Despite Shûsaku Endo's doubts as to the true Christianity of the Japanese evoked in the admirable "Silence", it also seems to me that the Japanese have a real fundamental point in common with the Christian in the ease with which they the place of the other. Is this not one of the founding bases of Christianity, one of these archetypes of the Discourse on the Montage, to always think that our effort has not been important enough, pronounced enough, for the understanding emerges? Of course, I see the weakness of the reasoning: the Japanese tirelessly try to put themselves in the place of the other culturally; he also wishes to make himself better understood; he does not know guilt, but shame… The Christian must put himself in the place of the other because he thinks that the fault comes from him, which does not mean that he has committed the fault, but rather than the lack of attention to the other caused him not to work hard enough to prevent the fault.
Category: Religion
Forgive me, there will always be something left...
In this little reflection on forgiveness, I just wanted to come back to the inadequacy of saying sorry. Forgiveness is sometimes extremely difficult. I admit I still have some grudges deep in my heart. I constantly confess them and ask for a little grace to soften the hardness of my heart, but no, nothing really helps, and I have rather learned to live with this hardness that I have despite everything managed to circumscribe, that I sincerely and intimately forgave. Why ? Why can't I grind this hardness of heart to dust? She seems stronger than me and that worries me, I can't hide it.
Continue reading “Forgive, there will always be something left…”
What death for the West?
It is more and more pleasant for me to hear these speeches of Westerners gargling about the death of Catholicism, the death of this old skin of religion, when it is not the death of God, quite simply.
Tribute to Jean-Marie Domenach
Rereading notes taken years ago while reading Jean-Marie Domenach 's Return to the Tragic , I remember our meeting. I see him arriving in my little studio at the Forks, asking me for a glass of wine and me, starting to explain to him through the menu the orientation that I wanted to give to our interview. And he looked at me with round eyes, rounding again, and suddenly throwing me enthusiastic: “But you have read my books… I'm not used to meeting journalists who have read my books”.
This meeting will remain as one of the very beautiful encounters I have had as a journalist. We will discuss more than two hours of morality and moralism, Saint-Just and Nietzsche. From God too. Above all from God.
The path of God passes through our humanity…
Extraordinary passage from Blessed Cardinal Newman :
By sinning, by suffering, by correcting ourselves, by improving ourselves, we advance towards the truth by the experience of error; we achieve success through failure. We do not know how to act well except after having acted badly. […] We know what is good not positively but negatively; we don't see the truth all at once to go towards it, but we throw ourselves on the error to experience it, and we discover that it is not the truth. […] This is the mechanism by which we achieve success; we walk towards the sky backwards; we aim our arrows at a target and think that he is most skilful who misses the fewest.
Tibhirine's breath
It's a smart movie. And in saying that, a lot has already been said. At a time when stupidity reigns unchallenged, making an intelligent film about faith allows you to get your head above water and inflate your lungs; to satiate. Men and Gods exemplifies the life of the monks. That the monks in the film live in Algeria comes second in my opinion. It comes in the background to dodge the eternal debate of the "Clash of Civilizations". This debate that wealthy people treat with contempt and that less well-off people try to flee on a daily basis.
Philia, agapê and other little things…
The Greeks used three words to designate love: éros, carnal love, philia, friendship, and agapê, accomplished and mature love.
Is love only there to comfort us? Shouldn't we seek to give meaning to love as to every event in life? Only meaning saves the human condition. The meaning… The big question. The inevitable question. Nothing is worth living in the absence of meaning. Meaning is man's big question, especially since he understands nothing about it and has no control over it. As often the man controls all the less that he screams to believe the contrary. A love whose meaning is absent will remain an eros. It is possible to answer that eros also gives meaning: the caresses, the kisses, the bodies that fit together are a discovery of the other. If the Greek eros is most often a matter of abduction, of possession, it would be wrong to sum it up there. The boundaries between the three loves can be fine. Our time likes to relativize these borders. Transgression awaits the slightest of our steps; or our missteps.
The sense of love surpasses us, and elevates us. God gives us His son and causes him to die on the cross for the sole purpose of giving meaning to our lives. He eradicates the sin by bringing it to light. It designates love as the only alternative to evil. And we must also remember Saint Paul:
When I would speak in tongues, that of men and that of angels, if I lack love, I am a resounding metal, a resounding cymbal.
When I have the gift of prophecy, the science of all mysteries and all knowledge, when I have the most total faith, that which moves mountains, if I lack love, I am nothing .
When I would distribute all my goods to the hungry, when I would deliver my body to the flames, if I lack love, I gain nothing.
