Theology and Priestly Formation

Some have argued that too much attention is payed to theology in priestly formation. They contend that most priests forsake the ministry for lack of human and spiritual rather than intellectual formation. There is something important to this position and efforts to provide better spiritual and human formation must be engaged in earnest. Yet, I am not fully in agreement with the idea that we need to ease up on theological exploration so that proper attention can be given these other areas. This is too compartmentalized in its approach.

All Christian formation, including priestly formation, needs to have the form of an incarnate discipleship - the learning of a whole manner of life that involves all the excellencies of human existence. A theology that does not purify and intensify one's humanity, contemplation and pastoral charity is a very poor theology indeed.  The theological task must be lead souls into a baptism of wonder until their whole existence is on fire with the love of God. Any other kind of theology is simply a waste of time.

Pure of heart, an existence aflame with Divine Love knows the sanctification of all its bodily and psychological urges, drives and instincts. Completely vulnerable in obedience to the Word made flesh, it is become poor in spirit, an icon of the Father's love for the World. A peacemaker, it yearns for the unity of the Church and stands against discord in the Body of Christ. Hungering and thirsting for justice, such an enflamed soul takes the side of the humble and powerless in society, always ready to offer a word of hope. Most of all, such a disciple rejoices in the face of persecution - for it finds in such rejection, a more perfect identification with Christ.

Grace Imbued Reason in the Womb of Wisdom

Reason in the womb of wisdom, this is how William of St. Thierry's Golden Epistle describes the intellectual life of a Christian who disciplines his mind according to the Gospel of Christ.  Such a disciple strains to see, to behold the wonder of what God is doing in the world, so that he might live with the freedom of the sons and daughters of God.  

This pursuit of reason can take many forms. The pursuit of reason can also take up the Holy Bible and all that God has revealed in the life of the Church.  It might also seek meaning in the beauty of nature through any number of sciences, as long as in which ever science it is reason seeks out what in fact exists.  The pursuit of reason can also take up the Holy Bible and all that God has revealed in the life of the Church.  Yet, even the most natural forms of such study are open to flashes of a higher contemplation.  Dedicated study of the truth whereever it leads, as one of the highest exercises of human freedom, disposes those who genuinely love the truth to even more marvelous moments of liberty.

Yet the truth that is sought in this way is opposed to all forms of vain curiosity or the desire to manipulate for selfish purpose or any other effort to selfishly attain power or wealth or influence.  When reason seeks out of the brutality of such human wisdom, it remains out of harmony with reality and in a state of self-contradiction - such enslaving wisdom cannot attain any real freedom.

Reality, what is, does not admit of manipulation because it is endowed with so much meaning a created mind limited to its own resources not only is not able to exhaust its mystery -- such limited reason is barely able to scratch its surface.  This is why a prideful and arrogant glance at reality never really sees true beauty and, as a result of this superficial observation, is incapable of wonder or adoration.  The only reason such servile reason ever attains is a futile grasping of what can never fully satisfy.  In the end, though it decorate itself in all kinds of data and the production of all kinds of results, such a pursuit never finds the firm ground on which alone humanity is able to be rectified, to stand tall.

God sent His Wisdom into the World so that human reason might be born in truth.  When reason pursues the truth with the first movements of humility, of faith, of love, of service to neighbor, of reverence to God, it is as if an embryo, the conception of a new form of life.  Striving to implant itself, to find the nourishment it needs to grow, grace moves such new embryonic reason to grace and from glory to glory: leaving behind what is safe and familiar, dying to old judgments that only hold it back, the converted mind seeks a new nourishment of which it is not yet familiar.  Such movements of graced reason find a place to rest only in the womb God has fashioned for it, the womb of His own Wisdom - a sacred place meant for life and love.    In the womb of Wisdom, human reason, like a fetus, is nourished for explosive growth in maturity and freedom.

Baptised in such wisdom, the Christian is born, the mind is renewed, and one discovers the confidence to offer bodily sacrifices which give true spiritual worship to God.   The Womb of Divine Wisdom, the womb where men and women learn by love and for love to see God's vision of things, this is where reason imbued with grace begins to delight in the truth for which it was made, the spiritual life is born, and the dignity of humanity is raised up. 

How Do We Know To Whom We Pray?

Authentic christian devotion always grounds prayer in the truth about the One to whom we pray. Many contemporary spiritual techniques and methods hold out psychological comfort and the pursuits of psychic states.  In and of themselves, comfort and enlightenment are not bad.  But if we pursue these more than the Word of the Father, if we rest in experiences rather than in faith, we are vulnerable to dehumanizing deception. The Father does not want us to compromise our integrity in our pursuit of Him and that is why He has revealed the truth to us in His Word. Through prayer rooted in this Truth, the Lord grounds us in an integrity of life more powerful than death, the only foundation firm enough to bear the weight of human existence.

In his Confessions, after observing that the Creator has fashioned humanity with the instinct or urge to praise Him, St. Augustine asks how it is we are to know God so that this human need might be met.  He realizes that we can be deluded, that we can transfer our desire for God onto other things.  If we pray to God, how do we know that we are not talking to ourselves or devoting ourselves to something else other than Him?

