"Tramps like us, baby we were born to run..."

The real deal- The Boss with the original E Street Band. How wonderful and real!

"Someday girl I don't know when were gonna get to that place/Where we really want to go and we'll walk in the sun/But till then tramps like us baby we were born to run"! In its existential longing for the transcendent, this song also has a passion reminiscent of St. Francis of Assisi.

"In return and rest you shall be saved"

"For thus said the Lord GOD, the Holy One of Israel: By waiting and by calm you shall be saved, in quiet and in trust your strength lies. But this you did not wish. In return and rest you shall be saved" - Isaiah 30:15

"When was the last time you had a real day off? Ditched the 'to-do' lists. Switched off the phone. Had a lie-in. Sat in the bath until the water went cold?

"Most of us live at break-neck speed. Busy lives - work, family, friends, endless tasks - leave us with little time to sleep, never mind stopping and reflecting.

"We urgently need to learn to nurture our inner slob."





We need to affirm life, to live by practical wisdom, to . . . well . . . just live.

We need to learn to the prayer of rest, through which God puts us "in the eye of the storm," the storm's surprisingly calm center. "When all around is chaos and confusion, deep within we know stability and serenity. In the midst of intense personal struggle we are still relaxed. While a thousand frustrations seek to distract us, we remain focused and attentive" (Prayer, pg. 93). We can be of tremendous help to one another in cultivating serenity, "For the kingdom of God," St. Paul wrote to the Christians of Rome, "is not a matter of food and drink, but of righteousness, peace, and joy in the holy Spirit; whoever serves Christ in this way is pleasing to God and approved by others. Let us then pursue what leads to peace and to building up one another" (Rom. 14,17-19).

Begin thinking about Friday, our weekly day of abstinence, of penance. Tomorrow is a first Friday. So, think about praying the sorrowful mysteries of the rosary and attending Mass.

Stepping Stones to adoration of God, which, in turn, leads to genuine gratitude

In order to adore God we must move, Richard Foster tells us, "across the waters of our narcissism" (Prayer, pg. 88). In order to cross these waters, which often run swift and deep, we must take a first step. As we step, we find stepping stones.

It is a rank truism to state that we must always start where we are. Nonetheless, there is no other possible starting point! So, we start, Foster tells us, "in the nooks and crannies, the frustrations and fears, of ordinary life" (Prayer, pg. 87). False starts can all too easily occur. If we are honest, it does not help when are sad to count our many blessings, or to reflect on God's goodness. It is important not to reject these realities when we are down, but there are times when rehearsing these truths is not helpful and not even possible.

We do not learn adoration on a "grand and cosmic scale" right off the bat. Foster wisely tells us that to begin on such a scale "wears us out and defeats us" from the get-go (Prayer, pg. 87). "We learn about the goodness of God not by [first] contemplating God's goodness but by watching a butterfly" (Prayer, pg. 87). In other words, we start by paying attention to creation. Specifically, to those parts of creation that surround us, that are immediately available to us. We begin by just observing "the birds, the squirrels, and the ducks" without studying or analyzing them (Prayer, pg. 87). We watch and do not evaluate.

I like this image that Foster presents very much: "Go to a brook and splash some water on your burning face. In that instant do not seek to solve all the problems of pollution and the ecosystem: just feel the water. Most of all, do not try to find God in the water or to make yourself be thankful for the water. Simply allow the cool wetness to refresh your skin. Now sit back and and listen to the sound of the brook. Watch the branches overhead swaying back and forth. Note the leaves fluttering in the breeze - notice their shape, their color, their texture. Listen to the symphony of rustling leaves and scampering chipmunks and twittering birds" (Prayer, pg. 88). Do not analyze, just notice, attend to what is happening before your eyes, your ears, your nose, your fingertips.

Attentiveness, then, is the first stepping to adoration, to gratitude.

Our Communion of the heart and the communion of saints

I was introduced to the concept of forming a community of the heart by Deacon Owen Cummings, who has taught me so much over quite a few years now, at the retreat for my diaconal class back in 2004, shortly before our ordinations. I was reminded of how this community works and how it overlaps and intertwines with the communion of saints by Clariy's post Mary Schabert (later Sister Rose Marie). Do yourself a big favor and stop in at Clarity's Place everyday. In a world that too often seems hard and unrelenting, she will stun you with beauty!

