don't matter so that we might devote our remaining days to things that do?
When our faith flags, he throws reminders in our way. Think of the prayer warriors in our midst. They change things, and those of us who have been on the receiving end of their petitions and intercessions know it.
It is hard to describe, but there are times when suddenly the hairs on the back of your neck stand up, and you feel a surge of the Spirit. Somehow you just know: Others have chosen, when talking to the Author of all creation, to lift us up—to speak of us!
This is love of a very special order. But so is the ability to sit back and appreciate the wonder of every created thing. The mere thought of death somehow makes every blessing vivid, every happiness more luminous and intense. We may not know how our contest with sickness will end, but we have felt the ineluctable touch of God.
What is man that Thou art mindful of him? We don't know much, but we know this: No matter where we are, no matter what we do, no matter how bleak or frightening our prospects, each and every one of us, each and every day, lies in the same safe and impregnable place—in the hollow of God's hand.
Monday, May 30, 2011
The Sacred Romance of the Trinity
i believe i am getting closer to the why of God allowing suffering in this world of a free and fallen humanity. I believe the answer is in the kenosis (self emptying) of the Trinity
1. We long for intimacy because we are made in the image of perfect intimacy. Before all creation there existed a fellowship, a heroic intimacy and an adventure called the Trinity. The bigger Story begins with the Hero in love. From this fellowship sprang all of our longings for friendship, a family, a home, a fellowship and intimacy. And this Fellowship wants us to be a part of the Story; that through their abundant generosity to share in the meaning, joy and flow of their Life and Love. We can count on love to ultimately be victorious. (Epic)
2. In the spiritual marriage of baptism, we share God’s life. The God we get married to is a Trinity of persons, each of whom empties himself, and dies to self. Father loves Son, not self. Son loves Father not self. Spirit is that love between them. Spirit reveals the Son, not self. Son reveals the Father not self. Father begets son, not self. Father and Son process Spirit not themselves. Each ones dies to self eternally. Suffering is akin to this death of self “from the highest to the lowest, self exists to be abdicated and by that abdication, become more truly self & to be thereupon yet the more abdicated and so on forever.” CS Lewis.
1. We long for intimacy because we are made in the image of perfect intimacy. Before all creation there existed a fellowship, a heroic intimacy and an adventure called the Trinity. The bigger Story begins with the Hero in love. From this fellowship sprang all of our longings for friendship, a family, a home, a fellowship and intimacy. And this Fellowship wants us to be a part of the Story; that through their abundant generosity to share in the meaning, joy and flow of their Life and Love. We can count on love to ultimately be victorious. (Epic)
2. In the spiritual marriage of baptism, we share God’s life. The God we get married to is a Trinity of persons, each of whom empties himself, and dies to self. Father loves Son, not self. Son loves Father not self. Spirit is that love between them. Spirit reveals the Son, not self. Son reveals the Father not self. Father begets son, not self. Father and Son process Spirit not themselves. Each ones dies to self eternally. Suffering is akin to this death of self “from the highest to the lowest, self exists to be abdicated and by that abdication, become more truly self & to be thereupon yet the more abdicated and so on forever.” CS Lewis.
The kenosis of christ
The Church and the Cross (edited) By fatherstephen
1. When St. Paul writes of Christ’s “emptying” Himself (Phil 2:5-11), he is not describing something that is somehow alien to God. In Rev. 13:8 Christ is described as the “lamb slain from the foundation of the world.” Thus we cannot look at the Cross as an event that is somehow alien to God. Rather, it is a revelation of Who God Is, perhaps the fullest revelation that we receive.
The eternal aspect of Christ’s kenosis is perceived in the framework of the kenotic intratrinitarian love. Fr. Sophrony remarks that before Christ accomplished his earthly kenosis, “it had already been accomplished in heaven according to his divinity in relation to the Father.” The earthly kenosis is thus a manifestation of the heavenly: “Through him [Christ] we are given revelation about the nature of God-Love. The perfection consists in that this love humbly, without reservations, gives itself over. The Father in the generation of the Son pours himself out entirely. But the Son returns all things to the Father” (I Love Therefore I Am, 95).
Indeed, in this understanding we would say that this self-emptying is not only integral to Christ’s saving work, but to the revelation of the Triune God. Thus when we say, “God is love,” we understand that God pours Himself out: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. It is into this life of self-emptying that we are grafted in our salvation. We lose our life in order to save it. This is no reference to a single act, but to the character of the whole of our life as it is found in Christ. “I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live” (Galatians 2:20).
2. Any imitation of God, any conformity of our life to His, will involve this same self-emptying [as the self-emptying of God on the Cross].
The love of 1 Corinthians 13, is nothing less than the agapaic love of God – the love the Father has for the Son; the love the Son has for the Father; the love the Spirit has for the Father and the Son (and all the ways we may permutate those statements). Love is nothing other than the self-emptying of one person towards the other
Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful; it is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends…
This is as poetic and accurate a description of kenotic love as can be found in Scripture. This is synonomous with Christ’s claim that he does only that which He sees the Father doing (John 5:19). The Son empties Himself towards the Father and only does His will. The Father empties Himself towards the Son, and has given “all things into His hands” (John 13:3). The Spirit “does not speak of the things concerning Himself” (John 16:13), etc. These are not discreet revelations about intimate details of the Trinity, but are revelations of the very Life of God. Kenosis (self-emptying) is descriptive of each Person of the Trinity. It is in this that we speak of “God is love.” For greater love cannot be measured than that we “lay down our life for our friends.”
Thus when we come to speak of our life in the Church, St. Paul characterizes it by this same act of kenotic love. We do not look towards our own good, but for the good of the other. We “weep with those who weep” and “rejoice with those who rejoice.”
That our membership in the Body of Christ begins by our Baptism into Christ’s death (Romans 6:3) and also includes Baptistm “into the Body of Christ” (I Corinithians 12:13) gives an explanation of the meaning of “Baptized into the Body.” To exist in the Body of Christ is to do so by existing in the death of Christ, as well as His resurrection. How this makes us “His body” is amplified when we see that “His death” is more than the event on Calvary, but the fullness of His divine self-emptying that was made manifest to us on the Cross of Calvary. We are Baptized into the self-emptying love of Christ, for this is the only way of life. If we are to be transformed “from one degree of glory to another” then it is towards the “glory” of the crucified, self-emptying Christ that we are being transformed. Deification (theosis) is also kenosis (self-emptying) for there is no other kind of life revealed to us in Christ.
3. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of god, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form he humbled [emptied] himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross (Philippians 2:5-8).
Typical of the Apostle, even his most profound theological statements are integrated into the life of the church – for theology concerning Christ is not an abstraction or a theory to be discussed, but a revelation of the truth – both the truth of God and the truth of ourselves, inasmuch as we are His body. There is no proper division between our contemplation of the truth and our living of the truth.
In another place the Apostle writes:Ye are our epistle written in our hearts, known and read of all men: Forasmuch as ye are manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart (2 Corinthians 3:2-3).
Here, even the separation or distinctin between Church and Scripture is overcome! The Church, rightly lived, is itself the true interpretation of Scripture. Thus, when we speak of the self-emptying of Christ on our behalf, we must also live in a self-emptying manner towards one another and towards God.
Just as Christ pours Himself out for us to the Father, and the Father gives Himself to His Son, so all the members of the body of Christ must pour themselves out towards one another and towards Christ. We “empty ourselves” so that we might be the “fullness of Him that filleth all in all” (Ephesians 1:23).
This same self-emptying is also proper to the unity of the Church. The context for St. Paul’s writing of Christ’s self-emptying is precisely in a passage where he is concerned to speak of the unity of the Church.
Complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from selfishness or conceit, but in humility count others better than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself…(Philippians 2:2-7)
The unity of the Church is unimaginable without this mutual self-emptying. Indeed, such a unity (should there be one) would be without the mind of Christ, and thus would be a false unity.
As Christ Himself warned His apostles,You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great men exercise authority over them. It shall not be so among you; but whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be your slave; even as the Son of man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many (Matthew 20:25-28)
Whatever dialog the Church has within itself (between “Churches” as the Orthodox would say) or with those with whom there is schism, the dialog must be rooted in the mind of Christ, the self-emptying love of God. This in no way calls for an ignoring of dogma, for dogma itself is but a verbal icon of Christ (to use a phrase of Fr. Georges Florovsky). But to “speak the truth in love” is to speak from within the mind of Christ, that is, from within His self-emptying love. There is no sin that such love does not heal, no emptiness that this Emptiness cannot fill. Our hope is in Christ, thus we shall not be ashamed (Romans 5:5).
1. When St. Paul writes of Christ’s “emptying” Himself (Phil 2:5-11), he is not describing something that is somehow alien to God. In Rev. 13:8 Christ is described as the “lamb slain from the foundation of the world.” Thus we cannot look at the Cross as an event that is somehow alien to God. Rather, it is a revelation of Who God Is, perhaps the fullest revelation that we receive.
The eternal aspect of Christ’s kenosis is perceived in the framework of the kenotic intratrinitarian love. Fr. Sophrony remarks that before Christ accomplished his earthly kenosis, “it had already been accomplished in heaven according to his divinity in relation to the Father.” The earthly kenosis is thus a manifestation of the heavenly: “Through him [Christ] we are given revelation about the nature of God-Love. The perfection consists in that this love humbly, without reservations, gives itself over. The Father in the generation of the Son pours himself out entirely. But the Son returns all things to the Father” (I Love Therefore I Am, 95).
Indeed, in this understanding we would say that this self-emptying is not only integral to Christ’s saving work, but to the revelation of the Triune God. Thus when we say, “God is love,” we understand that God pours Himself out: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. It is into this life of self-emptying that we are grafted in our salvation. We lose our life in order to save it. This is no reference to a single act, but to the character of the whole of our life as it is found in Christ. “I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live” (Galatians 2:20).
2. Any imitation of God, any conformity of our life to His, will involve this same self-emptying [as the self-emptying of God on the Cross].
The love of 1 Corinthians 13, is nothing less than the agapaic love of God – the love the Father has for the Son; the love the Son has for the Father; the love the Spirit has for the Father and the Son (and all the ways we may permutate those statements). Love is nothing other than the self-emptying of one person towards the other
Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful; it is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends…
This is as poetic and accurate a description of kenotic love as can be found in Scripture. This is synonomous with Christ’s claim that he does only that which He sees the Father doing (John 5:19). The Son empties Himself towards the Father and only does His will. The Father empties Himself towards the Son, and has given “all things into His hands” (John 13:3). The Spirit “does not speak of the things concerning Himself” (John 16:13), etc. These are not discreet revelations about intimate details of the Trinity, but are revelations of the very Life of God. Kenosis (self-emptying) is descriptive of each Person of the Trinity. It is in this that we speak of “God is love.” For greater love cannot be measured than that we “lay down our life for our friends.”
Thus when we come to speak of our life in the Church, St. Paul characterizes it by this same act of kenotic love. We do not look towards our own good, but for the good of the other. We “weep with those who weep” and “rejoice with those who rejoice.”
That our membership in the Body of Christ begins by our Baptism into Christ’s death (Romans 6:3) and also includes Baptistm “into the Body of Christ” (I Corinithians 12:13) gives an explanation of the meaning of “Baptized into the Body.” To exist in the Body of Christ is to do so by existing in the death of Christ, as well as His resurrection. How this makes us “His body” is amplified when we see that “His death” is more than the event on Calvary, but the fullness of His divine self-emptying that was made manifest to us on the Cross of Calvary. We are Baptized into the self-emptying love of Christ, for this is the only way of life. If we are to be transformed “from one degree of glory to another” then it is towards the “glory” of the crucified, self-emptying Christ that we are being transformed. Deification (theosis) is also kenosis (self-emptying) for there is no other kind of life revealed to us in Christ.
3. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of god, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form he humbled [emptied] himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross (Philippians 2:5-8).
Typical of the Apostle, even his most profound theological statements are integrated into the life of the church – for theology concerning Christ is not an abstraction or a theory to be discussed, but a revelation of the truth – both the truth of God and the truth of ourselves, inasmuch as we are His body. There is no proper division between our contemplation of the truth and our living of the truth.
In another place the Apostle writes:Ye are our epistle written in our hearts, known and read of all men: Forasmuch as ye are manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart (2 Corinthians 3:2-3).
Here, even the separation or distinctin between Church and Scripture is overcome! The Church, rightly lived, is itself the true interpretation of Scripture. Thus, when we speak of the self-emptying of Christ on our behalf, we must also live in a self-emptying manner towards one another and towards God.
Just as Christ pours Himself out for us to the Father, and the Father gives Himself to His Son, so all the members of the body of Christ must pour themselves out towards one another and towards Christ. We “empty ourselves” so that we might be the “fullness of Him that filleth all in all” (Ephesians 1:23).
This same self-emptying is also proper to the unity of the Church. The context for St. Paul’s writing of Christ’s self-emptying is precisely in a passage where he is concerned to speak of the unity of the Church.
Complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from selfishness or conceit, but in humility count others better than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself…(Philippians 2:2-7)
The unity of the Church is unimaginable without this mutual self-emptying. Indeed, such a unity (should there be one) would be without the mind of Christ, and thus would be a false unity.
As Christ Himself warned His apostles,You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great men exercise authority over them. It shall not be so among you; but whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be your slave; even as the Son of man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many (Matthew 20:25-28)
Whatever dialog the Church has within itself (between “Churches” as the Orthodox would say) or with those with whom there is schism, the dialog must be rooted in the mind of Christ, the self-emptying love of God. This in no way calls for an ignoring of dogma, for dogma itself is but a verbal icon of Christ (to use a phrase of Fr. Georges Florovsky). But to “speak the truth in love” is to speak from within the mind of Christ, that is, from within His self-emptying love. There is no sin that such love does not heal, no emptiness that this Emptiness cannot fill. Our hope is in Christ, thus we shall not be ashamed (Romans 5:5).
Saturday, May 7, 2011
The Dignity of the Human Person
The Dignity of the Human Person: Pope John Paul II's Teaching on Divinization in the Trinitarian Encyclicals
By Carl E. Olson
Originally published in Saint Austin Review in 2002.
A witness to the horrors of Nazism and Communism, Pope John Paul II saw first-hand the physical and spiritual destruction wrought by the disordered desire to remove God and make man the center and meaning of history. He has also observed destuctive impulses in the West, falsehoods evidenced by the steady growth of abortion, contraception, amorality, and hedonism during the past several decades. In addressing all of these conditions, the Holy Father has consistently pointed out that man, in his confused search for identity and meaning, unwittingly proves he does indeed have a purpose and reason for living. The yearning of man, so often realized in distorted and ugly ways, is to be God and to be deified.
John Paul II denounces the many perverted forms this yearning takes, but acknowledges its authentic core. Man has a God-made hole in his being, a deep recess which can only be fulfilled in one Way and by one Person, Jesus Christ. In the Incarnation, God united himself to man, making possible the unthinkable: intimate communion between the creature and the Creator. "This union of Christ with man is in itself a mystery," the Holy Father states in his first encyclical, Redemptor Hominis, "From the mystery is born ‘the new man,’ called to become a partaker of God’s life, and newly created in Christ for the fullness of grace and truth." (RH 18.2).
