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Thank you for visiting. I hope you will enjoy the variety of topics to enhance your spiritual life. You can read them below or download them and read at your leisure. I have also added my Sunday Homilies.
CURRENT TOPICS: Notes for Presentation on Mary + God Is Beautiful + Hosea, The Unwanted Prophet+
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5th Sun in Lent – John 8:1-11
The message in John’s gospel today is that God sent his Son to save the world, not to condemn it; if some are condemned, it is because they themselves choose to reject Jesus. He himself does not judge anyone. And It is no sentence of condemnation that he writes on the ground. This writing recalls a verse of Jeremiah: “Those who turn away from you, shall be written in the ground, because they have forsaken the Lord, the fountain of living water.” Jesus was the source of living water. He promised it to the woman of Samaria; it flowed from his side after his death.
“The strongest form of argument is a dilemma. A dilemma gives you only two options. You are free to choose between the two “horns of the dilemma” but whichever one you choose, you’re impaled on the horn, you lose. For instance, Jesus once gave the Pharisees this dilemma: “Was John’s baptism of heavenly or of human origin?” So, their only option was to take the coward’s way out and say, “we do not know,” which is like taking the Fifth Amendment: “I refuse to answer on the grounds that it may incriminate me.”
Today’s Gospel, the scribes and Pharisees pose a dilemma to Jesus, the woman caught in the act of adultery. There was not a question about the fact. And we know his answer to their dilemma: “Let the one among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” That is not an evasion of their dilemma. They were evading the real question. The real question was themselves—their own hearts and motives, their own sins. The adulteress was a mirror of their own sins. But instead of seeing themselves in that mirror, they shut their eyes. Jesus opened them with his answer. His answer destroyed their evasion.
When ever Jesus is questioned, his answer turns the situation around so that he becomes the questioner and his questioners become the ones who are questioned. A good example is the answer to the dilemma about paying taxes to Caesar or not? We know his reply, “Repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God.” Jesus incriminated them for giving divine honor to Caesar and only human honor to God. They were like many people today who are “religious” about politics and “political” about religion, who have a religiously passionate commitment to politics, whether to the donkey or to the elephant, and a politically pragmatic commitment to religion. (Jonathan Ranuch says much the same in his book, Cross Purposes: Christianity’s Broken Bargain with Democracy.)
When they hear Jesus’ answer, they all go home, beginning with the oldest and wisest, for they realize that they are now the ones being questioned. Jesus is implicitly giving them his dilemma. Do they have no sin or not? They now understand that they are standing under the question, not standing over it. That standing-under God’s question is the very first step in under-standing.
“Go and sin no more.” Forgiveness is not indifference. Jesus does not say, “There is nothing to forgive.” There is. Jesus does not say, “Don’t worry about it.” She must. Jesus not only loves the sinner but also hates the sin, precisely because he loves the sinner. He knows how harmful sin is and how costly forgiveness is. He will have to pay for her sins, and he knows how costly that payment will be, on the cross.
I would love to take credit for the above but this beautiful reflection on today’s gospel is the best that I have ever come across, and is taken from Peter Kreeft’s book Food for the Soul, cycle C.
In closing I want to step back and practice synodality by including all of us in this gospel message with another quote from Catholic Woman Preach, by Teresa Delgado.
“The stories of Jesus and the woman accused of adultery are strikingly similar to me. The scandal exists in the manner in which they were treated by men in power, so ready to sacrifice them for the supremacy of their systems, religious and legal. Maybe we, too, are complicit in the scandal if we chose to read from the story only Jesus’s response toward a “sinful” woman. In taking a step back, perhaps we can see the scandal of the bigger picture and, without judgment or condemnation, work toward the prize of God’s upward calling.”
I might add that it may only be possible through a synodal process in our church today.
GOD IS BEAUTY – BEAUTY IS GOD
PART THREE: The Nature of Beauty and the Desire for Perfect Beauty
Nature of Beauty – Ontological Status of the Beautiful
It is good at this point to talk about ‘Beauty’ from the philosophical point of view. In his book, New Proofs for The Existence of God, Fr. R. J. Spitzer, SJ, treats the subject of beauty within the main topic of his book. Fr. Spitzer draws on the traditional philosophical treatment of the subject, which would include Plato’s view as foundational, “Beauty itself is inextricably linked to Truth itself, Justice/Goodness itself, and Love itself, which is perhaps the most fundamental insight of this chapter. Inasmuch as all of these transcendentals are absolutely simple, they must be unique, and therefore the same Reality,” (p.257)
It is good to know that Fr. Spitzer also makes the connection of beauty to beautiful objects, music, visual arts, architecture, and poetry. I am sure that he would also include mathematical formulas if he had read Jim Holt’s book, When Einstein Walked with Godel. However, he reminds us that “though beauty is frequently a part of art, art need not be beautiful,” (P.253), and that goes for math as well.
Spitzer quotes Johannes Lotz, who going back to Albert the Great, suggested that there are three characteristics that give rise to the aesthetic emotions: perfection of a particular form (essence), harmonious resonance, and ‘shining forth’ (luster of splendor) pointing beyond itself, (P.254).
The first characteristic referred to by Lotz is called “what we enjoy in natural objects coming to perfection,” which could have a wide range of meaning. He mentions that “…it is a delight to see.” Of course, the opposite evokes no emotion at the least but revulsion at worse. “Individual form brought to perfection is intrinsically beautiful.”