For St. Augustine, this is the ultimate question because it concerns our happiness.   For him, having the right answer to his question is essential because the whole purpose of our existence weighs in the balance.  Since our nature can only rest in God, if we are mistaken about who it is we are worshiping, we will not find the peace which we were meant to have. So long and so far as we are disconnected from the truth, the deepest core of our being remains frustrated and out of harmony with itself- this is, as St. Augustine experienced, a disintegrating way to live.

Could it be that some of the frustration we feel personally and that we see unfolding in society finds its roots in the fact that we are not devoting ourselves to the One True God?  We worship at other altars instead. We have not rooted our prayer in truth but in a mirage, a shadow.

There is a lot of frustration in our society and in our families today -- frustration that results from believing that attaining possessions, security, comfort, pleasure and reputation will finally allow us to be happy.  We go to Church and we do what we are suppose to, but we do not make the search for the true God the priority, the guiding passion in our lives.  We are dissipated on other pursuits - other altars demand our sacrifices.  We develop clever plans and systems to secure these good things -- and yet no matter how much we attain of them, happiness seems to elude us, like a mirage in the desert.   We are like the pilgrim Dante at the beginning of the Divine Comedy -- we think we see the way out, but the more we try, the more lost we get and the more vulnerable.

The answer St. Augustine proposes is in the words of a preacher. The Church is where the Word of the Father gives Himself to the World. The Word gives Himself in the power of the Holy Spirit. Such power moves us out of death and into a fullness of life - a new creation, a new fruitfulness.  Bridegroom gives Himself in this way because the Church is His Bride - and because the Word is coming now, the Spirit and the Bride call to us as they call to Him: Come.

A preacher speaks on behalf of the Church because of his Spirit-filled relationship with the Church. By the Holy Spirit. he does not preach his own opinions or a testimony about himself, but he witnesses to the Word so that we might know the truth about the Father in the power of the Holy Spirit. Imperfect though they may be, God has chosen to makes Himself known through those who dare to preach the Gospel. Such preachers of the Word help us find the Truth about the One to whom we pray and, more than that, they help us encounter Him and know His presence. 

The Fire of St. Hildegard

The Abbess of Bingen describes "a blazing fire, incomprehensible, inextinguishable, wholly living and wholly Life, with a flame in it the color of the sky, which burned ardently with a gentle breath, and which was inseparably within the blazing fire."

Although the vision itself was given to her in her forties, how she sees this vision is the fruit of a lifetime devoted to searching for God, quaerere Deum. She knows her glimpse into the Fire of Love is an undeserved gift. At the same time, she also knows she was able to receive because she had dedicated herself to studying our faith in the Lord with her whole mind, whole heart, whole soul and whole strength.

Anyone who commits themselves to search so great a mystery becomes acutely aware of being inadequate and unworthy. Such souls learn a humility that knows any wisdom they acquire will not be the result of their own resourcefulness. Instead, they live to behold the Living God with the eyes of faith knowing this vision as an inestimable gift which inspires heart-piercing gratitude and reverent movements of adoration. The teachings of St. Hildegard ring with this mystical wisdom.

We need her vision of God, her way of seeing the Mystery of our faith. Contemplating God as "Blazing Fire" corrects a certain static vision of God, one which sees Him as conveniently tamed and predictably dull. One of the gravest errors of our time is the intellectual and lived hubris that presumes to fit God into some system or agenda contrived by human cleverness. In St. Hildegard's vision, all earthly powers of estimation and prediction are surmounted by the ardent burning in the heart of the Trinity.

She sees, she beholds, and she savors the radiant light and warming love of God. Because she is humble, He is able to constantly astonish her with new wonders and bath her in his dazzling splendor. Encountering One so totally other in holiness and truth, she is left stammering using a tapestry of rich images one following another in an effort to point to the One who has so captivates her thoughts and even more, has so captured her heart. In all of this, she is vulnerable to the hidden purpose He wants manifest.

When we seek the Lord with love driven faith, like St. Hildegard, we encounter a purposeful mystery who wants to disclose Himself, a hidden presence which no system can extinguish and no cleverness comprehend. Hidden and secret, the Life who reveals Himself in faith nonetheless enlightens and warms our whole existence in such manner that we must, like her, make Him known.

For her, at the center of this blazing vision of God is none other than the Eternal Word, the Word of Creation and Redemption, the divine utterance of the Father that resounds in the wonders He has made. Christ is the secret that opens access to the hidden depths of God. If we approach the Word of God in our living tradition ardently searching for God in word and sacrament, why should we not be able to share in her contemplation and find ourselves taken like her in silent adoration, our hearts full, bursting to cry out?

St. Hildegard of Bingen's Cry

"Arise therefore, and cry out"


September 17 is the feast of St. Hiildegard of Bingen. She lived from 1098-1179. A Benedictine Nun, at the age of 42, she was given visions and commanded rise up and cry out what she saw. She obeyed and produced a set of writings known today as Scivias.

