Showing posts with label Actuality. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Actuality. Show all posts
Tuesday, June 5, 2012
1:35 PM
There is a certain condition in human nature that is familiar to every experienced human being across the boundaries of nations or time. It is that of a relationship grown cold due to a rift--an argument or an act that causes two people once deeply engaged in one another to grow apart. This is never so evident as when it occurs in marriage, where the two are still obliged to remain together. One has no difficulty in conjuring the image of a man and woman moving laconically past one another, each in his and her own shadowy world. They do not speak; the situation has grown comfortable. Maybe they have some notion of doing something in the future to rekindle the joy they felt as they began their lives together, but that must wait for the appropriate time. They have their personal plans, and day in, day out, they move steadily and solitarily towards different goals, though to all appearances, they stay together.
In the Renaissance, thinkers posited the idea that motion itself may be dubbed 'inert' as aptly as stillness is. It logically followed that sluggishness is found in actuality as well as in potency. Not yet abandoning the link between pure reason and reality, these philosopher scientists realized that such an idea would nullify any difference between rest and motion, and so to uphold the truth that our sensory experience indeed reflects reality, many nodded as Newton posited the notions of 'absolute motion' and 'absolute place.' Those scientists, so wanting man to be the measure of all things, likely mopped their brows with relief at such a solution. Somewhere there was an eternal standard to measure individual phenomena against, thus vouchsafing˜ the credibility of man's reason.
However, the realm of human relations differs entirely. As each man is an individual endowed with sentient thought of the highest order, his personal course of action need not arise from a relation with any eternal measure. Determinists may say otherwise, but personal experience tells us that man does what he does out of free choice, and that this freedom is only lessened by the sleepy influence of inertia (for even acting on the compulsion of another implies that we choose compliance over the alternative of not complying). Whether it is true for physical objects or not, man is indeed capable of resting even as he acts, mindlessly following the course of habit.
'Heaven gives us habit instead of happiness' is the proverb stoically intoned at the beginning of Tchaikovsky's luscious opera, Onegin. As it is shown that story's prelude, the strength of habit is enough to conquer individual impulses, and in this story's case, it is for the better. The security of a repeating cycle helps one to heal after the bruises of disappointed romance.
One may say the same to be the case with the Church and the Society of Saint Pius X. The initial sunderance with Rome must have shook the earth under the bishops' feet, even as they were convinced that Canon Law ultimately justified them, even as it appeared to condemn them. The stigma branded upon them by the mainstream currents in the Church may have at first spurred them on, but after all this time, this condition has very likely become mundane.
Just as with the married couple mentioned before, there was an argument. It was an ugly argument--the sort that shatters lives and even worlds. Yet, the presence of mind in both parties allows the marriage to remain in existence, and the two decide to go seperate ways under the same roof, trusting in some misty future date for a true reconciliation. Habit reigns in place of happiness, and husband and wife are content with their domestic routines, superficial conversation, and nights of regular sleep. This life does not feed their desires. It is not a fulfillment of their vocation. It is an insult against the potential grandeur of their souls. Yet, it is also the easier thing to do. Habit is easier than happiness; routine is easier than romance. Inertia always has that upperhand over the practice of virtue.
That is why it would come as a shock to the wife, if as she prepares supper in the kitchen, or as she returns home from work herself, to suddenly come face to face with her husband and see that he is looking at her. He does not give way for her to continue what she was doing. He does not even follow his own routine. He says decisively: 'Things cannot go on as they have.' She finds now she will have to make a choice. To live with him as his wife, or not to live with him at all, because he will no longer stand for only receiving a part of her or for merely giving a part of himself.
The SSPX expected the barque of St. Peter to take a century or so to right its course, at the which time, they would seek a more visible reunion. Much like a practical wife, the Fraternity was ready to bide its time and wait for the situation to evolve. Romance however kindles revolution; it does not wait for evolution.