This "partaking" of God’s very life (see 2 Peter 1:4) is the reality of divinization, or deification. In the Eastern Churches it is often called theosis; it is a central focus of Eastern Christian theology and worship. It is also one of the consistent and unifying themes of John Paul II’s thought, appearing often in his important trilogy of Trinitarian encyclicals – Redemptor Hominis, Dives in Misericordia and Dominum et Vivificantem – respectively on the Son, the Father, and the Holy Spirit.
At times acknowledging his debt to Eastern sources, John Paul II writes with profundity and insight about the reality of divinization. In the Trinitarian trilogy (and elsewhere) he addresses four key features of this vital doctrine: divinization, the adoption of man into God’s family, reveals the inherent dignity of man; it is possible only through the central mystery of the Incarnation; the Redemption is the concrete way in which the Incarnate One paved the way for man’s divinization; and the divine grace, given to man is the inner life and love of the Triune God and comes to man through the Mystical Body of Christ, the Church.
God’s Family is For The Person
The anthropological focus of the Holy Father is an essential element of his thought, reflecting his use of the phenomenological method. Man, created in the image of God, has a unique, inherent value. It was always God’s plan that men, despite being creatures, would freely participate in his inner life. In Dominum et Vivificantem John Paul II writes:
[God] has revealed to man that, as the "image and likeness" of his Creator, he is called to participate in truth and love. This participation means a life in union with God, who is"eternal life." (DeV 37.1)
The dignity and value of humanity is established in Creation, but is fully realized and expressed in the invitation to become a "new creature" in Christ (2 Cor. 5:17). In Redemptor Hominis, the Pope writes,
...we can and must immediately reach and display to the world our unity in proclaiming the mystery of Christ, in revealing the divine dimension and also the human dimension of the Redemption, and in struggling with unwearying perseverance for the dignity that each human being has reached and can continually reach in Christ, namely the dignity of both the grace of divine adoption and the inner truth of humanity... (RH 11.4).
The Holy Father returns to this understanding of dignity many times, using the word with a profound intent. Man’s dignity is not rooted in his temporal existence, but in where he has come from and where he is called to go. This calling is found in the revelation of Christ. In his writings, the Pontiff refers often to a phrase in Gaudium et spes: "Christ, the new Adam, in the very revelation of the mystery of the Father and his love, fully reveals man to himself and brings to light his most high calling" (GS 22, quoted in RH 8.2).
If man had no value in the eyes of God, Christ would not have come and taken on flesh and died. So man’s dignity rests in the Redemption and within the salvific economy man becomes a "new creature": "In this dimension man finds again the greatness, dignity and value that belong to his humanity. In the mystery of the Redemption man becomes newly ‘expressed’ and, in a way, is newly created" (RH 10.1).
An error common to some theologians and (whether they realize it or not) secular humanists, is a fear the "new creation" brought by Christ involves a destructive or disrespectful attitude towards man’s nature. This can be seen in the classical Protestant notion of "total depravity." But divine life and grace are not given to destroy man’s nature, but to perfect it, heal it, and bring it to full completion. Sin is destroyed, yet sin is not physical, or even "natural."
"He who is the ‘image of the invisible God’ (Col 1:15), is himself the perfect man who has restored in the children of Adam that likeness to God which had been disfigured ever since the first sin. Human nature, by the very fact that it was assumed, not absorbed, in him, has been raised in us also to a dignity beyond compare. For, by his Incarnation, he, the Son of God, in a certain way united himself with each man" (GS 22, quotes in RH 8.2).
Yet while each man is united to Christ through the Incarnation, each must decide for himself what to do about the scandal of the Incarnation. God does not force his supernatural life upon man; such an act would obliterate man’s free will, an essential feature of human dignity. The dilemma for each person is this: "Will I enter into the life of Christ or not?" If not, divine life is lost and there is an eternal separation from the Source of life. If man chooses divine life, he is indwelt by the Holy Spirit, and enters into communion with God:
The hidden breath of the divine Spirit enables the human spirit to open in its turn before the saving and sanctifying self-opening of God. Through the gift of grace, which comes from the Holy Spirit, man enters a "new life," is brought into the supernatural reality of the divine life itself and becomes a "dwelling-place of the Holy Spirit," a living temple of God...Man lives in and by God... (DeV 58.3).
God became Man to Grant Divine Life
In Redemptor Hominis, John Paul II refers to Christ as the "one who penetrated in a unique, unrepeatable way into the mystery of man and entered his ‘heart’" (RH 8.2). When the mystery of man is met by the mystery of the Incarnation, they become unified: "For, by his Incarnation, he, the Son of God, in a certain way united himself with each man." The Incarnation is the bridge spanning the gap between man and God. It is the ultimate expression – the final Word – of God’s merciful love.
In Dominum et Vivificantem the Holy Father writes of "God’s salvific self-communication" and "giving" (see DeV 11, 12, 13,14). He states this self-communication gives mankind "the capacity of having a personal relationship with God, as ‘I’ and ‘you,’ and therefore the capacity of having a covenant, which will take place in God’s salvific communication with man..." (DeV 34, see all of 34). This culminates in the Word, whose Incarnate entrance into history "constitutes the climax of this giving, this divine self-communication" (DeV 50.1).
The Incarnation and man’s divinization should be seen as part of a familial reality. Just as the Father sent his only begotten Son (Jn 3:16, Heb 1:5), the Son in turn sends forth adopted sons (Gal 4:4-7). Just as the Son came to do the will of the Father (Lk 22:42, Jn 4:34), adopted sons go forth to do the will of the Son (Jn 15:14-17). This spiritual procreation occurs by the power of the Holy Spirit, the giver of life (2 Cor 3:6, Gal 6:8). John Paul II writes:
For as Saint Paul teaches, "all who are led by the Spirit of God" are "children of God." The filiation of divine adoption is born in man on the basis of the mystery of the Incarnation, therefore through Christ the eternal Son. But the birth, or rebirth, happens when God the Father "sends the Spirit of his Son into our hearts." Then we receive a spirit of adopted sons by which we cry ‘Abba, Father!’" Hence the divine filiation planted in the human soul through sanctifying grace is the work of the Holy Spirit. "It is the Spirit himself bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ." Sanctifying grace is the principle and source of man’s new life: divine, supernatural life. (DeV 52.2).
By entering into human history and uniting Himself with mankind, God not only restored communion between the divine and the natural, He modeled divine sonship for us. By becoming united to humanity, he demonstrated that man can become one with God. Man can become by grace what the Son is by nature. Put another way, the Son of God became a Son of Man so that men might become sons of God (see CCC 460).
In Dominum et Vivificantem, the Holy Father meditates upon the unique relationship between the Incarnation, the Holy Spirit, and divinization. Christ told the apostles he must go in order for the Helper, the Paraclete, to be sent (Jn 16:7). Throughout his encyclical on the Holy Spirit, John Paul II reflects on the role of the Paraclete as the communicator of the divine life which comes through the Incarnation:
Thus there is a supernatural "adoption," of which the source is the Holy Spirit, love and gift. As such he is given to man. And in the superabundance of the uncreated gift there begins in the heart of all human beings that particular created gift whereby they "become partakers of the divine nature." Thus human life becomes permeated, through participation, by the divine life, and itself acquires a divine, supernatural dimension. There is granted the new life, in which as a sharer in the mystery of the Incarnation "man has access to the Father in the Holy Spirit." (DeV 52.3).
Redemption and the Divine Life
The opening sentence of Redemptor Hominis squarely places the Redeemer and Redemption at the center of history, reality, and salvation. The scandal of the Redemption, the death of God on a cross, is the climax of the greatest scandal, the birth of God in time and space. It is also the revelation of the greatest love known to man. "In the mystery of the Cross love is at work, that love which brings man back again to share in the life that is in God himself" (DeV 41.1), and "It is love which not only created the good but also grants participation in the very life of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit" (DM 7.4). In a beautiful passage in Dives in Misericordia, the Holy Father summarizes the relationship between the redemptive work of Christ and divinization:
The Cross of Christ on Calvary stands beside the path of that admirable commercium, of that wonderful self-communication of God to man, which also includes the call to man to share in the divine life by giving himself, and with himself the whole visible world, to God, and like an adopted son to become a sharer in the truth and love which is in God and proceeds from God. It is precisely besides the path of man’s eternal election to the dignity of being an adopted child of God that there stands in history the Cross of Christ, the only-begotten Son... (DM 7.5)
The call to divine life is the call to die to self, and to take up the cross of Christ. One does not experience the divine life of Christ without also experiencing the death of Christ (Rom 6:5-11). Again, this death does not disparage the body or human nature, but is a just condemnation of sin and man’s disordered appetites. The Redemption, and through it divinization, is oriented towards the whole man. Men are both physical and spiritual beings whose entire person yearns and groans for the eschaton (Rom 8:22), when all will be made right between God and his creation.
The Inner Life and Love of the Triune God
Another reocurring element in the writings of John Paul II is the Trinitarian formula. Throughout his encyclicals there is a repeated use of the phrase "to the Father, through the Son, in the Holy Spirit." In writing about divinization, John Paul II highlights the particular actions of the three Persons, always balancing this with the unity of the Trinity. In Redemptor Hominis, regarding the Church as a "sign" and "sacrament, he writes:
This invocation addressed to the Spirit to obtain the Spirit is really a constant self-insertion into the full magnitude of the mystery of the Redemption, in which Christ, united with the Father and with each man, continually communicates to the Spirit who places within us the sentiments of the Son and directs us towards the Father (RH 18.4).
Here the perfect relationship of the Trinity is expressed in terms of action and interaction: united, communicates, places and directs. The harmony and order of the Trinity does not limit or hinder the individual Persons, nor does the work of the Persons conflict with the unity of their single nature. The Son’s redemptive work unites us to himself, the Holy Spirit perfects our will and makes us more Christlike, and both guide us towards our heavenly Father. This is the path of divine growth and divine life, the joy of divinization Further on the Pope further elucidates the nuances of this path:
[T]he Father is the first source and the giver of life from the beginning. That new life, which involves the bodily glorification of the crucified Christ, became an efficacious sign of the new gift granted to the humanity, the gift of the Holy Spirit, through whom the divine life that the Father has in himself and gives to his Son is communicated to all mean who are united with Christ. (RH 20.1)
The Beatific Vision, the eternal joy of those who enter heaven, is participation in the intimacy of the Trinitarian life. While still on earth the believer possesses not only the objective knowledge of the reality of divine life, but also the sacraments, through which the life of the Trinity is given. In baptism we enter into relationship with the Father through the mystery of the Incarnation, by the life of the Son, and in the power of the Holy Spirit. In confirmation we receive additional grace and power from the Triune God. In the Eucharist we partake of the Redeemer’s flesh and blood and join with him in offering ourselves up to the Father, again in the Holy Spirit.
The Trinitarian formula, as John Paul II emphasizes in Dominum et Vivificantem, is not just words, but reality:
The [Triune] formula reflects the intimate mystery of God, of the divine life, which is the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, the divine unity of the Trinity. The farewell discourse can be read as a special preparation for this Trinitarian formula, in which is expressed the life-giving power of the sacrament which brings about sharing in the Triune God, for it gives sanctifying grace as a supernatural gift to man. Through grace, man is called and made "capable" of sharing in the inscrutable life of God. (DeV 9).
Divine Sonship in the Here and Now
According to John Paul II, the reality of divinization should be clearly seen and demonstrated in the Church, which is Christ’s Mystical Body. Near the beginning of his pontificate he referred back to Lumen Gentium while writing of the union with God found in the Church.
‘By her relationship with Christ, the Church is a kind of sacrament or sign and means of intimate union with God, and of the unity of all mankind [LG 1],’ and the source of this is he, he himself, he the Redeemer. (RH 7.3)
Within the Church there must be a growing understanding of the reality and the meaning of divine adoption. Without it there constantly exists the increased possibility of belief in "do-goodism" as a means of achieving heaven, as well as a distorted understanding of the Church, the liturgy and the sacraments. Each of these can only be understood and appreciated more fully when grasped in the context of divine sonship and the reality of God’s true Fatherhood. Divine adoption is the source of our oneness in Christ, the heart of our familial bond. This is clear in the teaching of our Holy Father:
This treasure of humanity enriched by the inexpressible mystery of divine filiation and by the grace of "adoption as sons" in the only Son of God, through whom we call God "Abba, Father" is also a powerful force unifying the Church above all inwardly and giving meaning to all her activity. (RH 18.3)
By Carl E. Olson
Originally published in Saint Austin Review in 2002.
A witness to the horrors of Nazism and Communism, Pope John Paul II saw first-hand the physical and spiritual destruction wrought by the disordered desire to remove God and make man the center and meaning of history. He has also observed destuctive impulses in the West, falsehoods evidenced by the steady growth of abortion, contraception, amorality, and hedonism during the past several decades. In addressing all of these conditions, the Holy Father has consistently pointed out that man, in his confused search for identity and meaning, unwittingly proves he does indeed have a purpose and reason for living. The yearning of man, so often realized in distorted and ugly ways, is to be God and to be deified.
John Paul II denounces the many perverted forms this yearning takes, but acknowledges its authentic core. Man has a God-made hole in his being, a deep recess which can only be fulfilled in one Way and by one Person, Jesus Christ. In the Incarnation, God united himself to man, making possible the unthinkable: intimate communion between the creature and the Creator. "This union of Christ with man is in itself a mystery," the Holy Father states in his first encyclical, Redemptor Hominis, "From the mystery is born ‘the new man,’ called to become a partaker of God’s life, and newly created in Christ for the fullness of grace and truth." (RH 18.2).
This "partaking" of God’s very life (see 2 Peter 1:4) is the reality of divinization, or deification. In the Eastern Churches it is often called theosis; it is a central focus of Eastern Christian theology and worship. It is also one of the consistent and unifying themes of John Paul II’s thought, appearing often in his important trilogy of Trinitarian encyclicals – Redemptor Hominis, Dives in Misericordia and Dominum et Vivificantem – respectively on the Son, the Father, and the Holy Spirit.
At times acknowledging his debt to Eastern sources, John Paul II writes with profundity and insight about the reality of divinization. In the Trinitarian trilogy (and elsewhere) he addresses four key features of this vital doctrine: divinization, the adoption of man into God’s family, reveals the inherent dignity of man; it is possible only through the central mystery of the Incarnation; the Redemption is the concrete way in which the Incarnate One paved the way for man’s divinization; and the divine grace, given to man is the inner life and love of the Triune God and comes to man through the Mystical Body of Christ, the Church.