Love takes patience, love is helpful, it doesn't be jealous, it doesn't show off, it doesn't get puffed up, it doesn't do anything ugly, it doesn't seek its interest, it doesn't does not irritate, he does not harbor grudges, he does not rejoice in injustice, but he finds joy in the truth.
He excuses everything, he believes everything, he hopes for everything, he endures everything.
Love never goes away.
The prophecies? They will be abolished.
Languages ? They will end.
The knowledge ? It will be abolished.
For our knowledge is limited and our prophecy is limited. But when perfection comes, what is limited will be abolished.
When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. Having become a man, I put an end to what was proper to the child.
Now we see as in a mirror and in a confused way, but then it will be face to face.
Now my knowledge is limited, but then I will know as I am known.
So now these three remain, faith, hope and love, but love is the greatest.(1)
We see that agape sits at the top of love. Agape is this ultimate end, as the true meaning of love. Reading Saint Paul, we also realize that friendship is entirely contained in love. Philia can be thought of alone, but its Christian purpose is to become an agape. We also understand that his failure will be not to succeed in this transformation. Imagine a philia between a man and a woman: there is always a risk of seduction. What is a philia abandoning itself in eros?
Finally, we note that agape is a love devoid of seduction. He does not use “tricks”, artifices. Obviously those are left to the Prince of this world.
A new friendship is a revealed world that extends to our feet. What reflex do we have? Facing a world that stretches out at our feet. Are we responsible for it ( respondere , do we answer for it)? Did we do anything to deserve this new love? No, we haven't done anything. So little meaning has come out of our daily gestures. Our first instinct is often to trample this world under foot, because immediately in the face of beauty we think of appropriating it. Here is the man. What is beautiful, what is better, what is beyond us, must belong to us. Not God. No, not God. Because modern man has stopped believing in God. Too big, too strong, no time for this crap he can't make his own. What exceeds it deserves only possession or contempt. We must always go faster. We do not have time. If one cannot possess, if one cannot enjoy, one despises. It is therefore easy to understand the popularity of eros.
All creatures lack something, and not just not being a creator.
To those who are carnal, we know, there is a lack of pure beings.
But to those who are pure, it must be known, they lack carnality.(2)
So this world knocking at the door? If he gives himself, we dominate him. If it gives itself, we possess it. This sums up our sufficiency vis-à-vis the Other. Because there is no place more egalitarian than love. Love is truth and everyone is equal in the face of truth.
Many friendships fail after a while. In the majority of cases, this failure reveals itself as soon as one or both parties take pride in themselves. As soon as one or both parties want to possess, or comfort themselves in a deaf feeling of superiority. As soon as one or both parties adopt a paternalistic position, there is no more listening. As soon as there can no longer be any real listening, as soon as it is subject to a value judgment, an invisible and unspoken, but full and complete, hierarchy sets in. There is no longer the minimum required to speak and hear each other. The word no longer makes sense.
1- We also know that in this offering of Saint Paul we can replace the word love with the name of Jesus. We will enjoy reciting these stanzas in this way and becoming impregnated with them.
Translation of the author of Saint Paul's First Epistle to the Corinthians (1 Cor 13, 1).
2- Péguy, The Porch of the Mystery of the Second Virtue.
What Monsieur Ouine says in our time…
Monsieur Ouine , one of the greatest French novels of the 20th century, provides many answers to the modern world as it goes. The few quotes that follow give a glimpse of the Evil insinuated everywhere.
Notes on History of Catholicism
Notes from Histoire du catholicisme by Jean-Pierre Moisset (chapter 9: The shock of modernity (mid-18th century — 1870).p 394. The ritual of touching the scrofula at the end of the coronation, still practiced, is losing its credibility. Symptomatically, the formula for imposition, the formula for laying on of hands is changing. She was “the king touches you, God heals you”; it becomes “the king touches you, God heals you”. Another sign of the distancing of old certainties and the emergence of a new relationship with authority is found in the spread of contraceptive practices from the middle of the 18th century, still in France.
Smet's Father
There are incredible stories. that of Pierre Jean Smet is one of them.
Still discussing with the same joy with my friend JB du C. the other evening, I talk to him about my idea of a priest arriving in Japan in the 1830s, something impossible or almost. Japan is totally closed to the outside world, the Meiji era is quietly preparing behind the scenes, and especially the religious orders, like the Western world, have fallen swooning over the New World. Yes, but here we must always hope for a great figure of an independent Catholic.
Pierre Jean de Smet is one. This priest nicknamed “black cassock” by the Indians, negotiated with Sitting Bull while Lincoln asked his advice. Not having a forked tongue, he very often achieves miracles (reading his life shows how much this word can still have a meaning). Incredible route in the Rocky Mountains and formidable source of inspiration, Father de Smet put ethics where politicians already put only cynicism and pragmatism.