Yet, this sort of passion and deliberate way of thinking may end in either triumph or tragedy. The husband's confrontation with his wife could bring about a wider rift rather than a reconciliation. As Archbishop Fellay himself has said:
One must not think that things will be easy afterwards. To use the words of the Pope that describe the situation quite well: 'I know,' he said, 'that it would be easier both for the Society and for myself to leave the situation as it currently is.' This describes very well the situation, and also that the Pope himself knows that he, when he does it, will be attacked. And also that the situation will not be easy for us. That which will arise out of this situation will be with Rome or against it. Both of which will be difficult.
'Difficult'? A very diplomatic term. The enemies of this reunion want to wreck it completely. They are ready to split the Church over it. The heretics that once accused the SSPX of schism, are now entering into formal schism (to add to their heresy):
A schismatic pope loses his position according to that same teaching of the constitution of the Church. At least, he cannot expect obedience...Instead of reconciling with the ultra-conservative, anti-democratic, and anti-Semitic SSPX, the Pope should rather care about the majority of reform-minded Catholics and reconcile with the churches of the Reformation and the entire ecumenical movement. Thus he would unite, and not divide. _Hans Küng (http://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2012/05/freak-extremes-meet-hans-kung-becomes.html)
Ultimately, those engaged in a romance must be willing to ask themselves if the other is enough. If their relationship is a great enough good to place above all other goods and all other relations. The Pope has decided that justice to the Fraternity is above the politics of diplomacy and that open arms to those outside the Church is a lie if those already within Her are not also embraced in love. His Holiness has decided to put his own house in order first, whatever the cost.
And how shall it end? That depends on whether one's trust in the good God is well-founded. Those with faith already have their answer.
However, the realm of human relations differs entirely. As each man is an individual endowed with sentient thought of the highest order, his personal course of action need not arise from a relation with any eternal measure. Determinists may say otherwise, but personal experience tells us that man does what he does out of free choice, and that this freedom is only lessened by the sleepy influence of inertia (for even acting on the compulsion of another implies that we choose compliance over the alternative of not complying). Whether it is true for physical objects or not, man is indeed capable of resting even as he acts, mindlessly following the course of habit.
'Heaven gives us habit instead of happiness' is the proverb stoically intoned at the beginning of Tchaikovsky's luscious opera, Onegin. As it is shown that story's prelude, the strength of habit is enough to conquer individual impulses, and in this story's case, it is for the better. The security of a repeating cycle helps one to heal after the bruises of disappointed romance.
One may say the same to be the case with the Church and the Society of Saint Pius X. The initial sunderance with Rome must have shook the earth under the bishops' feet, even as they were convinced that Canon Law ultimately justified them, even as it appeared to condemn them. The stigma branded upon them by the mainstream currents in the Church may have at first spurred them on, but after all this time, this condition has very likely become mundane.
Just as with the married couple mentioned before, there was an argument. It was an ugly argument--the sort that shatters lives and even worlds. Yet, the presence of mind in both parties allows the marriage to remain in existence, and the two decide to go seperate ways under the same roof, trusting in some misty future date for a true reconciliation. Habit reigns in place of happiness, and husband and wife are content with their domestic routines, superficial conversation, and nights of regular sleep. This life does not feed their desires. It is not a fulfillment of their vocation. It is an insult against the potential grandeur of their souls. Yet, it is also the easier thing to do. Habit is easier than happiness; routine is easier than romance. Inertia always has that upperhand over the practice of virtue.
That is why it would come as a shock to the wife, if as she prepares supper in the kitchen, or as she returns home from work herself, to suddenly come face to face with her husband and see that he is looking at her. He does not give way for her to continue what she was doing. He does not even follow his own routine. He says decisively: 'Things cannot go on as they have.' She finds now she will have to make a choice. To live with him as his wife, or not to live with him at all, because he will no longer stand for only receiving a part of her or for merely giving a part of himself.
The SSPX expected the barque of St. Peter to take a century or so to right its course, at the which time, they would seek a more visible reunion. Much like a practical wife, the Fraternity was ready to bide its time and wait for the situation to evolve. Romance however kindles revolution; it does not wait for evolution.