God’s Family is For The Person
The anthropological focus of the Holy Father is an essential element of his thought, reflecting his use of the phenomenological method. Man, created in the image of God, has a unique, inherent value. It was always God’s plan that men, despite being creatures, would freely participate in his inner life. In Dominum et Vivificantem John Paul II writes:
[God] has revealed to man that, as the "image and likeness" of his Creator, he is called to participate in truth and love. This participation means a life in union with God, who is"eternal life." (DeV 37.1)
The dignity and value of humanity is established in Creation, but is fully realized and expressed in the invitation to become a "new creature" in Christ (2 Cor. 5:17). In Redemptor Hominis, the Pope writes,
...we can and must immediately reach and display to the world our unity in proclaiming the mystery of Christ, in revealing the divine dimension and also the human dimension of the Redemption, and in struggling with unwearying perseverance for the dignity that each human being has reached and can continually reach in Christ, namely the dignity of both the grace of divine adoption and the inner truth of humanity... (RH 11.4).
The Holy Father returns to this understanding of dignity many times, using the word with a profound intent. Man’s dignity is not rooted in his temporal existence, but in where he has come from and where he is called to go. This calling is found in the revelation of Christ. In his writings, the Pontiff refers often to a phrase in Gaudium et spes: "Christ, the new Adam, in the very revelation of the mystery of the Father and his love, fully reveals man to himself and brings to light his most high calling" (GS 22, quoted in RH 8.2).
If man had no value in the eyes of God, Christ would not have come and taken on flesh and died. So man’s dignity rests in the Redemption and within the salvific economy man becomes a "new creature": "In this dimension man finds again the greatness, dignity and value that belong to his humanity. In the mystery of the Redemption man becomes newly ‘expressed’ and, in a way, is newly created" (RH 10.1).
An error common to some theologians and (whether they realize it or not) secular humanists, is a fear the "new creation" brought by Christ involves a destructive or disrespectful attitude towards man’s nature. This can be seen in the classical Protestant notion of "total depravity." But divine life and grace are not given to destroy man’s nature, but to perfect it, heal it, and bring it to full completion. Sin is destroyed, yet sin is not physical, or even "natural."
"He who is the ‘image of the invisible God’ (Col 1:15), is himself the perfect man who has restored in the children of Adam that likeness to God which had been disfigured ever since the first sin. Human nature, by the very fact that it was assumed, not absorbed, in him, has been raised in us also to a dignity beyond compare. For, by his Incarnation, he, the Son of God, in a certain way united himself with each man" (GS 22, quotes in RH 8.2).
Yet while each man is united to Christ through the Incarnation, each must decide for himself what to do about the scandal of the Incarnation. God does not force his supernatural life upon man; such an act would obliterate man’s free will, an essential feature of human dignity. The dilemma for each person is this: "Will I enter into the life of Christ or not?" If not, divine life is lost and there is an eternal separation from the Source of life. If man chooses divine life, he is indwelt by the Holy Spirit, and enters into communion with God:
The hidden breath of the divine Spirit enables the human spirit to open in its turn before the saving and sanctifying self-opening of God. Through the gift of grace, which comes from the Holy Spirit, man enters a "new life," is brought into the supernatural reality of the divine life itself and becomes a "dwelling-place of the Holy Spirit," a living temple of God...Man lives in and by God... (DeV 58.3).
God became Man to Grant Divine Life
In Redemptor Hominis, John Paul II refers to Christ as the "one who penetrated in a unique, unrepeatable way into the mystery of man and entered his ‘heart’" (RH 8.2). When the mystery of man is met by the mystery of the Incarnation, they become unified: "For, by his Incarnation, he, the Son of God, in a certain way united himself with each man." The Incarnation is the bridge spanning the gap between man and God. It is the ultimate expression – the final Word – of God’s merciful love.
In Dominum et Vivificantem the Holy Father writes of "God’s salvific self-communication" and "giving" (see DeV 11, 12, 13,14). He states this self-communication gives mankind "the capacity of having a personal relationship with God, as ‘I’ and ‘you,’ and therefore the capacity of having a covenant, which will take place in God’s salvific communication with man..." (DeV 34, see all of 34). This culminates in the Word, whose Incarnate entrance into history "constitutes the climax of this giving, this divine self-communication" (DeV 50.1).
The Incarnation and man’s divinization should be seen as part of a familial reality. Just as the Father sent his only begotten Son (Jn 3:16, Heb 1:5), the Son in turn sends forth adopted sons (Gal 4:4-7). Just as the Son came to do the will of the Father (Lk 22:42, Jn 4:34), adopted sons go forth to do the will of the Son (Jn 15:14-17). This spiritual procreation occurs by the power of the Holy Spirit, the giver of life (2 Cor 3:6, Gal 6:8). John Paul II writes:
For as Saint Paul teaches, "all who are led by the Spirit of God" are "children of God." The filiation of divine adoption is born in man on the basis of the mystery of the Incarnation, therefore through Christ the eternal Son. But the birth, or rebirth, happens when God the Father "sends the Spirit of his Son into our hearts." Then we receive a spirit of adopted sons by which we cry ‘Abba, Father!’" Hence the divine filiation planted in the human soul through sanctifying grace is the work of the Holy Spirit. "It is the Spirit himself bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ." Sanctifying grace is the principle and source of man’s new life: divine, supernatural life. (DeV 52.2).
By entering into human history and uniting Himself with mankind, God not only restored communion between the divine and the natural, He modeled divine sonship for us. By becoming united to humanity, he demonstrated that man can become one with God. Man can become by grace what the Son is by nature. Put another way, the Son of God became a Son of Man so that men might become sons of God (see CCC 460).
In Dominum et Vivificantem, the Holy Father meditates upon the unique relationship between the Incarnation, the Holy Spirit, and divinization. Christ told the apostles he must go in order for the Helper, the Paraclete, to be sent (Jn 16:7). Throughout his encyclical on the Holy Spirit, John Paul II reflects on the role of the Paraclete as the communicator of the divine life which comes through the Incarnation:
Thus there is a supernatural "adoption," of which the source is the Holy Spirit, love and gift. As such he is given to man. And in the superabundance of the uncreated gift there begins in the heart of all human beings that particular created gift whereby they "become partakers of the divine nature." Thus human life becomes permeated, through participation, by the divine life, and itself acquires a divine, supernatural dimension. There is granted the new life, in which as a sharer in the mystery of the Incarnation "man has access to the Father in the Holy Spirit." (DeV 52.3).
Redemption and the Divine Life
The opening sentence of Redemptor Hominis squarely places the Redeemer and Redemption at the center of history, reality, and salvation. The scandal of the Redemption, the death of God on a cross, is the climax of the greatest scandal, the birth of God in time and space. It is also the revelation of the greatest love known to man. "In the mystery of the Cross love is at work, that love which brings man back again to share in the life that is in God himself" (DeV 41.1), and "It is love which not only created the good but also grants participation in the very life of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit" (DM 7.4). In a beautiful passage in Dives in Misericordia, the Holy Father summarizes the relationship between the redemptive work of Christ and divinization:
The Cross of Christ on Calvary stands beside the path of that admirable commercium, of that wonderful self-communication of God to man, which also includes the call to man to share in the divine life by giving himself, and with himself the whole visible world, to God, and like an adopted son to become a sharer in the truth and love which is in God and proceeds from God. It is precisely besides the path of man’s eternal election to the dignity of being an adopted child of God that there stands in history the Cross of Christ, the only-begotten Son... (DM 7.5)
The call to divine life is the call to die to self, and to take up the cross of Christ. One does not experience the divine life of Christ without also experiencing the death of Christ (Rom 6:5-11). Again, this death does not disparage the body or human nature, but is a just condemnation of sin and man’s disordered appetites. The Redemption, and through it divinization, is oriented towards the whole man. Men are both physical and spiritual beings whose entire person yearns and groans for the eschaton (Rom 8:22), when all will be made right between God and his creation.