Her first vision is of a hidden mountain, the mountain of God's throne, an iron mountain of immutable justice hidden in divine glory. A purifying Fear of the Lord contemplates this splendor. Not the kind of fear that pulls away to protect itself. Rather the kind of fear that is vigilant and sees the truth. Eyes which gaze with this holy fear can never be satisfied with the merely mediocre. They guard against every form of compromise. The glory they behold demands absolute allegiance, complete surrender, and total humility.

In this description, is St. Hildegard suggesting a way by which we might enjoy the same vision she has shared in? This is no exercise in esoteric navel gazing. Her vision demands a journey beyond our own self-pre-occupation and into real friendship with God, a friendship protected by the strength of divine justice. She sees the truth in a way that demands an ongoing conversion of life.

She is well-formed in St. Benedict's conversatio morum. The mountain she sees is not a truth we scrutinize so much as the truth that scrutinizes us: a scrutinizing of all our thoughts and actions in light of the Gospel. The truth she beholds demands repentance from the lack of justice we allow ourselves to slip into. The iron mountain she contemplates renders futile every effort to conform the Gospel to our own ways and invites us to be transformed by its just demands.

Today, where all kinds of cruelty are so easily excused and any form of self-indulgence so readily lifted up to the level of a fundamental human right, we need to rediscover the shadow of the iron mountain from which St. Hildegard cries out to us. Only under the glory of this mountain can we find the peace that the Lord has come to give. Only in the blinding light into which Holy Fear gazes can we find the humility to love one another the way Christ has loved us.

Primacy of Contemplation

Before action, there is being.  Before apostolate, there is prayer.  Before mission, there is contemplation.

The primacy of contemplation is rooted in the primacy of grace in the spiritual life.  Action is imperative, but God's action comes before our action.  Mission is born in contemplation.  Contemplative prayer is an encounter with Someone who knows the truth about us.  In this prayer, we discover how the Living God contemplates with eager expectation the noble purpose He has planned for us to share in from before the foundation of the world.

Prayer liberates us from everything that prevents us from being fruitful.  When we spend time in prayer, we make ourselves vulnerable to a plan that is not our own.  When we spend time in silence, we learn to listen to a voice beyond our own big fat ego.   When we spend time listening to the Word made flesh, we open our whole being to new life.

This is not to say there are many moments of grace that sprout from our efforts to be merciful to one another.  Sometimes these are the dominant graces of our life.  God loves to dwell in hearts that spend themselves for others and He is ready to sustain their efforts when nature reaches its limits.   Nonetheless, those who want to do something beautiful for God frequently discover that however noble the endeavors for which they spend themselves, their work amounts to nothing if He is not working in them.  

This is why those who are truly fruitful for the God humbly root themselves with fear and trembling deep in the Word: such tearful attention to the presence of God who speaks to them in sacred doctrine leads to a jubilation that informs everything they do. 

The Soul of Theology

If the study of the Sacred Page is the soul of theology, then prayer and study are meant to converge in the task of theology.   For not just any study of the Word of God can animate theological investigation.  Rather, this investigation must be mindful that it approaches divine revelation's living fountain, dynamic instrument, inerrant witness, and most inspired expression.  As we read with true devotion, we do not scutinize or measure or critically examine as much as we find ourselves examined, measured and scrutinized.   We do not understand so much as we are understood before the mystery of divine speech.  Here, the rocky coast of earthly judgment is confounded by an ocean of divine clemency.  The words of the Word of God are become rising waves of truth which beat against our hearts to bring new life.   If the Sacred Page conveys God's self-disclosure, this means theological study can only approach this manifestation of the Word of the Father in astonished wonder baptized in reverence and awe.   For to approach the Holy Bible in our living tradition in any other way is already a failure to contemplate not only the gift but even more the Giver.

St. Benedict and Lectio Divina

For St. Benedict, Lectio divina is an important part of Quaerere Deum, the search for God. (See his Rule, #48) We seek the Lord and find Him by obediently serving Him in love and humility. Yet, we cannot serve the Truth who is God if we cannot discern His voice. Because it radically roots us in the same Word the Father has spoken to us once and for all, Lectio divina opens our hearts to the voice of the Lord which whispers deep within our being. The beautiful, surprising and in-flowing presence of the Lord is free when devotion filled study purifies the heart with sacred doctrine. Lectio divina, prayerful Study of the Sacred Scriptures, makes the heart vulnerable to this purification.

Obedience – generous attentiveness to the Word of God chanted in the psalms, read in the Scriptures, present through the members of the community, spoken by those in authority, proclaimed in the liturgy and at even at meals – requires continual personal study of the Word with prayerful devotion of heart. This kind of attentive obedience is not exhausted by external works and the conformity of outward behavior. It requires a total conversion of the inner man – an ongoing conversation with the Word of the Father about one’s way of life in light of the Gospel. Lectio divina is about cultivating this deeper interiority, this more intense vigilance for the Life, Truth and Way in the inner most sanctuary of one's own soul.

