March 16, 2007> 9:46 AM
cor ad cor loquitur
Heart speaks to heart. And so it does. I've been reading a book called Behold The Pierced One by then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger. Very good stuff. This Pope was/is an academic theologian of some note, but as I have gotten acquainted with him, so to say, it seems that he is just as much a good bit of a mystic. I mean his spirituality is anything but merely dry theological rhetoric for its own sake. This book contains some of the better weaving together of "head and heart" that I have read. Anyway, I thought I'd grace you with a couple of quotes, starting with this one..
...theology of corporality and of the Incarnation: man needs to see, he needs this kind of silent beholding which becomes a touching, if he is to become aware of the mysteries of God. He must set his foot on the "ladder" of the body in order to climb it and so find the path along which faith invites him. ...we could put it like this: the so-called objective spirituality, which is based on participation in the celebration of the liturgy, is not enough. The extraordinary spiritual depth which resulted from medieval mysticism and the ecclesially based piety of modern times cannot be abandoned as obsolete (let alone deviant) in the name of a rediscovery of the Bible and the Fathers. The liturgy itself can only be celebrated properly if it is prepared for, and accompanied by, that meditative "abiding" in which the heart begins to see and to understand, drawing the senses too into its beholding. For "you only see properly with your heart," as Saint-Exupery's Little Prince says. (And the Little Prince can be taken as a symbol for that childlikeness which we must regain if we are to find our way back out of the clever foolishness of the adult world and into man's true nature, which is beyond mere reason.)
...we are explicitly invited to enter into a spirituality involving the senses, corresponding to the bodily nature of the divine-human love of Jesus Christ. ...spirituality of the senses is essentially a spirituality of the heart, since the heart is the hub of all the senses, the place where sense and spirit meet, interpenetrate and unite. Spirituality of the senses is spirituality in the sense of Cardinal Newman's motto: Cor ad cor loquitur (heart speaks to heart), which sums up, in perhaps the most beautiful way, what spirituality of the heart is, a spirituality focused on the Heart of Jesus.
This is good stuff. Of course, we musn't read into this that old Benedict is some kind of closet charismatic, as some of us might understand that. I don't think we should understand this to be saying, especially as this is one short passage, that we are to in some way count on our senses as the one faithful portal of true spiritual experience or connection with God. That's not at all, I think, what this is pointing at. We should understand, rather, that mankind is not merely a rational being. Our faith and connection to God is not merely to be had through knowing in our minds and studying with our intellects. Christianity is, at its very root, a mystical reality - a deep mystical comingling of beings, which can fully only be known "in the heart." Everything else only aids this in happening. Sacred Heart of Jesus, continue to draw us into union with Yourself. Amen.
March 16, 2007
> 9:46 AM
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