Forgiveness

Here's an excerpt from Jose Granados' article from Communio entitled, "Risen Time: Easter as the Source of History":

Forgiveness is an example of this possibility to extend the significance of an event retroactively.  Let us note that forgiveness cannot be the mere expunging of the traces of an evil committed.  Since a person's past belongs to his identity, sheer forgetfulness would destroy both the evil and the person who committed it.  What is required of forgiveness is that it reshape the past, transforming it in goodness and incorporating it into a different narrative of the person's life.  To forgive is to untie the bonds of the past and to liberate the person toward a new future.  In order for this operation to be possible one must assume the existence of a past that is more original than the past of the evil committed, a source that the evil act was unable to touch and from which regeneration is possible.  We are able to forgive a friend because we remember an initial goodness that opened up in our relationship with him, and we judge that this goodness does much deeper than the offense he has committed against us.  The difficulty of forgiveness grows with the depth of the offense and it decreases with the solidity of the perception of this original goodness.  This goodness, in its turn, is deep enough only because it is tied to the transcendent origin of the other person's foundation in God.  Memory, then, is connected to our coming from God, to our being his children.  This link of memory with filiation is at the roots of the possibility of our forgiving.

Spirituality of the Seasons 1: Fall

If there is a geography to redemption (mountains and valleys, rivers and deserts) then certainly there is a spirituality to the seasons of the year. The rhythms of the year: fading, death, new life and thriving life are all rhythms that we experience in our living out of relation with the Father through Jesus Christ in the Spirit. As you read these brief meditations on the seasons, I pray that you identify with one of them and can prayerfully discover the grace of God present with you. May you be filled with hope in the goodness, the grace and the provision of God in every season.


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Fall



Fall is a season of contrasts: it is a journey from the sudden beauty of the rich tapestry of colors in October to the slow decay of leaves and the melancholy charcoal sky of November:
As trees burst into a symphony of flaming colors, an image of the transcendently divine one present with us in the midst of arboreal beauty, so too do our hearts flame with a seasoned and tempered exaltation, a rally of worship before the slow retreat back into ourselves for winter.
As leaves fall and the sky grows dark with the onset of the chill air, so too do our hearts settle into a quiet melancholy of the disrobing process: as the trees are disrobed of their flaming leaves, so are our hearts, spirits and personalities disrobed of their own coverings.  In late fall, we become vulnerable as our coverings, our defenses, and even our glories slowly slide away from us, exposing us to that first icy breath of winter. 
In both of these moments, the sudden glory and the slow disrobing, we long for something nameless, something mysterious and transcendent.  We long for home-- the fire on the hearth, the aromas of the kitchen, the comfort of warm slippers.  We long for the safe and secure coverings of our leaves.  Yet we realize that “home” has itself become something transcendent, something put off.  And we desire that coming home with a hunger that carries us through the long nights of cold winter.

About the name of this blog

The translation for the name of this blog from Latin to English is, "Oh God, you have made us for yourself." This phrase has become important to me as I've been studying Roman Catholic theology in earnest over the last few years. I first discovered it in the writings of Henri de Lubac, particularly in his book from 1946 entitled Surnaturel (that's French for Supernatural :).

In de Lubac's book, he uses this idea of being created by God for God as the liturgical prism through which he examines the ontological (ie: the studying of 'being') understanding that developed in the late 15th century with Thomas Cajetan.

Cajetan argued, based on his faulty analysis of the Angelic Doctor, Thomas Aquinas, that the natural order and the supernatural order were two completely separate orders. Nature is completely distinct from the supernatural-- it has its own means, its own end, its own natural beatitude. The supernatural then becomes something superadded on to the natural. Cajetan arguably read Aquinas in this way in order to safeguard the sheer gratuity of supernatural grace. This, of course, is an important and a noble task. However, de Lubac's point (besides the fact that Aquinas does not fit Cajetan's assessment) is that to think of the supernatural as something "added on" to the natural is to create a dualism between the orders. This dualism, de Lubac rightly warns, may lead to the downfall of Christian engagement in the world (ie: Christianity being relegated to the privatized, supernatural sphere).

What de Lubac counters Cajetan with is this: he argues that there is no such thing as an "ungraced nature". The supernatural is not laid on top of the natural like a layer cake but both infuses and transcends the natural. God created the natural for Himself. That is, God created the natural world so that it contains within itself the desire for God. Nature was created in order to have a supernatural end-- divine beatitude-- rather than a natural one (ie: political, social, economic beatitude).

But what does all of this mean for me and for this blog? As far as I can see it, what de Lubac is arguing for opens up the door for a larger expression of worship. Worship becomes more than just an additional activity that is added into our lives. Rather, supernatural worship fills and floods every natural (read: ordinary) moment. This means that every ordinary event, whether it be plunging the line of a clogged toilet, reading a book, mowing the lawn, talking to the wife, going to work-- all of these things are oriented towards the supernatural. All of the ordinary things are avenues to and are themselves drawn towards fulfillment in supernatural beatitude.

This blog then will dabble in both the sacred and the seemingly profane because, since God has made all things for Himself, even the most worldly and normal things are filled with the scent of the Sacred.