Lectio divina directed to obedience to Christ is part of our spiritual battle. We must never lose courage when confronting the evil one, or the world, or, most especially, ourselves. This requires a constant struggle against pride and an ongoing commitment to humility, to remembering that we are but the Lord’s fertile soil – it is up to Him to sow the seeds that will produce much fruit. Our job is to stand firm, to persevere, to believe in God’s mercy and to be generously open to His holy will – wherever we find it. When we read the Scriptures in prayerful reflection, searching its meaning with all the strength of our soul, He gives us the weapons to realize His victory once again – the victory the Savior won on Calvary is renewed whenever we persevere in surrendering our hearts to the Eternal Word in the present moment of our lives.

Lectio Divina and Contemplation

One of my readers asked about the difference between the practice of Lectio Divina and contemplation. Lectio Divina refers to prayerful reading of the Bible and contemplation is described as a beholding with the eyes of the heart the splendor of the Lord. The two activities are related. That is why, over the course of the last millennium, Lectio Divina is often written about as a method of prayer which culminates in contemplation. Guigo the Carthusian describes how a prayerful engagement with the Scriptures can take us:

• from reading and listening to a passage from the Bible (lectio) 
• to prayerful reflection on the heart piercing truth the Lord discloses to us (meditatio) 
• to the ardent offering of deep holy desires in prayer (oratio) 
• to astonished wonder over the Lord who gazes on us in love (contemplatio). 

For him and many contemplatives, these activities flow together like rungs on a ladder leading from our earthly life to heaven, from our hearts to the heart of God. From this perspective we could say that prayerfully reading the Bible seeking the saving truth is already the beginning of contemplation. Mulling over the Eternal Word and keeping the Truth in the heart deepens one’s devotion to Christ and the greater our devotion to Him, the more faith opens us to the fullness of His ineffable mystery. In fact, this devoted reading makes the soul vulnerable to the mysterious wisdom and love of God from which we came, for which we are made and in which we are loved. Fashioned as we are for so great a purpose when we seek Him with love, we find Him in love – for He is drawn by love.

The Truth Is What the Heart Needs

St. Irenaeus believed that the vision of God is the life of man.  This is because God is truth and man is made for the truth.  When we try to live by anything else, we do not flourish.  Only the truth sets free the full potential of the heart.  The truth is what the heart needs.

St. Thomas Aquinas explains that the truth is what is - that we only know anything at all when the mind is conformed with reality.   Sacred doctrine renews the mind with the saving truth about God and ourselves and the wonderful things He has done for us.   When we study it, it raises our whole being so that we might thrive and live life to the full.   The Angelic Doctor knows that the Lord have created the human heart for truth, especially the saving truth, and that we thrive only when we know and live by the truth.   The Fortnight for Freedom is all about the truth - without the truth about our humanity and human society true freedom is at great risk.

Today, most people believe the truth is limited to what they can prove by observation or produce by their efforts.   But this so called truth is not enough for the human heart.  The truth that allows us to thrive is not made or produced, it is discovered.  This because reality is much bigger than what is within our power to prove or manipulate.  The truth is what is - and what actually is is much more wonderful than our own achievements or any hypothesis based on what we think we perceive.

This is why truth alludes the grasp of the powerful but entrusts itself to the humble.  The powerful are often seduced by their own ability to achieve and they constantly rely on their cleverness to manipulate circumstances so that they do not have to accept reality for what it is. Pope Benedict explained on Wednesday, "Human logic, however, often seeks self-realization in power, dominion, in powerful means. Man still wants to build the tower of Babel on his own to reach the heights of God himself to be like God."

There are some who think that the truth is manufactured - that if you have the power and the perseverance to convince others that something is true simply by assertion and manipulation, the fact that others have been convinced makes it true.  Political and cultural powers have a tendency to propose and promote unjust laws under this rubric.  Only a calculated myth can demand what is not really owed and only by way of a clever narrative can not respecting basic human rights be rationalized.  Without the truth, the heart is vulnerable to the tyranny of mere myth and narrative.

Truth cannot be manufactured by human cleverness and it never admits of being used as a tool for manipulation. A contrived narrative might appeal to the imagination, but it is always restricting, always smaller than reality. If we do not know what is but entertain only a caricature of reality, we do not really know anything worth knowing at all. The truth, on the contrary, that waits to be discovered. To know the truth is to see reality for what it is as it is -- this is freeing and this is what living faith helps us glimpse.

The humble, those who accept the truth about themselves, are receptive to the truth.  By accepting the truth about themselves, they can receive the truth about God, His love, the world and God's desire to save.  Furthermore, their humble posture towards themselves and reality also disposes them to desire the truth - because they are oriented not to strive for what is merely useful but to behold the splendor of the world around them.   Such souls are open to what can disclose itself to the natural power of reason.  They are also disposed to what God discloses by the light of faith.

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Learning the Language of Sacred Scriptures

C.S. Lewis, in Mere Christianity, refers to a conversation he had with an old soldier about God. The soldier said he did not need theology because he found God on the battlefield and what he experienced was completely different from anything he had ever heard from any theologian. Since he knew God personally, why would he need Church doctrine or theology? C.S. Lewis took this objection seriously as too should we.