Second characteristic of beauty that he mentions is “harmonious resonance,” and he uses music to express this with two notes in harmony, whereas the two notes are unrecognized in their isolation. He says this holds true when applies to the visual arts, and again, architecture, poetry, etc.,” (p.255). Lotz also points out that there is more to harmony than “…evoking of deeper delight, repose, reveling and enjoyment.” In their complexity as in a Bach, Beethoven or Brahms symphony, architecture, or in poetry like Eliot’s Four Quartets, they point to a kind of ecstasy, or a ‘mysetrium tremendum.” And he adds that, “…the more complex, grand, and sustained the harmony, the more it evokes the sublime or exalted emotions, and the more it seems to connect us with the glorious, the beautiful, and the Subline Itself.”
[What is interesting is that Spitzer notes that Roger Fry’s “matter of infinite importance” (who initially quoted Johannes Lotz who quoted Albert the Great – yes, one can get lost in all the quotes!) whose explanation lies in the “depth of mysticism,” mysticism! (We will explore that subject another time.)
And the third characteristic of beauty is a shining forth, splendor, and luster, refers to “access to perfection of form or harmony.” As suggested above, complex, grand, and sustained beauties point “beyond” their complementary unified forms to unity, perfection, and sublimity itself. Again, Fr. Spitzer uses music to point this out (p.255).
When one hears Mozart’s Requiem, one recognizes and then reposes and revels in more than music brought to its perfection, more than the human emotions evoked by the harmonies and melodies.
One enjoys the more perfect manifestation of unity, and then reposes and revels in it, feeling a deep and abiding sense of exaltation and glory. Now, when the Requiem is performed within a magnificent church with magnificent art, and the music, art and architecture are unified as a whole, one feels drawn into a perfection bigger than all the forms combined. One is drawn into the perfection of complex unification to which one appends the name “glorious” or “magnificent.”
The author then uses other examples like a beautiful ocean, a beautiful mountain, waterfall, sky, and all three taken as a “contiguous whole,” and other such examples. He mentions that this kind of unity “…seems to have no intrinsic limit.” And …it seems that all forms have an ideal complementarity with all other forms, revealing yet another kind of ideal or perfect unification withing the phenomenon of beauty.”
In the end, the author connects beauty as one of several attributes to God. We will explore this more later in our series.
“Go Back To Where You Came From!”
Amos, The Unwanted Prophet: Introduction
Amos was the first of Israelite Prophets of the 8th century whose words were assembled onto a scroll. His contemporaries were Hosea, Micah and Proto-Isaiah. He was a herdsman and dresser of sycamore-fig trees in a village of about 150 in Tekoa, a hilly fortified village southeast of Jerusalem. This prophet was called by God to preach to the Israelites in the North. Needless to say, the North eventually told him to go back to where you came from.
His name probably means “Yahweh has carried,” from “Amasiah,” or amos-ah. He had no reason to prophesy for money, since he already had an occupation. His only reason, he declared, was because God had summoned him to do so.
“Herdsman” means “sheep-master” and refers to owners and managers of a very special kind of dwarfed sheep that were bred and raised from ancient times in the Near East famous for its wool.
This fictitious account is based on facts gleaned from his book, Amos. Enjoy!
“I had a dream last night,” Amos said to his wife. They were having breakfast at sunrise to watch as the sun lit up the view below. They were at 2800 feet above sea level, right at the point where the cultivated lands ends and the uncultivated land begin that slope down to the Dead Sea.
“Tell me about it,” she asked interested. He rarely talked about his dreams, so this should be interesting. She followed his gaze, since from the Heights of Tekoa the world was spread out before them like a gigantic map. Gilead, Ammon, Moab and Edom to the east, Jerusalem, Samaria and the regions of Damascus and Phoenicia to the north, Beersheba to the south, his own people Jacob, looking so small right below him.
“Go and prophesy to my people Israel,” Amos began.
Miriam interrupted him, “The Lord God spoke to you?” she asked shocked.
“I had a vision,” he quickly added.
“You had a dream, you said,” she corrected.
“Dream, vision,” he shrugged, “What’s the difference?”
“A big difference,” she said. “I had a dream too, thinking I was living in a palace instead of surrounded by sheep.
“Let me finish my dream, and then you can decide,” he said, emphasizing my. “Besides, my love,” emphasizing love, “the Lord God has blessed us through our sheep, with the best wool around where even King Mesha of Moab would be envious.”
“You have to admit,” she reminded him, “planting those sycamores have kept the grass greener through their shade.”
“That is true,” he admitted. “It has been a wonderful pastureland for our sheep.” In a more conciliatory tone, “You suggestion was a double blessing.”
“Your vision,” she teased.
“Go and prophesy to my people Israel,” Amos said with some shock and trembling. “for I am about to send a plague of locust upon Jacob to destroy him.”
Miriam was frightened. “Amos, I am sorry to hear this message from our Lord God! That is frightening! What will you do?”
“I will plead with the Lord God for forgiveness.” He was thinking, “I have been formulating a response.”
Miriam looked at him with fright, “You can’t be quiet, Amos. You have to deliver the message.”
“Yes, Yes, I will my love,” he said. “On the way north, I will deliver my message and ask the Lord God to stop and not carry out his plan.”
“Maybe the Lord God will relent before you get there,” she said hopefully. “Since House of Isaac may refuse to repent, and then what?”
“Pray for pleasant dreams,” Amos could only say.