The Interior Life and the Presence of God

Posted on June 10, 2014 by William Ockham

 

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I came across by this great article by Arnold Van Vugt in the Sun Star of the Philippines reflecting on Pentecost and discussing the need for Christianity to regain its sense of mysticism and wonder, including great quotes by Teilhard de Chardin and Karl Rahner.  You can read the entire article here but set forth below is an extended summary:

“Pierre Teilhard de Chardin S.J. (1881-1955), a French theologian and scientist is one person who demolished these myths about the world. . .  According to him, the whole of creation has evolved itself from the beginning. But in the beginning there was God, the Creator of the world. According to Chardin, the Spirit of God is at work in creation ever since creation came about, and this will go on until the end of time, which is the big Omega. Chardin said: ‘The day will come when, after mastering the winds, the waves, the tides and gravity, we shall harness for God the energies of love. And on that day, for the second time in the history of the world, we will have discovered the fire.’ This is the fire that came down upon the Apostles at the feast of Pentecost. And this fire will go on until the end of time.

Some years ago another theologian, the German Karl Rahner, dared to affirm that the main and most urgent problem in the Church today is her ‘spiritual mediocrity.’ Rahner said: ‘The true problem of the Church is to keep throwing herself with a resignation and an even greater indifference along the paths of a spiritual mediocrity.’ The problem is the indifference of the Church and this problem has got worse in these last decades, according to Karl Rahner. The Church has done little to reform its institutions and laws; it just preserved its liturgy and kept watch over the orthodoxy.

We must be aware of the presence of God’s Spirit in the world as well as in the Church and we must see to it that the fire will keep on burning. To welcome God’s Spirit means allowing ourselves to speak alone with God, whom we almost always put far off and outside of ourselves.

We must learn to listen to God in the silence of our heart. The interior experience of God’s presence in us is something real and concrete. It transforms our faith. You wonder at how you could live without discovering this before. Now you know why it is possible to believe, even in a secularized culture.

Now you know an inner joy that is new and different. It seems to me very difficult to maintain faith in God for very long in the midst of agitation and emptiness of modern life, without knowing, albeit in a humble and simple way, some interior experience of the Mystery of God.

In the Church there is much talk about God, but when and where do we believers listen to the silent presence of God in the deepest depths of our heart? Where and when do we welcome the Spirit of the Resurrected One in our inner self? When do we live in communion with the Mystery of God from within?

It is sad to observe that not even in Christian communities do we know how to care for and promote the interior life. Many don’t know what is in the silence of their heart, they haven’t been taught to live faith from within.

Deprived of an inner experience, we hang on for dear life, forgetting about our soul; listening to words with our ears and pronouncing prayers with our lips, while our heart is nowhere to be found. Modern society has signaled for the ‘exterior’. We must go for the ‘interior’.

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Teilhard de Chardin Quote of the Week (June 9, 1014): The Primacy of Charity

Posted on June 9, 2014 by William Ockham

 

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“What the modern mind finds disconcerting in Christian charity is its negative or at least static aspect, and also the “detached” quality of this great virtue. “Love one another …” Hitherto the gospel precept has seemed simply to mean, “Do not harm one another,” or, “Seek with all possible care and devotion to diminish injustice, heal wounds and soften enmities in the world around you.” Hitherto, also, the “supernatural” gift of ourselves which we were required to make to God and to our neighbor appeared to be something opposed to and destructive of the bonds of feeling attaching us to the things of this world.

But if Charity is transplanted into the cone of Time nothing remains of these apparent limitations and restrictions. Within a Universe of convergent structure the only possible way in which an element can draw closer to its neighboring elements is by tightening the cone — that is to say, by causing the whole layer of the world of which it is a part to move toward the apex. In such an order of things no man can love his neighbor without drawing nearer to God — and, of course, reciprocally (but this we knew already). But it is also impossible (this is newer to us) to love either God or our neighbor without assisting the progress, in its physical entirety, of the terrestrial synthesis of the spirit: since it is precisely the progress of this synthesis which enables us to draw closer together among ourselves, while at the same time it raises us toward God.Because we love, and in order that we may love even more, we find ourselves happily and especially compelled to participate in all the endeavors, all the anxieties, all the aspirations and also all the affections of the earth — in so far as these embody a principle of ascension and synthesis.”

– Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, The Future of Man, pp. 86-87

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Pentecost and Programming: New Languages

Posted on June 8, 2014 by William Ockham

Interesting thoughts on language and communicating the Gospel message in the 21st century from Jonathan Lace, teacher, tech developer and Teilhardian.