He dealt with this critic of doctrine with a simple comparison. God is to doctrine what the ocean is to a map. If all one wants to do is go for a quick swim it is arguable that a map might not be necessary. However, if one wants to get somewhere, to dive in the ocean and just begin to swim could be dangerous. He suggests it is similar with God.

Christianity is about more than an experience of God. It is about being saved from certain peril and spending ourselves for one another so that all of us together might arrive at a destination prepared for us from the foundation of the world. Accordingly, the Christian life requires us to steep ourselves in sacred doctrine and to apply our whole intelligence to the saving truth proposed to us by the Church. To this end and through the centuries, Christians have devoted their lives and fortunes to learning, arguing about and trying to live the language of the Sacred Scriptures.

Is it necessary to take up a scientific investigation of the Holy Bible? Yesterday in my post on De Doctrina Christiana Saint Augustine provided us a glimpse of his vision of theology by addressing the objections of those who cannot understand or apply his teaching. In his vision, theology looks out upon the wonders of what God has done just like astronomy looks up into the heavens. Whether his students understand what he teaches or whether they can apply it does not diminish his investigation of the truth anymore than someone with bad eyesight diminishes the beauty of the stars or the joy of star gazing. In today's post, we will consider the position of those who object to a disciplined approach to contemplating Divine Revelation because of their direct experience of God in prayer.

Saint Augustine is aware that in addition to those who do not understand or else are unable to apply what he teaches, others might criticize his teaching on the basis that they have mystical knowledge of God's Word and therefore do not need his scientific rules to know what the Scriptures are saying. St. Augustine does not discount this important form of knowing, but he does argue that this kind of knowing is not sufficient for the demands of divine revelation. Mystical knowledge is not sufficient to persuade others. To help others understand the reason for the hope we have inside we need to present what we believe in a manner which appeals to what can be known in reality itself. Mystical knowledge is super-conceptual and can not be conveyed from one created person to another. It is rather a knowledge received from God in a supernatural manner. Yet the Word of God has not chosen to reveal himself spiritually to each soul by grace individually alone. Instead, God respects our humanity.

Our humanity is not only spiritual but also material, historical, particular and concrete. God bases his invisible mission in the life of the soul on his visible mission in the history of the world. Foreshadowed by the Law and the Prophets, the Word of God expressed himself in human speech and performed tangible signs for the salvation not so much of isolated individuals but of a heavenly community, a divine family. Although He could have saved us in isolation from each other, the Word made flesh has bound us together through the preaching of the Church.

Sacred Doctrine is what the Church proposes for our belief as saving truth, the truth we need to know for our salvation. When we believe what the Church proposes, we open our hearts to encountering Christ who draws us deeper and deeper into a communion with one another in his new humanity, a humanity He refashioned by his death and resurrection. Through this humanity, we convey the wonders of what God has done by applying all the powers of our intelligence to what He has revealed.  Although the subject matter is incomparably beautiful, great effort and suffering is called for in distinguishing, comparing and finding the connections between what God has revealed to us and what we can naturally know about ourselves and the world.  

This intensely human engagement with the Word of God disclosed in the Sacred Scriptures is the task of Christian theology.  In this effort, we learn a kind of wisdom by which we are able build up each other's faith not only by repeating biblical sayings to each other but also with our own words.  Here, theological wisdom is at the service of mystical wisdom, the loving knowledge which increases in us as we cling to God by love and prayer.  With both theological wisdom and the wisdom that comes from prayer, our thoughts become so baptized in sacred doctrine we find ourselves thinking with the mind of Christ and more fully living a transformed life - that is, a life completely offered to God.  

To refer back to C.S. Lewis's comparison, one wisdom is the kind we get from looking at the map and the other from catching the waves. For those who want to avoid danger and get somewhere, both kinds of wisdom are necessary. In theological wisdom, we learn to understand the language of the Sacred Scriptures so that something beautiful of what God conveys to the soul through its life of prayer can be shared from mouth to mouth. In this way, through our life together in the Church the saving truth resounds not only in one's own hidden depths but also from the rooftops for the salvation of the world. This is why St. Augustine believes Christians must study the Holy Bible in a disciplined way.

Theology: to Study God's Word with Understanding

Is there a right way to read the Holy Bible? Are there rules to be learned or do we simply rely on the Holy Spirit to guide us alone? In the prologue to his work De Doctrina Christiana, St. Augustine answers critics who think that proposing rules for the study of Sacred Doctrine is a waste of time.  He starts by observing some critics might not understand his rules or else they might not be able to apply his rules. There is a beautiful truth which presents itself when we consider what he proposes to these critics, and pointing to what he sees is itself foundational in the effort to fruitfully contemplate that to which the Holy Bible bears witness.

To deal both with those who do not understand his teaching as well as those who cannot apply what he proposes, he offers a fascinating metaphor: like an astronomer who points to the heavens, so to his effort to elucidate sacred doctrine. The inability to understand Augustine does not negate his effort to teach anymore than it negates an astronomer's effort to point to the wonders that fill skies. Similarly, the inability to make use St. Augustine's teaching to understand the words of Holy Writ no more invalidates what he teaches than one's own blindness to the stars and planets negates the value of astronomy.

