Posted on by Kurt Bodling

solitude and community

“Christianity has never promoted an individualistic ‘me and Jesus’ spirituality. Such thinking is an anomaly and an aberration. Even as early as the fourth century, when hermits started retreating into the desert to live solitary lives in radical devotion to God, the Christian tradition remained consistently adamant: love, charity and hospitality are absolutely essential, expected and required. As one desert hermit taught, the charity shown to a sick brother is worth more than a lifetime of penitential practices.”

Haase, Albert. Coming Home to Your True Self: Leaving the Emptiness of False Attractions. Foreword by M. Robert Mulholland, Jr. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Books, 2008, p. 25

Posted on by Kurt Bodling

dogma promulgation

“The time lag between developments in the church and modern society was striking: in the very decade that Charles Darwin announced his theory of evolution to the public, Pius IX for the first time had the idea, as a demonstration of his own fullness of power and de facto infallibility, of promulgating a dogma entirely by himself. Promulgating a dogma is an action which traditionally has always been taken as a council in a situation of conflict to ward off heresy. Pius IX’s intention was to further traditional piety and to reinforce the Roman system. The dogma that he had in mind was that strange dogma of the immaculate conception of Mary (Mary conceived in her mother’s body without original sin), dated 1854. We do not find a word in the Bible and in the Catholic tradition of the first millennium about this, and it hardly makes any sense in the light of the theory of evolution.”

Küng, Hans. The Catholic Church: a Short History. New York: The Modern Library, 2003, p. 162

A certain kind of Protestant will snigger at this and say “See? I told you so!” A certain kind of Roman Catholic will explain, “Küng was a renegade who lost his license to teach as a Catholic theologian; his opinions are all suspect!”

Posted on by Kurt Bodling

including the Church triumphant

“We are to be informed by the life, teaching, death and resurrection of Jesus; by the leading of the Spirit; by the wisdom we find in scripture; by the fact of our baptism and all that it means; by the sense of God’s presence and guidance through prayer; and by the fellowship of other Christians, both our contemporaries and those of other ages whose lives and writings are ours to use as wise guides. … Part of the art of being a Christian is learning to be sensitive to all of them, and to weigh what we think we are hearing from one quarter alongside what is being said in another.”

Wright, Tom. Simply Christian. London: SPCK, 2006, p. 191.

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the Church’s teaching authority

“The truth is that the saints arrived at the deepest and most vital and also the most individual and personal knowledge of God precisely because of the Church’s teaching authority, precisely through the tradition that is guarded and fostered by that authority.”

Merton, Thomas. New Seeds of Contemplation. Introduction by Sue Monk Kidd. New York: New Directions Books, 2007, ©1961, p. 146.

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tradition enriched and changed

“Tradition is more than the repetition of the past. A wisdom quest or a spiritual practice is something alive; it is enriched and changed by those who receive it, just as a family’s gene pool is enriched and changed through succeeding generations. The very fact that the life we live at Camaldoli today differs from the life lived there by earlier generations is itself a sign that a certain tradition lives on at Camaldoli.”

Matus, Thomas. The Mystery of Romuald and the Five Brothers. Trabuco Canyon, Cal.: Source Books / Hermitage Books, 1994, p. 2. (quoting don Anselmo Giabbani the superior at San Gregorio Camaldolese monastery in Rome)

Posted on by Kurt Bodling

the path to Christian doctrine

"The church’s official ‘doctrine of the Trinity’ was not fully formulated until three or four centuries after the time of Paul. Yet when the later theologians eventually worked it all through, it turned out to consist, in effect, of detailed footnotes to Paul, John, Hebrews and the other New Testament books, with explanations designed to help later generations grasp what was already there in principle in the earliest writings.

“But it would be a mistake to give the impression that the Christian doctrine of God is a matter of clever intellectual word-games or mind-games. For Christians it’s always a love-game.”

Wright, Tom. Simply Christian. London: SPCK, 2006, p. 118.

Comment: It’s clear, according to N.T. Wright, that Christian doctrine is more than simply a slow development of simple statements recorded in the Bible. He says here that doctrine is basically footnotes to the Scriptural text. At least when it (the Bible) is expounded properly.

It would seem, then, that Tradition must in this light be measured against Scripture. If the teachings of Tradition are not apparent in Scripture, then they aren’t footnoting anything. Which makes no sense. Pay attention to Wright’s idea of the “love-game” in tension with the “word-game”. If a doctrinal exposition and explanation is not growing out of the love-game, there’s reason to suspect it.

Posted on by Kurt Bodling

the perennial tradition

"On that day, you will know that you are in me and I am in you. John 14:20.

“‘That day’ that John refers to in the … epigraph has been a long time in coming, yet it has been the enduring message of every great religion in history. It is the Perennial Tradition. Yet union with God is still considered esoteric, mystical, a largely moral matter, and possibly only for a very few, as if God were playing hard to get. Nevertheless, divine and thus universal union is still the core message and promise–the whole goal and entire point of all religion.”

Rohr, Richard. Immortal Diamond: the Search for Our True Self. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2013, p. 95.

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the Church paradox

“The biggest paradox about the Church is that she is at the same time essentially traditional and essentially revolutionary. But that is not as much of a paradox as it seems, because Christian tradition, unlike all others, is a living and perpetual revolution.”

Merton, Thomas. New Seeds of Contemplation. Introduction by Sue Monk Kidd. New York: New Directions Books, 2007, ©1961, p. 142.

There are so many paradoxes (or apparent paradoxes) in the spiritual life. This is just one more: the Church – that is, Christianity – is traditional and revolutionary. It is liberal and conservative. It is active and contemplative. And it is one.