Posted on by Kurt Bodling

“Theology is the main requisite for entering into and embodying Christian wisdom. We read the Scriptures, but without theology, we understand only the letter and do not enter into the spirit of the gospel of Jesus Christ. We read the mystics, but without theology, we do not understand the profundity of their spiritual insights and enter into mystical experience. We have authentic moments of silence, meditation and prayer, but without theological exercise, our life will not become doxological, permeated by prayer and thanksgiving. Theology is the way to enter into God’s mystery.”

(Barban, Alessandro. “Lectio Divina and Monastic Theology in Camaldolese Life” in Belisle, Peter-Damian, editor. The Privilege of Love: Camaldolese Benedictine Spirituality. Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical Press, 2002, p. 50)

Rest assured that there’s still a place for theology in today’s world! All Christians need at least some theological knowledge so that they can work with the heart wisdom gleaned through the spiritual disciplines.

Posted on by Kurt Bodling

St. Benedict on silence

“Let us do as the prophet says: ‘I have said: I will keep my ways so that I will not offend with my tongue. I have guarded my speech. I have held my peace and humbled myself and was silent, even from speaking good things’ (Ps. 39:1-2). Here the prophet demonstrates that if we are not to speak of good things, for the sake of silence, it is even more vital that we should not speak of evil lest we sin, for we shall be punished for that as a sin. No matter how perfect the disciple, nor how good and pious his speech he rarely should be given permission to speak for: ‘In much speaking, you shall not escape sin’ (Prov. 10:19). The master should speak and teach, the disciple should quietly listen and learn. No matter what must be asked of a superior, it must be done with humility and reverent submission. We always condemn and ban all small talk and jokes; no disciple shall speak such things.”

Saint Benedict. The Rule of St. Benedict. Translated, with introduction and notes by Anthony C. Meisel and M.L. del Mastro. NY : Doubleday, 1975, page 56.

Note: This is the whole 6th chapter; but not the only thing Benedict says about Silence in his Rule. He would today have included some proscriptions about social media, I’m sure. Including, no doubt, blogs that quote the Rule.

His condemnation here of levity probably strikes us as too harsh. But haven’t you noticed that so much of what passes for comedy and joking is done at the expense of someone else? It can really hurt and isn’t necessarily assuaged with an “Oh, I was only joking.”

Posted on by Kurt Bodling

seeing God

“By his own powers man cannot see God, yet God will be seen by men because He wills it. He will be seen by those He chooses, at the time He chooses, and in the way He chooses, for God can do all things. He was seen of old through the Spirit in prophecy; He is seen through the Son by our adoption as his children, and He will be seen in the kingdom of heaven in His own being as the Father. The Spirit prepares man to receive the Son of God, the Son leads him to the Father, and the Father, freeing him from change and decay, bestows the eternal life that comes to everyone from seeing God.

“As those who see light are in the light sharing its brilliance, so those who see God are in God sharing His glory, and that glory gives them life. To see God is to share in life.”

Saint Irenaeus. Adversus Haereses or Against Heresies. Quoted in Office of Readings for Wednesday of the Third Week in Advent, (vol. 1, p. 288) and cited there as: Lib 4, 20, 4-5: SC 100, 634-640.

Note: Seeing God isn’t usually physical seeing, just as knowing God isn’t intellectual knowing. But understand that God was seen, is seen, and will be seen.

Saint Irenaeus also makes an interesting flip by saying that the former was through the Spirit, the middle in the Son, and the latter in the Father. (I think we usually say of old through the creating Father, then in the incarnate Jesus, and ultimately in the Holy Spirit’s leading the Church. So I suppose we’re the ones making the flip.)

Posted on by Kurt Bodling

I could be wrong

“Now in individual cases, it may be that they say something that we find very hard to accept because of our own earnest convictions. Here we must rethink our own positions in the light of what authority has said and, if possible, try to see the reasons why authority has spoken as it did, the presumption being that they had good reasons to do it. However, it may be that with the best will in the world we cannot really convince ourselves that this is right. And if so, we are inevitably thrown into a position of dissent. But I think we must be modest about it and realize that our own opinion is not necessarily the last word. Maybe somebody is wiser than we are. And maybe the church has a wisdom from which we have to learn. So we shouldn’t constitute ourselves as a kind of alternate magisterium.”

Dulles, Avery Cardinal. “Reason, Faith and Theology.” Interviewer: James Martin, SJ.  America. 5 March 2001 issue. Viewed online 12 December 2015 at http://americamagazine.org/issue/338/article/reason-faith-and-theology

I’ve heard two phrases that everyone should have at the ready. One is “I could be wrong” (as above). And the other is “I guess I don’t see it that way.”

The way of humility is paved with phrases like these, not with clinchers, or closers, or zingers, not with shutting down the opposition, or winning at any cost.

Posted on by Kurt Bodling

engage in dialog

“Good Catholics embrace dialogue; it is only our latter-day cafeteria Catholics who think they can omit dialogue from their theology, piety and practice.”

Clooney, Francis X. “Compassion and Dialogue Shall Embrace” America Magazine 27 November 2015 < no page number as it was found online >

Catholics, yes. But also Lutherans. And, really, everyone. Without dialogue what we’re left with is stony-faced, rigid wall-building, or a simmering misunderstanding set to boil over at the slightest provocation. Let’s not omit dialogue.

Posted on by Kurt Bodling

what is the spiritual life about?

Note:
It’s never about what we do. It’s always about who we are, or actually about Who we are not.

Quote:
“Nourished by the Sacraments and formed by the prayer and teachings of the Church, we need seek nothing but the particular place willed for us by God within the Church. When we find that place, our life and prayer both at once become extremely simple.

“Then we discover what the spiritual life really is. It is not a matter of doing one good work rather than another, of living in one place rather than in another, of praying in one way rather than another.

“It is not a matter of any special psychological effect in our soul. It is the silence of our whole being in compunction and adoration before God, in the habitual realization that He is everything and we are nothing, that He is the Center to which all things tend and to Whom all our actions must be directed.”  (pp 45-46)

Source: Merton, Thomas. Thoughts in Solitude. NY: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. 1958. (pbk ed 1999).