Christian Love as Source, Way and Fulfillment
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Part of "Christian Love as Source, Way and Fulfillment of Christian Life"
(including discussion and questions of retreat participants)
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so we were pondering this morning to what extent book self is legitimate you sort of mortal sin of the york simply a neutral instinct is a virtue and visit our heroic virtue these the various options we've been looking at what do we mean by
love of self and done what is about finally we got to and we were discussing st a rich tree moments of love and how they just occur in a different order according to a more romantic or hedonistic a model and they recorded the cr
christian for the more romantic it's first attraction i feel and that's decisive whether it be physical or sexual or spiritual intellectual and i've just just gotta go with that in the war i'm just swept away the better your might be a little tiny component of choice of claiming this
the of honoring at a free volition but the main thing use the attraction and then very much the hope of fruition just enjoying this love as it's reciprocated et cetera the christian model is quite different it begins with christ's command you show love your neighbor as yourself
elf and on that solid rock of christ's word we will we will in faith that love wherever the first news whatever the attraction of the attraction might be there that's wonderful in the case of friendship or romantic bond work parental or you to go to whatever
it might not be used in the case of
burnaby and then the for issue which might come in this kingdom but you'll surely come in the coolness is the following them
so there's another distinction i thought we could bring it here i've always found it a very helpful distinction of fun to a call to and a great you voted with reform three ways of understanding law in greek no small our first experiences
we grew up and get into adolescence come do this an iranian bomb being honest from outside as arbitrary it's kind of giving this kind of alienating
and this is not all which i just got into because my parents say you're gonna do what that's all it is well at a certain point and have elapsed since we we rebel against that and we get to autonomy i'm going to be a walk them to myself now that's what's happening over here i
i want to read it feels good i to do it i want to be so authenticating etc
and this is what much of twentieth century ethics culture and that all the rest of your pup was has certainly played the way philosophy etc in this line
ah the problem with this is to says were were just too immense and mysterious for our own selves for our selves to regulate ourselves to come up with those guiding seeming directives current methods
interaction so finally there's the movement of return and this is the product will son returning to the father's house but not really empowering and or on me that now discovering theology as he calls it
i've started with recharge the ah dummy which
is the law written in our hearts by god god small so it's not a law as we understand it as repressive arbitrary from just some power source but it's that commandment that fulfills this is the same
yeah kind of distinction of park was be making between commanded law but it suggests the need or risk return so that we can love and we can learn from philly and it's in this line and we're all love ourself even we were not attracted to are so even when we're aware of all that to see
seven cetera but this will make our good is what draws us back to the father's house and it's in that of line then we love ourselves nodding the sense of kind of obsessive narcissism or a young ego inflation bring sense of just
willing our own good in so far as we are image and likeness of god in god some image and of if we're to love all the rest of creation you just doesn't make sense that we're the one exception in all of that and so love is that so
seamless rogue and so were called also to love of self this is the line of theology of the kind of catholic mainstream against the jansenist current and against a get mad dump calvinist line and a bharti midnight grin that we saw this mm
warning
it's also in psychology the lines we mentioned of a frog against freud a frog who says that mature a free up
healthy self love is the opposite of selfishness selfishness is exclusive stick it's suspicious of everyone else it just locked on myself it's what you would call ego inflation and that certainly is destructive but a bargain the sense of self
for esteem in the context of this commitment of willing the good of every other creature and of their creator that's just
inevitable if i'm going to grow in not some kind of integration some kind of homeless some kind of healthiness
so in self love legitimate yes with a hobbies provisos it's legitimate it's necessary and it is a very demanding virtue and i think maybe in some sense particularly for us westerners and modern to americans have some
psychologists have suggested that the most of wounded part of our self has to do with self image and the most difficult thing is to imagine first of all of it but we can love ourself and second of all than anyone else can love us and third of all the god can bus and so this also requires a kind of to
turning around and coming back up to the father's house i have a jesuit friend says the his commanded the whole new testament used to love your neighbor as yourself like ourselves
you know like ourselves basically most of us and as a result as easy as easiest oh i see
having to do the in canada
okay can be actually negro that's right and so this does some when we were facing that kind of problem is many bizarre does demand face it demands obedience to our lord and of in that line we can go forward in terms of fianna me it's rich
done in our hearts that we also are creatures of god goddess creed junk and all that kind of thing
so what
and then the theme of of who is this i and dive of this is an extremely up mysterious thing this is one of the great tub western cohen said our father william johnson should just we meditate would we want to be very kind of sin christian when i love
oh god who is the i was loving god when i loved my neighbor who's the i would i love myself was the i was loving and also with the me who i am wanting to love
perhaps there are a destructive how can we put it up and parts of myself
that i must really challenge that are more constricting and negating my full development that aren't the true i as god created me and we'll speak perhaps the ego in the negative connotation there is a kind of a neutral and even a positive connotation of psychology
the perhaps the ego in the kind of negative connotation as when we get it to ego inflation that's not be a direct and primary focus of our love of self but it's rather that deeper authentic self one merton calls the true self and this is