The Inner Life and Love of the Triune God
Another reocurring element in the writings of John Paul II is the Trinitarian formula. Throughout his encyclicals there is a repeated use of the phrase "to the Father, through the Son, in the Holy Spirit." In writing about divinization, John Paul II highlights the particular actions of the three Persons, always balancing this with the unity of the Trinity. In Redemptor Hominis, regarding the Church as a "sign" and "sacrament, he writes:
This invocation addressed to the Spirit to obtain the Spirit is really a constant self-insertion into the full magnitude of the mystery of the Redemption, in which Christ, united with the Father and with each man, continually communicates to the Spirit who places within us the sentiments of the Son and directs us towards the Father (RH 18.4).
Here the perfect relationship of the Trinity is expressed in terms of action and interaction: united, communicates, places and directs. The harmony and order of the Trinity does not limit or hinder the individual Persons, nor does the work of the Persons conflict with the unity of their single nature. The Son’s redemptive work unites us to himself, the Holy Spirit perfects our will and makes us more Christlike, and both guide us towards our heavenly Father. This is the path of divine growth and divine life, the joy of divinization Further on the Pope further elucidates the nuances of this path:
[T]he Father is the first source and the giver of life from the beginning. That new life, which involves the bodily glorification of the crucified Christ, became an efficacious sign of the new gift granted to the humanity, the gift of the Holy Spirit, through whom the divine life that the Father has in himself and gives to his Son is communicated to all mean who are united with Christ. (RH 20.1)
The Beatific Vision, the eternal joy of those who enter heaven, is participation in the intimacy of the Trinitarian life. While still on earth the believer possesses not only the objective knowledge of the reality of divine life, but also the sacraments, through which the life of the Trinity is given. In baptism we enter into relationship with the Father through the mystery of the Incarnation, by the life of the Son, and in the power of the Holy Spirit. In confirmation we receive additional grace and power from the Triune God. In the Eucharist we partake of the Redeemer’s flesh and blood and join with him in offering ourselves up to the Father, again in the Holy Spirit.
The Trinitarian formula, as John Paul II emphasizes in Dominum et Vivificantem, is not just words, but reality:
The [Triune] formula reflects the intimate mystery of God, of the divine life, which is the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, the divine unity of the Trinity. The farewell discourse can be read as a special preparation for this Trinitarian formula, in which is expressed the life-giving power of the sacrament which brings about sharing in the Triune God, for it gives sanctifying grace as a supernatural gift to man. Through grace, man is called and made "capable" of sharing in the inscrutable life of God. (DeV 9).
Divine Sonship in the Here and Now
According to John Paul II, the reality of divinization should be clearly seen and demonstrated in the Church, which is Christ’s Mystical Body. Near the beginning of his pontificate he referred back to Lumen Gentium while writing of the union with God found in the Church.
‘By her relationship with Christ, the Church is a kind of sacrament or sign and means of intimate union with God, and of the unity of all mankind [LG 1],’ and the source of this is he, he himself, he the Redeemer. (RH 7.3)
Within the Church there must be a growing understanding of the reality and the meaning of divine adoption. Without it there constantly exists the increased possibility of belief in "do-goodism" as a means of achieving heaven, as well as a distorted understanding of the Church, the liturgy and the sacraments. Each of these can only be understood and appreciated more fully when grasped in the context of divine sonship and the reality of God’s true Fatherhood. Divine adoption is the source of our oneness in Christ, the heart of our familial bond. This is clear in the teaching of our Holy Father:
This treasure of humanity enriched by the inexpressible mystery of divine filiation and by the grace of "adoption as sons" in the only Son of God, through whom we call God "Abba, Father" is also a powerful force unifying the Church above all inwardly and giving meaning to all her activity. (RH 18.3)
David Maslow's essay for his Writing Foundations class
David Maslow
T3
Essay 1
RVD
Don’t Take Family For Granted
Having a dramatic influence in my life, Alex Maslow has motivated me to be a leader, to thoroughly enjoy spending time with family and friends without worrying about winning, and to always give one hundred percent. Alex was my sixteen-year-old cousin. Tragically, he was killed in a car crash on the Fourth of July. Of all the boy cousins, Alex was the oldest. Why is Alex such an immeasurable influence in my life?
First of all, Alex has taught me to be a leader. My family has numerous gatherings. Whenever we did, Alex always commanded lot of the boy cousins. We had myriad wars with the girls or each other. Alex always was general or commander of his side. Alex led us in many successful attacks against the girls. We consistently won. One time, the girls managed to capture me. Alex then swiftly planned and commanded a cunning surprise attack on the girls, which resulted in my escape. When it was time to eat, all the boy cousins would sit wherever Alex did. After dinner, we would proceed to have another battle. We often played cowboys and Indians. Immediately, Alex would seize command and lead the cowboys on ferocious raids against the Indians. Whatever we did, Alex always led by example. Thus Alex has demonstrated how to be a leader.
Secondly, Alex has demonstrated how to have fun with family and friends without worrying about winning. My family has an annual softball game on the Fourth of July. Alex was one of the best hitters in my extended family. Swiftly Alex would slaughter the ball. After Alex crushed the ball, instead of sprinting around the bases, he would do a hilarious home run trot. Laughing while trying to spin around cousins attempting to block him, Alex didn’t care if he got tagged out. Alex always enjoyed the softball games. He showed that having fun with family and friends is more important then winning.
Finally, Alex showed me how to give one hundred percent. On Christmas and the Fourth of July my family has annual gatherings at which we frequently have religious or political discussions, which included parents and older kids. When this occurred, Alex was always in the middle asking questions and fully participating. Also, Alex desperately desired to demonstrate that he deserved to make the varsity basketball team at Trinity School. Swiftly Alex obtained a job at the YMCA so he could lift weights and work on improving his game. Alex also was a hurdler for Trinity’s track team. Alex constructed his own hurdles so he could practice hurdling at home. Because of Alex’s example, I have been driven to give my all no matter what I’m doing.
In closing, Alex has had a dramatic, lasting influence in my life by teaching me how to be a courageous and dynamic leader, to have fun with family and friends without worrying about winning, and to always give one hundred percent. Because we grew up together living only five blocks apart, I spent more time with Alex than with my other cousins. Tragically, it took losing Alex to perceive how much he influenced me. I have learned not to take family and friends for granted because I just never know what the future holds.
T3
Essay 1
RVD
Don’t Take Family For Granted
Having a dramatic influence in my life, Alex Maslow has motivated me to be a leader, to thoroughly enjoy spending time with family and friends without worrying about winning, and to always give one hundred percent. Alex was my sixteen-year-old cousin. Tragically, he was killed in a car crash on the Fourth of July. Of all the boy cousins, Alex was the oldest. Why is Alex such an immeasurable influence in my life?
First of all, Alex has taught me to be a leader. My family has numerous gatherings. Whenever we did, Alex always commanded lot of the boy cousins. We had myriad wars with the girls or each other. Alex always was general or commander of his side. Alex led us in many successful attacks against the girls. We consistently won. One time, the girls managed to capture me. Alex then swiftly planned and commanded a cunning surprise attack on the girls, which resulted in my escape. When it was time to eat, all the boy cousins would sit wherever Alex did. After dinner, we would proceed to have another battle. We often played cowboys and Indians. Immediately, Alex would seize command and lead the cowboys on ferocious raids against the Indians. Whatever we did, Alex always led by example. Thus Alex has demonstrated how to be a leader.