Yet, this sort of passion and deliberate way of thinking may end in either triumph or tragedy. The husband's confrontation with his wife could bring about a wider rift rather than a reconciliation. As Archbishop Fellay himself has said:
One must not think that things will be easy afterwards. To use the words of the Pope that describe the situation quite well: 'I know,' he said, 'that it would be easier both for the Society and for myself to leave the situation as it currently is.' This describes very well the situation, and also that the Pope himself knows that he, when he does it, will be attacked. And also that the situation will not be easy for us. That which will arise out of this situation will be with Rome or against it. Both of which will be difficult.
(http://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2012/05/rome-sspx-fellay-speaks-in-vienna-words.html)
'Difficult'? A very diplomatic term. The enemies of this reunion want to wreck it completely. They are ready to split the Church over it. The heretics that once accused the SSPX of schism, are now entering into formal schism (to add to their heresy):
A schismatic pope loses his position according to that same teaching of the constitution of the Church. At least, he cannot expect obedience...Instead of reconciling with the ultra-conservative, anti-democratic, and anti-Semitic SSPX, the Pope should rather care about the majority of reform-minded Catholics and reconcile with the churches of the Reformation and the entire ecumenical movement. Thus he would unite, and not divide. _Hans Küng (http://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2012/05/freak-extremes-meet-hans-kung-becomes.html)
Ultimately, those engaged in a romance must be willing to ask themselves if the other is enough. If their relationship is a great enough good to place above all other goods and all other relations. The Pope has decided that justice to the Fraternity is above the politics of diplomacy and that open arms to those outside the Church is a lie if those already within Her are not also embraced in love. His Holiness has decided to put his own house in order first, whatever the cost.
And how shall it end? That depends on whether one's trust in the good God is well-founded. Those with faith already have their answer.
Labels:
Actuality,
Appeal,
Church Suffering,
Concessions,
Courage,
Desire,
Happiness,
Healing,
Love,
Passion,
Pope Benedict XVI,
Society of Pius X,
Tradition
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Monday, May 31, 2010
This life can be so wonderful. To think of nothing weightier than accomplishing the day's task, to observe a baby's wonder at the spinning of a little paper windwheel, to savour the rich taste of kielbasa in one's sandwich, and to look forward to a warmly lit room with one's heart warmly lit by beer and fellowship. Surely these are the best things!
Yet, I can remember an afternoon, with my first cousin twice removed sitting in my lap as we read a story together. We were warm in the chair, as I read her a fairytale from an ornate, leatherbound volume. The rain pattered a pleasant tattoo on the roof, and the soft touch of our chenile blanket was like Heaven. The story was interrupted abruptly, as three year olds tend to end all their activites, and so I went to the kitchen to enjoy a cup of cinammon tea. To be warm and dry while the rain fell without gave me the kind of comfort bestowed by a Psalm or an Irish drinking song. Yet...
I drew closer to the window, my reflection disappearing as I leaned forward to glimpse the pewter darkness beyond the pane.
'What choo lookin' at, Rachel?' Elaine inquired in her sweet, piping voice. I turned my eyes across the broad field neighbouring our sweet yellow home towards the naked, great pines lining its eastern border, a sable vanguard against the umbrous clouds. I looked to the north. The maples' leaves turned over in the wind, revealing their silver underlining in ripples of shimmering brilliance.
I opened the door. The smell of wet rock and earth flooded my nostrils, and the mixture of the summer's heat, imbued with the wet cool of the storm enveloped me. Elaine raised her blonde eyebrows and gave me a quizzical look with her brown green eyes.
'Let's go out in the rain,' I said and made a flying leap into the downpour, leaving a sceptical child at the door. Gone was the warm comfort of the tea, and I was soon wet through. Onto the spongy lawn I trod, dancing about with no music but the rhythm of my blood, longing to be one with the heartbeat of all things. Gone was the desire for individual security and protection, only the wild desire for All remained, to bring every potency into act and to make a moment into forever. I turned with a laugh to see that Elaine had joined me, turning about with her arms outspread and also laughing.
