Meditation of the Day
How to Make the Transfiguration Last
Evagrius says, “Prayer is purity of the mind, the movements of whose prayer are not interrupted except once the holy light of the Trinity has shone out in the mind. “ For he says, “prayer is cut off by means of wonder at the light.” Thus the consummation consists in wonder at God, as we have said, and not in the continual stirrings of prayer. The person who has entered the place of the Mysteries remains in wonder at them, and this is the true prayer which opens the door to the treasures of God, allowing those who seek to have their fill of all they need. “Freely have you received, do yourselves give freely” too to everyone you wish. How could anyone dare to say of those who have been given authority over wealth, to give it as if it were their own to everyone they wished, that they are knocking at the door like beggars asking for alms to meet their needs?
No; rather they distribute life, raise the dead, convey hope, give light to the blind; “you are the light of the world,” he said: “I will give you the keys.” You are no longer someone who asks, for you have acquired authority – as though over what belonged to yourself – to bind and to loose, in this world and in the age of ages. How can such a person prostrate himself at the door and beg like a vagabond, seeing that the keys to the treasury are already placed in his hands, enabling him to take and give, have life and provide life?
John the Elder ( + c. early eight century) was a monastic writer of the East.
h/t Doctors of the Catholic Church and Magnificat
1 comment:
Dear Ath,
I must not get it - to me Jesus' saying, 'do not be afraid' does not and should not convey some naive or shallow state of being, and I didn't bring it up from that perspective. 'Do not be afraid' MEANS readiness, alertness, AND faith.
I agree that we do not want to get into a potential doubling situation based on fear that is why I used HOPE in my post, welcoming a potential mimicking based on hope. (I acknowledge that the article by Gen @ Real Clear Religion that I linked did reference fear.)
Where I fell into error was reading 'phobia' in connection to wisdom and love. I can't really see where wisdom and love have any meeting place with phobia.
The Christian imperative of 'do not be afraid' is joined at the heart (and infused into the mind) with 'be prepared' for they will persecute you for my sake (Matt 5.10-12). Therefore know perfect joy as you are blessed for yours is the kingdom of heaven.
When I did a quick dictionary.com of 'phobia' I noticed that the sponsors on that page are: anxiety disorder or depression sites.
As Gil wrote, The fall story tells us about desire, and what it tells us is what Augustine told us about sin, what Paul told us about salvation, and what Dante told us about both, namely, that we learn to desire from others, that the distortions of desire lead to sin, and that the right ordering of desire, the key to our liberation from the "power of sin," begins with Christian conversion.
And you suffuse this quote from Gil:
The work of René Girard now makes it possible for us to realize that what Karl Rahner said about non-biblical religions, namely that they are “christologies in search of a subject,” is true as well of the increasingly de-centered secular self. Like the Christian mysteries generally, the mystery of the person is deeply paradoxical. While it is unquestionably true that the sacramental understanding of the person is born of Christian experience and rooted in Christian scripture, Girard’s insights into the mimetic nature of human subjectivity now make it possible for us to recognize how anthropologically astute was Tertullian’s second century intuition that “the soul is naturally Christian.” That is to say, Christian anthropology – properly grounded in Trinitarian theology – accurately portrays the universal human dilemma. The Gospel knows us better than we know ourselves.
When we reach this mystery that the sould is naturally Christian I believe we begin to realize the zeal of St. Francis that I referenced from Maier: "Francis like the crusaders wanted to liberate the holy places of Palestine from Muslim rule. What was different was his strategy...He wanted their total submission to the Christian faith."
If we look at this passion existentially we notice that it runs toward and within the deepest crevices of what it means to be human, a creation of God. This is the Gospel message verses myth that
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