Tag: Catholicism

Priest "Generation Benoit XVI"

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Dear Father,

It is with great pleasure that I welcome your departure. Not that I am happy that you are leaving the chapel of Notre-Dame du Lys, but because I am happy to have met you and that you are continuing your priesthood by showing the example of the priest according to Benoit XVI.

Yesterday, for the feast of the Holy Trinity, you celebrated your last mass according to the extraordinary rite in the 15th arrondissement of Paris. In this pious little chapel, where you arrived in 2009 when the diocese of Paris began to assume responsibility for the chapel and to appoint priests to its service. And while you had already been ordained a priest for almost ten years, you learned to celebrate Mass according to the 1962 missal! A great lesson in humility! You have cast yourself in the mold of the bi-millennial form. To meet the request of your superiors, but also that of a group of die-hard faithful lovers of the extraordinary rite.

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Newman and Socrates

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The links between ancient Greek philosophy and Christianity are numerous. The most famous of the Greek precepts: Gnothi Seauton , "Know thyself", inscribed in Delphi retains a certain mystery. Another end of the sentence has stuck with us: “But not too much”… Know yourself… But not too much! Plato leads Socrates to reflect on the Delphic formula in the Philebus :

SOCRATES: In short, it is a species of vice which takes its name from a particular habit, and this part of vice in general is a disposition contrary to that recommended by the Delphi inscription.

PROTARCHUS: It is a precept: know thyself, that thou speakest, Socrates?
SOCRATES: Yes, and the opposite of this precept, in the language of the inscription, would be not to know oneself at all.
"Know thyself" in order to improve yourself, to erase in you what hinders your development. Not knowing himself is already a fault for Socrates. "But not too much", because man so easily believes himself much more than he is, son of Adam, man is the plaything of his presumption. “But not too much” so as not to take yourself for a god.
This is one of the foundations of Greek culture, the idea of ​​knowing oneself, the idea of ​​wisdom, of advancing in wisdom, but also the feeling that if you dig too deep, surprises can arise, and not necessarily good. The Greeks were very aware of man's weaknesses, his shortcomings. The Greeks are even, with the Christians, those who have most highlighted the possibility of human weakness, it is also what makes them so close to us. The weakness of man is expressed in their gospels, the tragedies. Pity and terror are the two pillars. Know yourself… but not too much.

Emotion at Notre-Dame du Lys

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It is a very beautiful emotion that all the assistance of the faithful of Notre-Dame du Lys felt this morning at the holy mass at 11:15 a.m. A delegation of Iraqi Christians from Baghdad was present as well as an Iraqi priest who had simple and touching words to testify to the massacre last October in Baghdad's cathedral. The recall of the facts by one of the witnesses of this carnage transported the assembly for a few seconds in deep contemplation. The young Iraqis present followed the Mass of the Extraordinary Rite with fervor and contemplation. Father Charles Fazilleau's beautiful sermon has been translated into Arabic so that Iraqis can learn the lessons of this Passion Sunday.

On leaving the chapel, the smiles and handshakes exchanged with these young men from the Orient who had already been so tried in their faith were a moving and joyful moment. Well beyond the language barrier, an infinite joy was reflected in the eyes. The joy of being alive in Christ.

original fault

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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.

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Tribute to Jean-Marie Domenach

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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…

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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

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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.

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The chronicler's hatred

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I call this article the columnist's hatred. The French chronicler—because he is indeed dealing with a French disease—is how he invents himself master of time, of the world, and above all of how he is doing. It's unbearable. Redact the chroniclers and tear out the buds!

All these columnists together form nothing more than a Café du Commerce. With references.

I take for example the opening of the antenna of France Culture in the morning. For 30 years, I have listened to France Culture every morning. I am what is called a France Culture aficionado. Culture Matin by Jean Lebrun was part of my DNA. I loved him until his political correctness and partisanship came to the fore with the war in Yugoslavia. Fortunately, he left the ship which he seemed to scuttle all alone.

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Notes on History of Catholicism

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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.

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