While I am writing about interesting blogs, my friend Marie is taking her sabbaticial and going back to Ethiopia. She is chronicling her experience via a blog: Marie's Project. You will find the link to this, along with the link to Clarity's Place, over to the right on this blog.

A quick note on a previous post

I have been ruminating on Saturday's post since Saturday night. I make no apology for over-simplifying matters theological because I actually want people to read my blog. Even in being a bit overly simplistic, it is important not to be inaccurate, or to misrepresent. I do not think I did that on Saturday. Nonetheless, I feel that I need to make a disclaimer about my post on the theological anthropologies of Sts. Augustine & Thomas Aquinas. While I do believe their views about the human person are not as disparate as they are often made to seem, there are some unavoidable disparities. Thomas writes in a straightforwardly systematic manner and is optimistic regarding the orientation of the human person to the good, to God. Augustine, on the other hand, being a bishop and pastor, writes in a far less systematic and less optimistic manner. This is not to insist that Augustine is incoherent in the least. He is remarkably coherent and cohesive, especially given the length of time across which he wrote and the sheer volume and diversity of his writings.

I am a stickler for making important distinctions and recognizing differences. At the end of the day, Augustine's view of the human person is more consonant with my experience as a human being and my experience of other human beings, as well as the moral complexity of human life and the persistent problem of evil, that is such a stumbling block for so many. Put simply, it is crucial not to read Augustine as being a proponent of total depravity. This is precisely the point of convergence between these two giants I want to set in relief.

On Labor Day, Why Faith Matters

This is a section of the USCCB's document for this Labor Day, entitled Labor Day 2007: A Time to Remember; A Time to Recommit. The entire document is well worth reading and pondering. In too many places Labor Day, like Memorial Day, is just another day off to have fun. We must remember that even the time-off we enjoy, especially for workers/employees, which most of us are, are the hard won fruits of this country's labor movement.

Recalling Catholic Teaching

"Just as we need to remind ourselves as Americans that Labor Day is about workers and their unions, it is also important to remember as Catholics that the dignity of work and the rights of workers are central elements of Church teaching that continue to challenge all Catholics. For more than a century, the Church has insisted that 'human work is a key, probably the essential key, to the whole social question (Pope John Paul II, Laborem Exercens, 3). Our tradition has defended the right of workers to join together to secure decent work, wages, and a voice in economic life.

"This year is the 40th Anniversary of Pope Paul VI’s powerful encyclical, Populorum Progressio– On the Development of Peoples. He called Catholics to defend the lives and dignity of poor and vulnerable workers in our own societies and around the world. Paul VI called us to be in solidarity with those who seek to 'escape from hunger, misery, endemic disease, and ignorance' (Populorum Progressio, 1).

"This message of solidarity and the pursuit of the global common good builds on the tradition begun by Pope Leo XIII in Rerum Novarum in 1891 and extends through the Twentieth Century in a powerful series of papal encyclicals. It was embraced and expanded by the prophetic words and witness of Pope John Paul II, an apostle of solidarity, who constantly stood with workers and the poor. His writings called for a society of 'work, of enterprise, and of participation' (Centesimus Annus, 35) and insisted that unions and other worker associations are an 'indispensable element of social life.'(Laborem Exercens, 20)

"Our present Holy Father, Benedict XVI, in his first encyclical, Deus Caritas Est, has placed the Church’s social doctrine in the context of God’s love for us and our duty to love the 'least of these.' '[W]ithin the community of believers there can never be room for a poverty that denies anyone what is needed for a dignified life.' (Deus Caritas Est, 20)

"Our Bishops’ Conference has outlined A Catholic Framework for Economic Life that seeks to
summarize this essential part of Church teaching as 'principles for reflection, criteria for judgment, and directions for action.' Among the key principles, these are especially appropriate for Labor Day:

· The economy exists for the person, not the person for the economy.
· A fundamental moral measure of any economy is how the poor and vulnerable are
faring.
· All people have a right to life and to secure the basic necessities of life (e.g.
food, clothing, shelter,
education, health care, safe environment, economic security).
· All people have the right to economic initiative, to productive work, to just
wages and benefit, to decent working conditions, as well as to organize and join
union or other associations.

"These principles and related moral criteria outlined in the framework ought to guide our actions and choices in economic and public life."