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Sunday Reflection (Pentecost), June 8, 2014: Unleashing the Fire of the Holy Spirit

Posted on June 7, 2014 by William Ockham

pentecost

 

This weekend is the celebration of Pentecost, which marks the end of the Easter Season. The readings can be found here.  The coming of the Holy Spirit is often represented by tongues of fire.  Fire was also prominent for Teilhard de Chardin, ranging from his famous quote on harnessing the energies of love to the deeply mystical Mass on the World.

Today’s reflection is a composite of quotes from multiple sources.  The first is from courtesy of Patricia Datchuck Sánchez, courtesy of National Catholic Reporter:

 “The day will come,” said Teilhard de Chardin, “when, after harnessing space, the winds, the tides and gravitation, we shall harness for God the energies of love. And on that day, for the second time in the history of the world, we shall have discovered fire.” In a sense the annual feast of Pentecost is another opportunity, placed in the path of the believer, for discovering and participating in the ever-present fire which is God’s love. Pentecost rounds out and climaxes the Easter event. All that we have remembered and celebrated, viz., Jesus’ saving death, his resurrection and ascension to glory, all of these sacred events took place so that the Holy Spirit might be unleashed upon the world.” — Patricia Datchuck Sánchez

The remaining reflection quotes are from multiple sources (three recent popes, two recent saints, Teilhard de Chardin and Elizabeth Johnson) courtesy of Center of Concern:

The Church herself will never cease putting questions, trusting in the help of the Paraclete, the Spirit of truth. — St. John Paul II

Nothing here below is profane for those who know how to see. On the contrary, everything is sacred. –– Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

Globalization has humanity poised between two poles. On the one hand, there is a growing of interconnectedness and interdependency between peoples even when culturally speaking – they are far apart. This new situation offers the potential for enhancing a sense of global solidarity and shared responsibility for the land, we cannot deny that the rapid changes occurring in our world also present some disturbing signs of fragmentation and a retreat into individualism. …. a faithful witness to the Gospel is as urgent as ever. Christians are challenged to give a clear account of the hope that they hold (cf. 1 Pet 3:15). — Pope Benedict XVI

May Christ inflame the desires of all people to break through the barriers which divide them, to strengthen the bonds of mutual love, to learn to understand one another, and to pardon those who have done them wrong. Through Christ’s power and inspiration may all peoples welcome each other to their hearts as brothers and sisters, and may the peace they long for ever flower and ever reign among them. — St. John XXIII

Finding one’s own voice, however, haltingly, imparts the power of the Spirit crying out. The boldness to hear the claim of conscience and follow its deep impulses even in the face of loss; the courage to taste righteous anger and allow it to motivate critical resistance to evil; the willingness to utter the prophetic word compassion into the ambiguity of the world. — Elizabeth Johnson, CSJ

Additional Reflections:

Living Space
Creighton Online Ministries

 

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Queen of the Sciences

Posted on June 3, 2014 by William Ockham

Debilis's avatarFide Dubitandum

vasili-belyaev-sofia-the-holy-wisdom-of-god-spasa-na-krovi-st-petersburg-rf-undated-1890s-640x336Anyone interested in the relationship between science and theology should find this passage by atheist Paul Davies interesting:

The orthodox view of the nature of the laws of physics contains a long list of tacitly assumed properties.  The laws are regarded, for example, as immutable, eternal, infinitely precise mathematical relationships that transcend the physical universe, and were imprinted on it at the moment of its birth from “outside,” like a maker’s mark, and have remained unchanging ever since… In addition, it is assumed that the physical world is affected by the laws, but the laws are completely impervious to what happens in the universe… It is not hard to discover where this picture of physical laws comes from: it is inherited directly from monotheism, which asserts that a rational being designed the universe according to a set of perfect laws.  And the asymmetry between immutable laws and contingent states mirrors…

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Teilhard de Chardin Quote of the Week (June 2, 1014): The Primacy of Christ and His Relationship to the Cosmos

Posted on June 2, 2014 by William Ockham

 