The dynamism of this comparison lives in St. Augustine's certitude that his theological teaching is pointing to something far beyond his own cleverness and personal preferences, to an astonishing reality wholly objective and wonderful to behold. In other words, right off the bat, Augustine is making clear to his readers that theology is not mythology.  Theology is rooted in the way things really are, the way God truly is.  It raises human intelligence not by imposing cleverly contrived categories on what we would like the truth to be but rather by opening the capacity of the heart to be amazed by the Truth revealed by God.

Mythology, oftentimes mistakenly identified with Christian theology, is the study of myth. A myth is contrived to help us understand something about the way the world works. Like the conflicting narratives spewed by our competing news outlets and political forces, myth appeals to the imagination.  Mythology does not point to the stars even if it tries to explain their movements.  Those who live by such magical thinking never really enjoy what the heavens proclaim.

Theology is the study of God and all things in relation to God.   This sacred doctrine is received and passed on by the Church on the basis of what God has revealed to the world. It surpasses anything that can be imagined.  Unlike myths which are subject to all kinds of whims of the moment, theology studies the only narrative we can ever have any absolute certitude over: God's narrative, the story He is telling through space and time, people and events. Christian theology is not an exercise in religious fantasy to validate a prevailing ideology of this or that cultural force; but rather, this branch of science is the engagement of the intellect in the wonder of what God has accomplished to validate the hope that comes from Him.

Whether we understand good theology or we are able to use good theology in our own efforts to give an account for the hope we have inside does not make the theological enterprise superfluous, it only means we do not benefit from it.  It is possible to gaze upon the stars without the benefits of astronomy.  In this case, do we understand what we see and can we give an account of the wonder we behold?

Yet is is precisely to give an account for the hope we have that we search the Bible and our holy tradition with all the effort of our intelligence.  Only in this way are we able to pass on the priceless gift we have recieved.  Through his comparison, Augustine is chiding us to make a better effort to see the wonder to which he points.  The implicaton is striking: those who make this effort can discover not only a source of personal joy, but also a gift that enriches the lives of each of those God entrusts to them.

Theological Contemplation - theological and mystical wisdom

Prayer and theology bring the wisdom that comes from the Cross of Christ to bear on the need for truth living in the heart of humanity.  This is, in part, the message of the International Commission on Theology in Theology Today: persepctives, principles and criteria released on November 29, 2011.  This document, the fruit of years of study and conversation by various members of this pontifical commission, offers an approach to theology rooted in the Word of God and the vital engagement of human reason.  

As a student of spiritual theology, the Commission's perspective "theological contemplation" (see #61) is especially interesting. Contemplation of the Word of God is presented as an effort which brings all the powers of reason to bear on the effort to behold the wonder of what God has revealed of Himself in the world for our sake. Divine revelation flows from and leads to the Cross where the Word made flesh lays bear the fullness of what God has to say to each of us. Theological contemplation consists in making human intelligence and affectivity completely vulnerable to this paschal mystery.


Contemplation means "to behold," "to see," "to gaze upon." Those who contemplate behold the wonder of what is. In this wonder filled gaze, the heart opens to all that is beautiful and good. In this kind of knowing, truth and love are co-existence: the mind loves the good sees and sees the truth it loves. This wisdom is possible because we are in the image of God - God who beholds that that is good and loves it into existence including all of humanity to whom He has disclosed Himself definitively in the Word made flesh.

The natural wonder of all that His hands have made is so beautiful that some devote their whole lives to beholding the beauty of creation even if they do not acknowledge it as created: philosophers, physicists, mathematicians, and almost every other kind of scientist in various degrees and according to their distinct methods. Our naturally endowed capacity for wonder frail though it is nonetheless truly opens to the vast splendor of the things that are.

There is another kind of contemplation, theological contemplation, which requires God's help.  This kind of study is no easy undertaking.  Nor is it something someone can safely take up as an isolated individual. Great things in life require great effort, and the most difficult understakings draws us together in support of one another.  While either an urgent plight or a sense of adventure might move someone to take up a great work, theological contemplation involves both the plight of humanity and the noble calling with which each human being is endowed. 

In theology, God draws us to Himself and draws us together with one another so that we might know the truth in a saving way.  Holy Spirit has been sent to the Church so that we might together support one another in this difficult task.  Even with divine assistance and the Church, this kind of study is the most difficult of all human endeavors because what God has revealed far exceeds our frail natural powers to fully comprehend. That is why there is so much strong disagreement and even vital mistakes that are made in the effort to attain this Christian wisdom.