A tale of two (complementary) theological anthropologies: Sts. Augustine and Thomas Aquinas

Last night, after re-watching the entire second season of the original U.K. television series The Office, which makes me realize what an absolute comic genius Ricky Gervais is, prior to drifting off to sleep, I opened the most recent issue of Christianity Today, the premiere evangelical magazine in the U.S., that I look forward to receiving each month. Among the several good articles I read one stood out, The Good Life: Augustine says we must love the very best the most, by Daniel H. Williams. This article really brought home to me why I am a more of an Augustinian than a Thomist. Now, I do not want to take an absolute stance because there is much in the Angelic Doctor's unsurpassed synthesis that is of great value and that, frankly, is indispensable for any Christian who is seeking to understand her/his faith.

St. Thomas Aquinas
In Philosophy, even in this day an age, one is, at least to some degree, either a Platonist or an Aristotelian. So, in Christian theology even now, one is either primarily an Augustinian or a Thomist. Of course, the Plato/Aristotle distinction is operative in the Augustinian/Thomist dichotomy; with Augustine being the Platonist and Thomas the Aristotelian. Perhaps what distinguishes Pope Benedict XVI and his dear friend, whose closest collaborator he was, Pope John Paul II, is that John Paul had a primarily Thomistic outlook, while Benedict is an Augustinian through-and-through. One of the issues most central to this theological split is anthropology, the nature and orientation of the human person. Jesuit theologian, Fr. Karl Rahner, was a Thomist. In fact, he called his theological method "transcendental Thomism." In his CT article, Williams writes of Rahner's theological anthropology, that he "held that human beings have a fundamental orientation toward goodness, truth, and love, and that at the soul's bottom there exists an orientation toward God." For Rahner, according to Williams, "people merely have to be reminded of the good, and they will seek it."

Augustinians, such as myself, while not necessarily dismissing the fundamental goodness at the bottom of the human soul, see that people do not always seem to be oriented toward the good, toward God. Some Augustinians, Calvinists, to take but one example, argue for the total depravity of the unredeemed human soul. It is not too much to insist that the facts on the ground often seem to support this thesis. Human history shows us, Williams observes, that "letting humanity choose whatever works to its own advantage results in the primacy of self-interest and personal gain." Further, unless we are obliged "as well as enabled to see what is good, [we] will not freely choose it, because it will not immediately seem to be in [our] self interest."

Augustine certainly seems to be more in tune with St. Paul, especially in the theology expressed systematically in his letter to the Romans. Williams uses Romans 3,10-12, in which Paul quotes Isaiah, to make just this point: "There is no one just, not one, there is no one who understands, there is no one who seeks God. All have gone astray; all alike are worthless; there is not one who does good, (there is not) even one."

St. Augustine

Williams is correct to point out that Augustine though "often thought of as a philosopher and theologian," was actually "a pastor for most of his life." Therefore, dealing with matters like "sustaining faith, practicing Christian virtues, and teaching the truth were especially important to him, just as they are for believers today.". Whereas, St. Thomas was a professional theologian who spent his life in either cloistered or academic settings. By acknowledging these facts I do not want to push the ivory tower vs. the street argument too far, but I do think it is an important aspect to keep in mind on this point concerning our orientation to the good. Nonetheless, as Catholics we are et, et, not either/or, reasoners. One can easily see these two perspectives as mutually enriching. They are certainly not mutually exclusive. As one engaged deeply in pastoral ministry, I can honestly write that sometimes, in my ministry to people, my sight of the forest is obscured because of the trees. In such cases, looking at things from a bigger perspective is not only important, but crucial.

Cutting to the chase, Williams notes what Augustine writes, in a somewhat proto-Thomist manner (i.e., using a syllogism), in his book On the Nature of the Good: "Every nature is good, and every good thing is from God. Therefore, all nature is from God." For Augustine "no physical object or thing can be good or bad in itself." From this Augustine reached two conclusions: "(1) that it is our will that takes good things and makes them bad by our absorption with them and thus our perversion of them, and (2) the relation of our affections to the sensible world can only be determined by having a proper relation to all physical things in light of their Creator."

All-in-all a great article for me right now, especially in light of my recent writings about matters spiritual that reveal a definite Augustinian sensibility. I hope that in these writings I achieve a balance and do not obliterate the reality (i.e., by insisting that we become who we already {really} are) that we possess, because we are created in imago dei, which sin never completely obliterates, though it can obscure and hide it well, a fundamental goodness.