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“In the narrow, partitioned and static Cosmos wherein our fathers believed themselves to dwell, Christ was “lived” and loved by His followers, as He is today, as the Being on whom all things depend and in whom the Universe finds its “consistence.” But this Christological function was not easily defended on rational grounds, at least if the attempt was made to interpret it in a full, organic sense. Accordingly Christian thinking did not especially seek to incorporate it in any precise cosmic order. At that time the Kingship of Christ could be readily expressed in terms of juridical ascendancy; or else it was sufficient that He should prevail in the nonexperimental, extracosmic sphere of the supernatural. Theology, in short, did not seem to realize that every kind of Universe might not be “compossible” with the idea of an Incarnation. But with the concept of Space-Time, as we have defined it, there comes into effect a harmonious and fruitful conjunction between the two spheres of rational experience and of faith. In a Universe of “Conical” structure Christ has a place (the apex!) ready for Him to fill, when His Spirit can radiate through all the centuries and all beings; and because of the genetic links running through all the levels of Time and Space between the elements of a convergent world, the Christ-influence, far from being restricted to the mysterious zones of “grace,” spreads and penetrates throughout the entire mass of Nature in movement. In such a world Christ cannot sanctify the Spirit without (as the Greek Fathers intuitively perceived) uplifting and saving the totality of Matter. Christ becomes truly universal to the full extent of Christian needs, and in conformity with the deepest aspirations of our age the Cross becomes the Symbol, the Way, the very Act of progress.”

– Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, The Future of Man, pp. 86-87

You can see Part I of this quote here.  Part III (Primacy of Charity) will be next week.

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Sunday Reflection, The Ascension (June 1, 2014): The Divine Milieu

Posted on May 31, 2014 by William Ockham

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This Sunday, parts of the Church celebrate the Feast of the Ascension.  The readings can be found here.

Today’s reflection comes from Drew Christiansen, S.J., former editor of America Magazine.  You can find the full reflection here but set forth below is an extended summary:

It was the Feast of the Ascension, and I was searching for a half-remembered quotation for my homily at the evening Mass.  I remembered it appearing in Pierre Teilhard de Chardin’s “The Divine Milieu“. . . . I had to list a handful of books that have influenced my life, “The Divine Milieu” would be at the top. I read it in the early 1960s, just as the Second Vatican Council was taking place. I inhaled its intoxicating this-worldly mysticism. I was strengthened by its explanation of the spiritualization of our activities, not a strong suit in the penitential spirituality of the post-Suppression (1773-1814) Jesuits.

“The Divine Milieu” offered a symphony of themes that echoed the masters of Western spirituality, the Bible—especially St. Paul—and the divine liturgy. As in monastic theology, phrases, mostly in Latin, dot the text, displaying a mind that has imbibed the Scripture in lectio divina, been formed by the recitation of the liturgy and is practiced in savoring the meaning of the simplest phrase. At the same time, there are passages that read like scholastic responsa, staking out Teilhard’s own orthodox mystical position against heretical alternatives sometimes ascribed to him. All the same, the book reads like a prose poem.

“The Divine Milieu“ is a whole spirituality for the whole person from a Jesuit who found his identity at the heart of the church, even though as a paleontologist he worked at the farthest edges of its mission. “This little book,” he wrote, “does no more than recapitulate the eternal lesson of the church in the words of a man who, because he believes himself to feel deeply in tune with his own times, has sought to teach how to see God everywhere, to see him in all that is most hidden, most solid and most ultimate in the world.” Like St. Ignatius Loyola, the Jesuit founder, he sought “to find God in all things” and to teach others to do the same.

Sometimes I think of “The Divine Milieu” as the Spiritual Exercises, Ignatius’ classic manual of the spiritual life, re-worked for modern times. The whole book is an extrapolation of Ignatius’ “Contemplation to Attain Divine Love.”

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Other Resources (with many thanks to Louis Savary 🙂

Explanation of “The Divine Milieu”
Free Online Version of “The Divine Milieu”
“The Divine Milieu” explained  website by Louis Savary
“The Divine Milieu Explained” Book by Louis Savary
“Spiritual Exercises for the 21st Century” by Louis Savary

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Jesuit Professor Devotes His Career to Both Faith and Science

Posted on May 28, 2014 by William Ockham
Fr. George Coyne, S.J.

Fr. George Coyne, S.J.

The Jesuits.org site had a great profile on Fr. George Coyne, S.J., former Director of the Vatican Observatory.  You can read the full article here, but set forth below is an excerpt:

“As a man of faith, Jesuit Father George Coyne joined the Jesuits in 1951, studied theology and became a priest. As a man of science, he earned a doctorate in astronomy and became an expert on close binary star systems and Seyfert galaxies. Then for almost three decades, he found the perfect meeting of faith and science at the Vatican Observatory.