In theological contemplation, God helps all our efforts to understand his incomprehensible love so that we are able to see difficult to discern connections between the truths of the faith not only among themselves but also in relation to what is known by the natural power of reason. God who created our natural powers of reason aids our natural effort to understand what He has done, constantly purifying our gaze and endowing us with ever more penetrating insights. Even after two thousand years, we have barely begun to understand all that Christ has revealed to us.   His riches are inexhaustible! Yet, in addition to his generous cooperation with our efforts to understand Him, He can also raise our natural powers of wonder to participate in his very life. Here, theological contemplation, when radically rooted in the Word of God, glimpses for a moment a light not of this world, a hope that infuses with divine love, an eternal love which makes all things new.  Such is the inheritance of the saints before the Throne of the Lamb.

In theological contemplation where the Word of God is sought in the words of the Bible, where study of the sacred page is imbued with promptings of the Holy Spirit, where prayerful reflection on the tradition handed on to us vigilantly prepares to give an account for the hope we have in Christ; this kind of wisdom brings to humanity an anticipation of the splendor God has yearned to share from before the foundation of the world. The Commission proposes that this effort truly contributes to humanity a certain "supernatural Christian wisdom" of which there are two distinct but related forms, theological and mystical:

This supernatural Christian wisdom, which transcends the purely human wisdom of philosophy, takes two forms which sustain one another but should not be confused: theological wisdom and mystical wisdom. 

Theological wisdom is the work of reason enlightened by faith. It is therefore an acquired wisdom, though it supposes of course the gift of faith. It offers a unified explanation of reality in light of the highest truths of revelation, and it enlightens everything from the foundational mystery of the Trinity, considered both in itself and in its action in creation and in history. In this regard, Vatican I said: ‘Reason illuminated by faith, when it seeks zealously, piously and soberly, attains with the help of God some understanding of the mysteries, and a most fruitful understanding, both by analogy with those things which it knows naturally, and also from the connection of the mysteries among themselves and with the final end of man’.The intellectual contemplation which results from the rational labour of the theologian is thus truly a wisdom.

Mystical wisdom or ‘the knowledge of the saints’ is a gift of the Holy Spirit which comes from union with God in love. Love, in fact, creates an affective connaturality between the human being and God, who allows spiritual persons to know and even suffer things divine (pati divina), actually experiencing them in their lives. This is a non-conceptual knowledge, often expressed in poetry. It leads to contemplation and personal union with God in peace and silence. (Theology Today, #91, bold and italics added)

Opening our Hearts to the Word

How does the mystery of the Risen Lord, the Word of the Father, become part of one's own life? This question reveals the beautiful paradox that lives in God's work in our humanity and in our humanity's grace filled effort in God. Such questions point us to the great mystery - the Word made flesh.

John of the Cross points to this answer in his work Ascent to Mt. Carmel, Book I, Chapter 13.  He teaches that if we  really want to encounter the Lord, if we really want to find Him, we must resolve first of all to imitate Him in all things.  Then, he explains, if we are to be successful in our imitation, we must also carefully study the life of Christ out of devotion to Him.

This is where his doctrine gets tough.  He observes that when we study the life of Christ we discover that the Lord renounced every satisfaction that was not purely for the honor and glory of God. Saint John of the Cross believes we can enter into deep intimacy with the Lord if we will resolve to do only that which gives God glory and honor - which means renunciation of any delight or comfort which does not give glory to God.  

Most everyone questions this logic. Many are frightened by it to some degree. Few understand it. Even fewer live it.  

To really understand what St. John of the Cross is saying, we must go beyond a pre-critical guess.  The deeper mystery in this teaching is only unveiled if we consider who Jesus is to him and what he means when he invites us to study Christ's life.  What does it mean to study the life of Christ Jesus for St. John of the Cross?

St. John of the Cross believed that study of the Scriptures and contemplation, sacred reading and meditation, silent attentiveness to the Word and wonder filled exploration of sacred doctrine; that all of this must be an integrated effort of the heart.  He believed in a theology carried out on his knees and in constantly rendering himself vulnerable to the demands of the Gospel of Christ.  Such is the power of the Gospel: the more we encounter Christ, the more He animates our innermost being and transforms us in his love.  

St. John of the Cross describes the kind of study we should take up as "gazing" at the Lord with eyes of faith - a search for the eyes of the Lord who looks at us in love.  It is with this living hope that he himself searched for Christ in prayer and study, contemplation and constant conversion. Conversely, any study that does not ultimately lead to the interior peace that God produces is be a waste of time and a distraction.

Christ for him is the Word of the Father who has come as the Bridegroom of Creation -- the perfection of which is the Church Herself. Each soul that participates as a unique endpoint in this ecclesial life reconstituted as the People God, the Body the Bride of Christ. To live for the Bridegroom like this is to begin to live a life that is not one's own. It is to be animated with the life of Christ within.

The Eternal Word communicates everlasting life - wounding, slaying and raising us up all at once. Whoever He touches, by word and sacrament, by inspiration and presence, He wounds. The Word who was wounded for the sake of love wounds us with love. A soul so wounded wants to live by love and to die by love, to make an offering of self in love.  This is because a heart wounded by the Word aches to have been loved so much, and aches over how wonderful the One who so loves.

The Bridegroom gives such souls his own Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity to sustain such souls in these noble desires.  Anyone who has met the Bridegroom yearns for the wedding feast and for the wonderful things that God has in store for those who believe.  For those who ache for love of the Lord, the work of renunciation, of dying to oneself--this is as nothing.   What is love if there is no sacrifice and how do we love but at our own expense?