Secondly, Alex has demonstrated how to have fun with family and friends without worrying about winning. My family has an annual softball game on the Fourth of July. Alex was one of the best hitters in my extended family. Swiftly Alex would slaughter the ball. After Alex crushed the ball, instead of sprinting around the bases, he would do a hilarious home run trot. Laughing while trying to spin around cousins attempting to block him, Alex didn’t care if he got tagged out. Alex always enjoyed the softball games. He showed that having fun with family and friends is more important then winning.
Finally, Alex showed me how to give one hundred percent. On Christmas and the Fourth of July my family has annual gatherings at which we frequently have religious or political discussions, which included parents and older kids. When this occurred, Alex was always in the middle asking questions and fully participating. Also, Alex desperately desired to demonstrate that he deserved to make the varsity basketball team at Trinity School. Swiftly Alex obtained a job at the YMCA so he could lift weights and work on improving his game. Alex also was a hurdler for Trinity’s track team. Alex constructed his own hurdles so he could practice hurdling at home. Because of Alex’s example, I have been driven to give my all no matter what I’m doing.
In closing, Alex has had a dramatic, lasting influence in my life by teaching me how to be a courageous and dynamic leader, to have fun with family and friends without worrying about winning, and to always give one hundred percent. Because we grew up together living only five blocks apart, I spent more time with Alex than with my other cousins. Tragically, it took losing Alex to perceive how much he influenced me. I have learned not to take family and friends for granted because I just never know what the future holds.
Saturday, March 12, 2011
The Duty of the Moment
by Catherine Doherty
We are so busy these days. It's as if we are on a merry-go-round or roller coaster. Faster, faster, faster — that's us. We don't know if we're going forward, backward or which way. So here we are, living in a world that goes on all around us — more selfish, more greedy than before. Faster, faster, faster it goes. But Christ said, "I have come to serve" (Mt 20:28), and so should we. Christ said, "Pray always." We should also. But how? How do we live in this world today? How do we serve? Well, the answer that I've seen, after 50 years of this lay apostolate, is to do the duty of the moment.
The duty of the moment is what you should be doing at any given time, in whatever place God has put you. If you have a child, your duty of the moment may be to change a dirty diaper. So you do it. But you don't just change that diaper, you change it to the best of your ability, with great love for both God and the child. Do you do it that way? You can see Christ in that child.
Or your duty of the moment may be to scrub your floors. Do you scrub your floors well? With great love for God? If not, do so. If you see to it that your house is well-swept, your food is on the table, and there is peace during meals, then there is a slow order that is established, and the immense tranquility of God's order falls upon you and your family, all of you together.
Your doing the duty of the moment, your living the nitty-gritty, daily routine of ordinary life, can uncover the face of Christ in the marketplace. Christ can come into the place where you work or play or eat. He will come into your home or into a restaurant. He will come into a school or a company cafeteria or a subway or wherever.
Let me give you an example. When I first came to North America, I had to support my sick husband and our baby, so I had a job as a waitress and that was my duty of the moment.
Well, there is a way of being a waitress and there is a way of being a waitress. Let me explain. It so happened that I was working at a restaurant near Wall Street in New York City and every day a very fat gentleman would come in and eat pies. He would eat loads of pies, half pies. So, one day, very quietly, I said to him, "You must love God very much, dear sir." Of course, he looked at me rather strangely. Can you imagine anyone saying something like that? He said, "What do you mean?" I said, "Well, you're eating so much of this pie, it will get you back to him fast — before you know it." He looked at me and said, "What you're trying to tell me is that I'm committing suicide through my fork." I said, "Well, I wasn't going to put it that bluntly." I was about three inches away from him, and he looked at me and said, "Lady, you've got something there." And he gave me a five dollar tip. The next day he came in and said, "OK, what do I eat?" I said, "A salad."
So, you see, there is a way to be a waitress and there is a way to be a waitress. He said, "You show very much concern, not only to me, but to that gentleman over there too. He's so thin and you're always feeding him more." I said, "Well, I hope you do not object to my bringing religion into this situation. I believe in God and I believe that God said, 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' So you're fat; I want to make you thin. He is thin; I want to make him fat. That, I think, is loving each other." He said, "Gee whiz. I must tell that to my wife."
I didn't preach, really. I didn't say I was Catholic or Protestant. I just said, "You're welcome."
So this is what I mean. You, as a Christian, as a follower of Christ, do your duty of the moment. Whatever your duty is, you do it with great love. And as you do, the image of Christ, the icon of Christ, will be shown to people wherever you are — in your home, in your place of work outside the home, in your school, in the neighborhood where you live, in your church, in the grocery store, wherever you happen to be.
Now, it's fine to say "Praise the Lord" and so forth, but remember that Christ said, "It's not the one who says 'Lord, Lord' who is going to heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father." (Mt 7:21) What's the will of the Father? It's so simple. It's the duty of the moment.
There are plenty of good things you can go out and do, programs and such, but whatever they are, you have to realize that there is always the duty of the moment to be done. And it must be done, because the duty of the moment is the duty of God. It's what God calls us to do. And if we do it, do you realize what happens? People follow us. We don't have to preach by word of mouth. We preach by living. We preach by doing. We preach by being.
Now, how do you show the face of Christ to a world that is secular, atheistic, indifferent, greedy, and selfish? By doing what he asks you to do. And his voice is very simple. He says, "Love God with your whole life, your whole heart. And love your neighbor as yourself." (Mt 22:38-39) Just do as he tells you. Live your life for everybody, and start with the duty of the moment.
When you do the duty of the moment, you do something for Christ. You make a home for him in the place where your family dwells. You feed him when you feed your family. You wash his clothes when you do their laundry. You help him in a hundred ways as a parent. Then, when the time comes and you appear before Christ to be judged, he will say to you, "I was hungry and you gave me to eat. I was thirsty and you gave me to drink. I was sick and you looked after me." (Mt 25:35-36) Get the picture?
We are so busy these days. It's as if we are on a merry-go-round or roller coaster. Faster, faster, faster — that's us. We don't know if we're going forward, backward or which way. So here we are, living in a world that goes on all around us — more selfish, more greedy than before. Faster, faster, faster it goes. But Christ said, "I have come to serve" (Mt 20:28), and so should we. Christ said, "Pray always." We should also. But how? How do we live in this world today? How do we serve? Well, the answer that I've seen, after 50 years of this lay apostolate, is to do the duty of the moment.
The duty of the moment is what you should be doing at any given time, in whatever place God has put you. If you have a child, your duty of the moment may be to change a dirty diaper. So you do it. But you don't just change that diaper, you change it to the best of your ability, with great love for both God and the child. Do you do it that way? You can see Christ in that child.
Or your duty of the moment may be to scrub your floors. Do you scrub your floors well? With great love for God? If not, do so. If you see to it that your house is well-swept, your food is on the table, and there is peace during meals, then there is a slow order that is established, and the immense tranquility of God's order falls upon you and your family, all of you together.
Your doing the duty of the moment, your living the nitty-gritty, daily routine of ordinary life, can uncover the face of Christ in the marketplace. Christ can come into the place where you work or play or eat. He will come into your home or into a restaurant. He will come into a school or a company cafeteria or a subway or wherever.
Let me give you an example. When I first came to North America, I had to support my sick husband and our baby, so I had a job as a waitress and that was my duty of the moment.