Later, slipping on fresh, dry clothes, which brought comfort to my damp, chill skin as potent as a narcotic thrill, I admitted to myself that I wanted both. My individuality and unity with something greater. The security of community and the harrowing journey of solitude. I wanted home, and I wanted the epic.
Fiction is of course no help for resolving the dilemma. Dorothy of Kansas and Oz returned home after admitting there was no other place like it. Odysseus returned to Ithaca a thoroughly humbled man, and exalted his Penelope above any of the goddesses whose beds he had shared. Yet, Thumbelina never returned home. She became the queen of the flower elves, and Frodo Baggins departed to Valinor, his beloved Shire having failed to heal his wounds. The morals of poetry are cloven in two. One party cries out for the simplicity of the heart, and the other chants the praises of higher, greater things. One says this life is good, and so be content. The second says this life will end; do something that will echo into eternity.
The reasonable, balanced man would likely say that neither of these two extremes are perfectly right, nor completely wrong. The first lacks truth, and is inclined towards the bigotry of personal and familial interest. Tea Party affiliates of the United States do not wish to dominate foreign politics, nor would they assist foreign countries out of any kind of charity.
The second division lacks humility, and is too inclined to push the interests of what it thinks is right. It is the grand empire that would aristocratically see the oneness of all men and dictate unto them broad-mindedly, but it would also insist on their adherence to this greater whole. The coldness of this form would be willing to sacrifice the small for the great, individual lives for generations not even in existence.
G. K. Chesterton, a hobbit in ways and a wizard in mind, said that he hoped to see somewhere in the Eternal Jersualem an object with the familiar, homely semblance of a lampost. No doubt this was the quotation that prompted C. S. Lewis to include so random, yet wonderful, an object in his mythical realm of Narnia. When the hero of Tolkien's autobiographical allegory, an artist named Niggle, stepped out of the Purgatorial Workhouse on his way to Heaven, he saw a polished, brilliantly coloured train waiting him for at the station.
These men with such epic, grand tastes shared the desire to somehow reconcile the two opposing views just related. To have the peasant in his colourful, cheery garb sit at board with the solemn, erudite sage trimmed in ermine--to have Molly Malone breaking bread congenially with Aristotle. The writers mentioned wanted a common ground which embarrassed neither party, and did not attempt to mix the brilliant black and white of their aspirations into a dirty, mottled grey.
Can man's condition allow for this? Is it possible to throw one's self into the wild, climbing the mountain towards enlightenment, going farther and farther beyond all known boundaries, and at last, when one drops to his knees in exhaustion, to look up and see the warm light of a fire beckoning him through curtained windows of an ornate, gaily painted pub? To travel to distant realms, striving to rise above one's own culture in search of common humanity, and then suddenly to be clapped on the shoulder by someone with a smiling face who inexplicably knows your name?
One must sojourn through this life, with all its imperfections and disappointments, only to endure the agony of death however it comes. We shall fall into that state utterly naked and alone in spirit, if not in flesh as well, and watch the world fall away from us, existence fall away from us. At His own moment of darkness, the most resigned, detached Teacher this world has ever known cried out, 'My God, My God, why hast Thou abandoned Me?'
Is it possible, or is it the most nefarious joke ever played on man, that after this dreadful moment, the soul that chose Goodness in her life, will realize that she has just now begun to live in the truest sense of the word? After the weariness of life, will she have strength for eternity? Will she even want what awaits her, namely the contemplation of Mystery beyond our understanding, the Beatific Vision?
According to Tennyson (and many others concur), the aged Odysseus, as he surveyed the state he had built after returning home from war, was satisfied with what he would leave behind. But he was not satisfied with what would be his end. He suddenly discovered that he had not drunk 'life to the lees,' that there was use yet in his wits and limbs, and beyond him there was a world which he could sometimes glimpse, but never fully contemplate. He longed to find this world.
His military companions long dead, Odysseus gathers his friends: his beloved Penelope, the old farm hands, the faithful servants, all that is left of the elderly in his househole, and makes for the ships. This time he shall not return to Ithaca:
...for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew
Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will,
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
(Alfred Lord Tennyson, Ulysses)
The third property of water is that it satisfies and quenches the thirst; for it seems to me, that thirst implies the desire of something we stand much in need of, and which, if it cannot possibly be obtained, kills us. (Teresa of Avila, The Way of Perfection)This life cannot make one perfectly happy. Even if one could possess all the goods tallied up to provide joy, bliss would still be imperfect. St. Teresa of Avila once observed:
We thirst for adventure and long for security. We fear death and pale at the eternal. Our hearts are set on the temporal, which we wish to endure forever. Man wants to know what is at the bottom of all existence, but can an effect hope or even desire to know its Cause?
Over a millenium after the Philosopher's flesh was swept into dust, centuries after the Son rose in the East and set the West aflame, a big, lumbering man was sitting on a hard bench in a stony cell. Whether he wrote by a shard of sun or the aureole of a candle, his own illuminated mind brought forth these words:
Respondeo: as stated before, our end (i.e., the purpose of humanity) is twofold.
Did he pause after that? Or did he scribble on furiously?
The atheist and fabulous mystery novelist, Colin Dexter, wrote through the lips of his irascible hero, Inspector Morse, these poignant words: 'I wish to God there was a God. A just God, dealing out judgement and mercy.' In the end, we all admit in our moments of sincerity that we want an explanation for existence. At the last, after all of man's inhumanity to man, we want someone who can show us the tapestry that will finally allow us to forgive evildoers completely, embracing existence with renewed joy. In a world of such horrors, we want there to be something so Beautiful behind it all that It would annihilate ugliness. We want it, we want it. Oh God! can we have it?First, there is the thing itself which we desire to attain...Secondly there is the attainment or possession, the use or enjoyment of the thing desired. In the first sense, then, man's last end is the uncreated good, namely. God, Who alone by His infinite goodness can perfectly satisfy man's will. But in the second way, man's last end is something created, existing (in him, and this is nothing else than the attainment or enjoyment of the last end. Now the last end is called happiness. (Summa Theologiae, Prima Secundae Partis: Question III, Article i)
Final and perfect happiness can consist in nothing else than the vision of the Divine Essence. To make this clear, two points must be observed. First, that man is not perfectly happy, so long as something remains for him to desire and seek: secondly, that the perfection of any power is determined by the nature of its object. Now the object of the intellect is...the essence of a thing...Wherefore the intellect attains perfection, in so far as it knows the essence of a thing... Consequently, when man knows an effect, and knows that it has a cause, there remains in the man the desire to know about the cause...and this desire is one of wonder, and causes inquiry...
So God will give us Himself, but in what way? So that we can truly contemplate His infinity? His eternity?
Final and perfect happiness can consist in nothing else than the vision of the Divine Essence. To make this clear, two points must be observed. First, that man is not perfectly happy, so long as something remains for him to desire and seek: secondly, that the perfection of any power is determined by the nature of its object. Now the object of the intellect is...the essence of a thing...Wherefore the intellect attains perfection, in so far as it knows the essence of a thing... Consequently, when man knows an effect, and knows that it has a cause, there remains in the man the desire to know about the cause...and this desire is one of wonder, and causes inquiry...
If therefore the human intellect, knowing the essence of some created effect, knows no more of God than "that He is"; the perfection of that intellect does not yet reach simply the First Cause, but there remains in it the natural desire to seek the cause. Wherefore it is not yet perfectly happy. Consequently, for perfect happiness the intellect needs to reach the very Essence of the First Cause. (Summa Theologiae: Prima Secundae Partis, Question III, Article viii)
The Problem of Infinity: Do We Wish to Be Made for It? by Rachel Rudd is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Based on a work at foolishnessntears.blogspot.com.
Labels:
Actuality,
Eternity,
Final Ends,
Finite,
God,
Heaven,
Infinite,
Potency,
Tolkien
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About Me
- Jacobitess
- Warsaw, Poland
- Domine, spero quia mundum vicisti. Lord, I trust that Thou hast overcome the world. Panie, ufam, żeś pokonał świat.