Of Prayer and Preachers

In response to the last post about what it is like to encounter the Lord in prayer, one of our readers asked how we know that this encounter is real and not the product of our imagination. This is an important question. If we cannot be confident on this point, we cannot have confidence in prayer at all. The whole deal could be an elaborate self-deception.  St. Augustine has this very concern at the beginning of his Confessions. He answers his own question by asserting that this is the very reason we need preachers.

Thank you preachers of the Body of Christ, the Church, who love us enough to tell us about the Lord! Whether our parents, our elders, our children, our brothers and sisters, our ministers, our bishops, our priests, our deacons: if we believe what the Church proposes to us through them, then our prayer is not subject to the narrow confines of our own big fat egos or the fickle fantasies of the moment.  How great and precious the mystery of faith!   It gives us real access to God quite apart from what we feel or think.  It is the source of new life even in our weaknesses and inadequacies.  By faith, Christ animates us even when we are overwhelmed by trials, even when we cross the Valley of Death.   It is no small treasure that is offered us when someone discloses to us the hope we have in Christ - the reason for our hope.

It is that world might know these riches of Christ that the Church exists.  And woe unto us who are silent about this Gift for God has suffered that it might be shared and the world desperately suffers without it.  Though the eloquent of speech cannot find words to adequately express what God has done, if we take seriously what has been given us we Christians have no excuse to remain silent.  Before the mystery of what Christ has done for us, we must speak up and make our voices heard even when enemies of spiritual liberty attempt to silence us.

Contemplation of the Truth and the Study of Theology

One cannot do theology without rediscovering that which the ancient Christians called contemplation.  What is contemplation?  It means to behold.  For the ancient Christians, there was not a huge distinction between reading Scriptures, meditation, study, prayerful reflection, and contemplation.  The Latin terms could be used almost synonymously because reading without meditation or study or prayerful reflection or contemplation was for them inconceivable.   They sought a certain kind of knowledge, studied for a particular science, a wisdom not of this world informed their search.  Good theology remains rooted in this search today.

Pope Benedict's Introduction to Christianity discusses how the ancient view of theology and contemplation was rooted in a particular understanding of the truth which rarely informs contemporary conversations.  They envisioned the truth to be that which frees us to be more fully human, for fully alive.  A kind of light which helps us find what it means to be truly human in the darkness of our inhumanity. They sought that which would make them thrive, that would free their potential to more fully live and more deeply love.  They sought a freedom causing truth.   Organizing, memorizing, regurgitating, applying pieces of information – our contemporary prejudice verum quia factum-- they would have thought more of an art than actual knowledge.  Knowledge, wisdom did not consist, for them, principally in knowing how to do something.   Yet such art was not unrelated to the truth they sought to know.  Possession of the truth they believed liberated the human spirit in fact could be obtained through the facts contained in the Bible or even to a lesser degree in the teachings of a great saint was the whole reason they read, studied and commented on the Sacred Page.  But study was never about limiting oneself to mastering these facts alone.  Rather, the propositions of our faith and the events of salvation history they saw as part of a greater whole through which the glory of God was peaking out of them.   

The great Christian thinkers, the contemplatives approached the sacred text as if gazing at pieces of stained glass arranged by a master hand, exquisite shards of color which disclosed their wonder only when illuminated by an outside light shining through them – a great rose window.  In this view of knowledge, we seek this illuminating truth by which things are understood not in terms of their usefulness, but more in terms of themselves.  What shines through the truths of our faith, what these truths bear is the Light that shines in the darkness.  Such truth is not something one produces but searches for and something finds only when it discloses itself to you.  To know, for them, would be to see, behold, gaze at what is with wonder.  Verum est ens – Truth is what is – truth is what exists.   

This is how they approached Christ in prayer.  They sought Him as the Way, the Truth and the Life.  Study of the Sacred Page was the soul of their theology because they would look for the Word which the words of the Bible bear and communicate to us.  All of Scriptures resound with this Word who only fully expressed Himself with his last wordless cry of abandonment and trust on the Cross.  This Word, this truth, this reason, this harmony, this glory, this mediation of God the Father; this is the source of all life and our only salvation in the face of death.  This Truth exposes the lie of sin and establishes us in integrity when we surrender to it.  To search for this saving Truth one must read, ponder, meditate, prayerfully consider, open the heart, beg in compunction, repent, convert, contemplate, gaze at, appreciate the connections and take in the whole of who Christ is and what He has done for us.  In the midst of this effort, He discloses his living presence in an undeniable way.   This encounter, this event in one’s life, this eternal event which has invaded our history is transformative.  It is to be made vulnerable by the One who was vulnerable unto death.  It is to be pierced to the heart by the One who was pierced for us.  When one knows how much he is loved by the Truth a love of the truth explodes in the heart.   Life is never the same again.  Then and only then does one know anything the ancient Christians believed was theology.   Then and only then has one contemplated like the Christians who came before us.