Well, there is a way of being a waitress and there is a way of being a waitress. Let me explain. It so happened that I was working at a restaurant near Wall Street in New York City and every day a very fat gentleman would come in and eat pies. He would eat loads of pies, half pies. So, one day, very quietly, I said to him, "You must love God very much, dear sir." Of course, he looked at me rather strangely. Can you imagine anyone saying something like that? He said, "What do you mean?" I said, "Well, you're eating so much of this pie, it will get you back to him fast — before you know it." He looked at me and said, "What you're trying to tell me is that I'm committing suicide through my fork." I said, "Well, I wasn't going to put it that bluntly." I was about three inches away from him, and he looked at me and said, "Lady, you've got something there." And he gave me a five dollar tip. The next day he came in and said, "OK, what do I eat?" I said, "A salad."
So, you see, there is a way to be a waitress and there is a way to be a waitress. He said, "You show very much concern, not only to me, but to that gentleman over there too. He's so thin and you're always feeding him more." I said, "Well, I hope you do not object to my bringing religion into this situation. I believe in God and I believe that God said, 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' So you're fat; I want to make you thin. He is thin; I want to make him fat. That, I think, is loving each other." He said, "Gee whiz. I must tell that to my wife."
I didn't preach, really. I didn't say I was Catholic or Protestant. I just said, "You're welcome."
So this is what I mean. You, as a Christian, as a follower of Christ, do your duty of the moment. Whatever your duty is, you do it with great love. And as you do, the image of Christ, the icon of Christ, will be shown to people wherever you are — in your home, in your place of work outside the home, in your school, in the neighborhood where you live, in your church, in the grocery store, wherever you happen to be.
Now, it's fine to say "Praise the Lord" and so forth, but remember that Christ said, "It's not the one who says 'Lord, Lord' who is going to heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father." (Mt 7:21) What's the will of the Father? It's so simple. It's the duty of the moment.
There are plenty of good things you can go out and do, programs and such, but whatever they are, you have to realize that there is always the duty of the moment to be done. And it must be done, because the duty of the moment is the duty of God. It's what God calls us to do. And if we do it, do you realize what happens? People follow us. We don't have to preach by word of mouth. We preach by living. We preach by doing. We preach by being.
Now, how do you show the face of Christ to a world that is secular, atheistic, indifferent, greedy, and selfish? By doing what he asks you to do. And his voice is very simple. He says, "Love God with your whole life, your whole heart. And love your neighbor as yourself." (Mt 22:38-39) Just do as he tells you. Live your life for everybody, and start with the duty of the moment.
When you do the duty of the moment, you do something for Christ. You make a home for him in the place where your family dwells. You feed him when you feed your family. You wash his clothes when you do their laundry. You help him in a hundred ways as a parent. Then, when the time comes and you appear before Christ to be judged, he will say to you, "I was hungry and you gave me to eat. I was thirsty and you gave me to drink. I was sick and you looked after me." (Mt 25:35-36) Get the picture?
Why does the Lord heal some, but not others?
From Theophilos by Michael D O'Brien
"It is a mystery connected to the unfolding of a purpose in the life of each soul - a purpose known by God but largely incomprehensible to our minds... Paul believes that the Lord has fulfilled the act of redemption completely through his sacrifice of suffering and death. Yet he did not choose it to be a gift bestowed entirely from above. He asks each of us to take part in their sacrifice, in a manner that is particular to one's soul. Thus while man can not redeem himself, he may participate in his own redemption. We can offer our sufferings to god through the cross of Jesus and invoke grace for ourselves and others. Some carry small crosses, some carry large ones. Some are healed in totality, others a little, some not at all -and who can judge which is the greater part. Even so he is the Lord of life, and thus we work to foster life in whatever ways we can. If we fail after all effort, we accept it and God brings from the suffering another good...The Lord knows what is good for us even when we do not. Faith is required, yet faith does not guarantee healing - indeed not even great faith in Jesus assures it. But peace is given to all who ask."
"It is a mystery connected to the unfolding of a purpose in the life of each soul - a purpose known by God but largely incomprehensible to our minds... Paul believes that the Lord has fulfilled the act of redemption completely through his sacrifice of suffering and death. Yet he did not choose it to be a gift bestowed entirely from above. He asks each of us to take part in their sacrifice, in a manner that is particular to one's soul. Thus while man can not redeem himself, he may participate in his own redemption. We can offer our sufferings to god through the cross of Jesus and invoke grace for ourselves and others. Some carry small crosses, some carry large ones. Some are healed in totality, others a little, some not at all -and who can judge which is the greater part. Even so he is the Lord of life, and thus we work to foster life in whatever ways we can. If we fail after all effort, we accept it and God brings from the suffering another good...The Lord knows what is good for us even when we do not. Faith is required, yet faith does not guarantee healing - indeed not even great faith in Jesus assures it. But peace is given to all who ask."
Sunday, January 30, 2011
Why is prayer truly a mystery - Thomas Green
In the Gabriel Marcel sense it is something we can not objectify and view from a distance because it is intensely personal and involves our whole selves
From When the Well Runs Dry
From When the Well Runs Dry
J.R.R. Tolkien (The Fellowship of the Ring)
"I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo.
"So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us."
"So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us."
Saturday, January 22, 2011
quote by Voegelin
Things do not happen in the astrophysical universe; the universe together with all things found in it, happen in God.
Quote by J.R.R. Tolkien
"Fairy tale does not deny the existence of sorrow and failure: the possibility of these is necessary to the joy of deliverance. It denies (in the face of much evidence, if you will) universal final defeat...giving a fleeting glimpse of Joy; Joy beyond the walls of the world, poignant as grief."
What Now by Steven Curtis Chapman
I saw the face of Jesus in a little orphan girl
She was standing in the corner on the other side of the world
And I heard the voice of Jesus gently whisper to my heart
Didn't you say you wanted to find me?
Well here I am, here you are
So, What now?
What will you do now that you found Me?
What now?
What will you do with this treasure you've found?
I know I may not look like what you expected
But if you remember this is right where I said I would be
You've found me
What now?
And I saw the face of Jesus down on Sixteenth Avenue
He was sleeping in an old car, while his mom went looking for food
And I heard the voice of Jesus gently whisper to my soul
Didn't you say you wanted to know me?
Well here I am, and it's getting cold
So, What now?
What will you do now that you found Me?
What now?
What will you do with this treasure you've found?
I know I may not look like what you expected
But if you remember this is right where I said I would be
You've found me
So, come and know
Come and know, know me now
Come, come and know, know me now
Come and know
Come and know, know me now
Come, come and know, know me now
What will you do now that you found me?
What now?
What will you do with this treasure you've found?
I know I may not look like what you expected
But if you remember this is right where I said I would be
You've found me
What now?
What now?
She was standing in the corner on the other side of the world
And I heard the voice of Jesus gently whisper to my heart
Didn't you say you wanted to find me?
Well here I am, here you are
So, What now?
What will you do now that you found Me?
What now?
What will you do with this treasure you've found?
I know I may not look like what you expected
But if you remember this is right where I said I would be
You've found me
What now?
And I saw the face of Jesus down on Sixteenth Avenue
He was sleeping in an old car, while his mom went looking for food
And I heard the voice of Jesus gently whisper to my soul
Didn't you say you wanted to know me?
Well here I am, and it's getting cold
So, What now?
What will you do now that you found Me?
What now?
What will you do with this treasure you've found?
I know I may not look like what you expected
But if you remember this is right where I said I would be
You've found me
So, come and know
Come and know, know me now
Come, come and know, know me now
Come and know
Come and know, know me now
Come, come and know, know me now
What will you do now that you found me?
What now?
What will you do with this treasure you've found?
I know I may not look like what you expected
But if you remember this is right where I said I would be
You've found me
What now?
What now?
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