* * *

“We [Fr. Coyne and Pope John Paull II] spent 28 years together. From the very first year of his papacy, John Paul II showed a very keen interest in advancing the scientific work of the Vatican Observatory and especially in promoting the dialogue between science and religious faith,” Fr. Coyne said.”

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You can also listen to an interview with Fr. Coyne and Brother Guy Consolmagno by Krista Tippett’s OnBeing radio program titled “Asteroids, Stars and the Love of God“.

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Teilhard de Chardin Quote of the Week (May 26, 2014): Matter and Spirit; Christ and Charity

Posted on May 26, 2014 by William Ockham

 

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“What is finally the most revolutionary and fruitful aspect of our present age is the relationship it has brought to light between Matter and Spirit: spirit being no longer independent of matter, or in opposition to it, but laboriously emerging from it under the attraction of God by way of synthesis and centration. 

But what is the effect, for Christian faith and mysticism, of this redefinition of the Spirit? It is simply to confer absolute reality and absolute urgency upon the double dogma on which the whole of Christianity rests, and by which it is summed up: the physical primacy of Christ and the moral primacy of Charity.” 

— Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, The Future of Man, p. 86

 

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Sunday Reflection, Sixth Sunday of Easter (May 25, 2014): The Holy Spirit and the Divine Milieu

Posted on May 24, 2014 by William Ockham

 

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“If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate to be with you always, the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot accept, because it neither sees nor knows him. But you know him, because he remains with you, and will be in you.” — John 14:15-17

This weekend is the Sixth Sunday of Easter. The readings can be found here.  The themes foreshadow the upcoming Pentecost with a focus on the nature of the Holy Spirit.

This week’s reflection comes from St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church in Edwardsville, Illinois (USA).  The reflection has a different first reading than the Catholic liturgy but I chose it for its Gospel reflection. You can find the full reflection here but set forth below is an extended summary:

In the Upper Room the night before his death, with the disciples struggling with confusion and fear, Jesus promised them the Holy Spirit. In the Old Testament the Holy Spirit or Advocate was spoken of in legal terms, meaning, ‘counselor‘, ‘advisor’, ‘helper’. The Spirit was something the Hebrews always sensed as being close by, but Jesus promised he would send the Spirit to come and dwell within them.

Earlier Jesus had said, “A new commandment I give you, that you love one another as I have loved you.” Referring to those words he says, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments”. Interestingly enough in the literal translation Jesus says, “If you should ever love me…..” While God’s love is not conditional John concentrates on the mutuality of love because mutuality is what empowers love and gives us life.

Part of our problem is that most of the time we think of God as not here, but ‘out there’. “Our Father, who is in heaven”, to echo our familiar words. But the Bible describes God’s relationship to the universe as right here; indeed even more than right here. It describes God’s encompassing Spirit as a non-material dimension of reality that surrounds us and everything around us.

As Paul says in Acts, God is the “..one in whom we live and move and have our being”. God is not somewhere else, but all around us. We live and move ‘in God’, because there is no place we can be outside of God. Some of the meaning of the biblical words for ‘spirit’ suggest this. In both  Hebrew (ruach) and Greek (pneuma), the words which we translate as Spirit, also mean wind  and breath. God is like the wind, like breath. Ancient peoples did not think of wind as a material reality, as molecules in motion. Rather, they experienced wind as a powerful, invisible force. Such imagery should speak to us as well, especially this particular spring and this week as we have seen, and so many have experienced, the amazing massive power of wind.

In a similar way breath is seen as the invisible life force within us. God is like the wind that moves outside of us and the breath that moves inside of us. We are in God as God is also within us. As the fish are in the sea, so we too live and move and have our being in God.

But additionally we address God as a person because the history of Israel, as well as the life death and resurrection of Jesus, reveals to us that God is not an ‘it’ but a “YOU’; the One not only in whom we live and move and have our being, but the One who seeks us and loves us.

* * *

The great theologian Teilhard de Chardin wrote, “Some day, after we have mastered the winds, the waves, the tides, and gravity, we shall harness for God the energies of love; and then for the second time in the history of the world we will have discovered fire.”

We live in mystery – the mystery of God’s creative love. We were loved into being. At times we try to step out of this mystery, but God is always attempting to draw us back into it. The song we are called to sing is a melody of love offered to the cosmos. The world which watches us will be persuaded we have something powerful to say, not when our particular agenda overcomes another, but when the gospel is incarnated, when our hearts are set on fire with God’s loving purposes and presence. When that happens not only will we be changed, the world around us will be changed. And it will be then that we finally know the Lord, the God of our creation, the One in whom we live and move and have our being.

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