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June 18, 2005
TOB in a nutshell & Descartes
TOB in a nutshell
Everything God made is good.
Our bodies are good.
God's plan for us is written in/on them.
We share in this lifegiving love through our bodies.
Slightly longer:
God made me therefore I am.
God made me with body & soul, soul and body.
I cannot ignore one for the other, or exault one over the other.
Everything God made is good.
Our bodies are good.
God's plan for us is written in/on our bodies.
God's gift to us is his lifegiving love.
We share in this lifegiving love through our bodies.
Our sharing in his plan is through our vocation.
Those in the Vocation of Marriage share in this plan through the Marital Embrace.
In that embrace there are two aspects, unitive and procreative.
In that embrace we must be open to God's gifts.
We must be as open to the procreative as we are to the unitive.
This was triggered for me when Alicia returned from the ACNM conference in Washington DC. She was talking about long evenings of religious discussions with her roommates. Four of them were sharing a room. All were Christian. Alicia and one others are Catholic. During our discussion on the drive home, I stated the four sentence summary of TOB at the top of this post. "Write that down!" she said.
I am no "expert" on TOB. But I have begun to study it. I started several months ago with Christopher West's 10 CD set. What an intense and thoughtful lecture he gave on TOB. Recommended listening! If you have a long drive it is worthwhile. I was lucky enough to have a period of 8 weeks where I had nearly 2 hours of driving to do on a Saturday morning going to/from Cursillo weekend team preparation meetings.
The EWTN series on TOB was not quite as deep. But it had the distraction of having to be "visual" at the same time.
As I was writing the slightly expanded version above, I was thinking of Descartes and his "I think, therefore I am." I was led to remember that God made us before we could even think, conceptualize or intellectualize ourselves. The gift of life does not require that we "recognize" or "acknowledge" our existence.
I just realized that Descartes famous comment could be an infamous idolatrous statement. Just focus on the phrase "I AM" from his statement. Nothing exists until I recognize it. To use the phrase "I think, therefore I am" is to make oneself God. We should all know "I AM" as the name that God gave for himself when he was asked by Moses. I do not know if that was the intent of Descartes. I do know that in our times and self centered world, that is often how it is read & believed. That is how I heard it at St. Mary's College 30+ years ago.
This concept may have been discussed elsewhere. I don't remember having read it before. It did set me back to recognize it.
All that I am, All that I have is God's.
God made me, therefore I pray. Glory be to ...
Posted by John Huntley at 11:44 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
June 10, 2005
Maybe it's because Father's Day will be here soon....
I’m currently reading Fr Henri Nouwen’s book The Road to Daybreak, which is his journal of the first year (’85-’86) that he spent with Jean Vanier’s L’Arche community in France. Here’s an excerpt from his entry of 26 March 1986:
Sometimes despair seems an attractive choice, solving everything in the negative. The voice of despair says, “I sin over and over again. After endless promises to myself and others to do better next time, I find myself back again in the old dark places. Forget about trying to change. I have tried for years. It didn’t work and it will never work. It is better that I get out of people’s way. be forgotten, no longer around, dead.”This strangely attractive voice takes all uncertainties away and puts an end to the struggle. It speaks unambiguously for the darkness and offers a clear-cut negative identity.
But Jesus came to open my ears to another voice that says, “I am your God, I have molded you with my own hands, and I love what I have made. I love you with a love that has no limits, because I love you as I am loved. Do not run away from me. Come back to me – not once, not twice, but always again. You are my child. How can you ever doubt that I will embrace you again, hold you against my breast, kiss you and let my hands run through your hair. I am your God – the God of mercy and compassion, the God of pardon and love, the God of tenderness and care. Please do not say that I have given up on you, that I cannot stand you anymore, that there is no way back. It is not true. I so much want you to be with me. I so much want you to be close to me. I know all your thoughts. I hear all your words. I see all of your actions. And I love you because you are beautiful, made in my own image, an expression of my most intimate love. Do not judge yourself. Do not condemn yourself. Do not reject yourself. Let my love touch the deepest, most hidden corners of your heart and reveal to you your own beauty, a beauty that you have lost sight of, but which will become visible to you again in the light of my mercy. Come, come, let me wipe your tears, and let my mouth come close to your ear and say to you, ‘I love you, I love you, I love you.’”
.....It is not easy to let the voice of God’s mercy speak to us because it is a voice asking for an always open relationship, one in which sins are acknowledged, forgiveness received, and love renewed. It does not offer us a solution, but a friendship. It does not take away our problems, but promises not to avoid them. It does not tell us where it all will end, but assures us that we will never be alone. A true relationship is hard work because loving is hard work, with many tears and many smiles. But it is God’s work and worth every part of it.
Even though I, myself, need to be more aware and accepting of some of the sentiments that Fr Nouwen expressed here, my reflection on this passage has mainly been from the perspective of my role as a father to my children. I hope that, through my raising of and relationship with my children, I have been able to impart some of these truths to them. I hope that they will learn how profoundly important it is to the Christian life and community that they know that “mercy triumphs over judgment” (James 2:13), and that they live it out at every opportunity, despite the multitudes of times that they have seen their father fail to do so. I hope that my personal struggle with pride and arrogance hasn’t obscured their vision from seeing that humility, total dependence on God, clears the path for that mercy to come forth. And I hope that my flailing efforts to train them in obedience, respect and discipline haven’t overshadowed the depth of my personal love for each one of them, and that they'll know deep within their being that the love they sense from me is just a tiny fraction of the immense love that their heavenly Father has, and will always have, for them.
Posted by Walter Babetski at 12:58 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
June 3, 2005
Good Reading
You'll find some good articles on Youth and Family Life in the currrent (May/June) online edition of LayWitness Magazine.
Posted by Walter Babetski at 8:05 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack