With his usual insouciant wit, John de Fiesole over at Disputations has reminded me of something that many never learn and that I often forget. Sometimes I even regret forgetting it.
Last year, as I was participating in a luncheon-seminar at a Franciscan ministry center, a dismaying thought occurred to me: we're all talking as though the Christian life is about us! Of course it isn't, in the end; it's about Christ, "through whom and for whom" all things were created and into whom the members of his Mystical Body, the Church, are incorporated. Indeed the only point of view that yields the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, thus revealing the full significance of things, is the God's-eye point of view. For that reason, we should learn as disciples to see with Christ: sub specie aeternitatis. Now since we're not quite God even as we share in the divine life, that vantage point will never be fully attainable; so after the occasion I chatted briefly with Fr. Louis Canino, the host, and opined only tentatively that we all need more of something I couldn't find a better word for than "objectivity." I assured him that I didn't mean a dry, academic objectivity, although some people could assuredly benefit from more exposure to that; I meant that our field of vision should be bigger than it usually is and should radiate outward not from us but from Christ. He agreed and suggested I write an article about it. But since I hadn't yet embraced what I was recommending, I replied by telling him that I was more likely to mollify Child Support Enforcement if I got a better-paying steady job.
Now that I'm duly chastened by learning how narrow my vision is, I think I'll write that article. Suggestions would be welcome.
Teresa:
ReplyDeleteI got the tease, but I'm still very interested in the application. As I have no active role my children's lives, the "Christian education" bit you mention is not an option for me at present, whether conceived in natural or supernatural terms.
On a more general note, I think it might be a mistake to assimilate the effort to see things from the "God's-eye point of view" to the well-known need to conceive one's life in terms of discipleship. The necessity of the latter is a given; the question is how to facilitate it cognitively when so much of the meaning of one's life seems hopelessly obscure.
Teresa:
ReplyDeleteTrackback Pontifications
teresa:
ReplyDeleteI referred you to George Sim Johnston's article, and to the comments thereon, so as to present in general terms the form that discipleship must take these days to attain more of "the God's-eye point of view." If you follow the link to the whole of Johnston's article, you'll see how the distinctive teaching of John Paul the Great helps us do that.
Of course I won't let that serve as a substitute for working on my article!
teresa:
ReplyDeleteThanks hugely! Those quotations from Ratzinger and Stein are quite helpful. BTW, the latter is one of my favorite Catholic thinkers of recent times. She serves up strong meat, not milk.
It's interesting that both your citations are essentially ecclesiological. Perhaps the Spirit is telling us that the place to adopt the needed POV is in the Church, understood as she understands herself. She is, after all, one body with her Lord, like a bride with her groom.