is the self where i acknowledge that i'm wounded i acknowledge that i am sinful this is the self that often we tried to dynein flee from and then assume are on social posturing and dumb good for the persona and that kind of thing and we want to
love from our ego or kind of ego presence but that's where it is sick that's where we do have to well kind of pull away from detach rediscover our truer deeper of identity
and then it is that identity that to be embraced and blessed and received this sub is all very appropriate on this feast state of mary magdalen and run euros humbly is very appropriate here jesus who comes not for the healthy but the sick not for the
the just but the sinner it is that again wounded sinner penitent
mortal confused fearful angry deeper self on that i'm to acknowledge returned to and love in the sense of will be healing of that deep herself in the light of that then of from that deepest place
ace which is a place of humility then i could start a willing the good of also those other components of my psyche that hole in her village according to some psychological models and up if you're union and i hope we all are than one can love a share
well that's a whole series of exercises nor different areas in there one can love i'm even the superego and so far as some calling the superego to a less impressive role and more guiding role in a positive way possibly loving to pursue
oh no we need a a public ministry and a public identity also the young drunk in the alleyway and so and any kind of persona but this person who is still bear and is still available in a ministerial role of his his way
willing to persona not as this desperate ah kind of way to get war
prestige and employers etc but simply my way to be present to others and so loved the child with in love the a trickster with the and love the a scenics the older person within all this stuff can happen up from the steepest place
and this is i think up for the contemporary was also interested in psychology this is this asceticism of
esteem compassion benevolence towards oneself st irenaeus as the of glory of god is the human person fully aligned and it's in this line into we journey people are in such different places here it's hard to put forth
a kind of a generic series of proposals some people are heavy into ego inflation are inappropriate and unhealthy arrogance of assertiveness and also and all that kind of stuff so it's not in that context that one wants to have
beat the pulpit for self love of but it's the person who's aware of up one's so brokenness and mortality and dumb and all that it's in this line and that embraces most of us
journey forward yeah this this component of that second combined a commandment of self love
questions comments about any of this
yes
and i'm thinking have another way and saying
we didn't know i spoke for the anthem he talks about we have to put them all the prodigal son hello we are always there to into the fire and alice the curtains were talking that
that we have to be bothered to them it said volker of much comes man and accept that acknowledge that in the same way that in the story of god the father accepts the prodigal son your it's the loving of the private parts of ourselves
it's so important and times that
that's right until we can love those negative parts ourselves cannot be projecting that's right be precisely young or we fall into desperation that's the line of a tutors who goes out and hangs himself practically particularly determining where our coach
right now you have some great in the ocean correct
oh absolutely now we don't want to get into a mysticism of of sin affirmation here so sober the product called does returned to the father's house with the of from recommend with to steak or engine for absolutely so it's not going to demand more money go out and and spend that
etc so absolutely of but with the awareness that we might fall seven times a day kind of thing that kind of but not an intentionally bp can pick falling yet as we don't know the private changed
story as yeah we camped up and indonesia there's a kind of and acceptance of ourselves guess is that change but there's a kind of and acceptance of ourselves the way or for an ancient young and one of the heaviest things for christian spirituality is this
on discovery that maybe i'm not becoming that more and more spiritual and so as around euro is think that's the problem of the ladder modeled and last year i was ruined the bottom rung and certainly this year i have to be on the middle road etc would if i'm not on the middle wrong etc
and it's here though that at least i might grow in self-awareness and in humility episodes whole but biblical and a to speak and the personal exalts himself will be a base to the personal basis of themselves will be exalted yes i think i've always liked fag or may have caused
as the girl forgiving father me because their day on us our government's lock and sometimes i think about visual impression or elder brother them political this is a real problem and when you get into the institutional church there's a real danger that the institutional church
ouch projects itself his elder brother one of the misfortunes of this reproduction is it excludes the older brother pouting back there and tuck in that whole parable he's in the most serious trouble because he goes out of the father's house but he doesn't see himself as des
distancing himself and he's in this self righteous position he's not loving the father he's not moving his own brother and this is a very dangerous dance and up here we get more into the whole business of the love of neighbor but up yeah that's that's a vet
very important component and we don't know how it ends regarding him the father goes out and with this most impatient three and vita the elder brother back in but well doesn't mention whether he comes back he and and that's the whole problem of the pharisee goal and self righteous stance that was much
more a obstacle to churning with cheese or spent than the than the penitent mary magdalene for
so this sub is purple gus kind of some of the whole of the christian mystery and good can be a model of self-love certainly a love of neighbor and certainly have a love of god in the reception of god's infinite love of us
so let us say that we're going to go on this journey of self love in this sense of a real commitment for our our own good we've said that opens the whole thing of tough love it's not just a a yielding to any will
of the other or egypt up ourself and this is where objectively and informing ourselves and said we've got to ponder what is really the best for ourselves at this deepest level self about them might be comparing opposite of a kind of a of hedonism or kind of self
abandonment to pleasure and will be because that is so immediately destructive
and up here in the monastic tradition and in the biblical tradition there's that wonderful triadic anthropology we're not just body else in the playboy philosophy we're not just body and mind the kind of fat model of of the ape in the computer to so
sometimes i merge just categorizing and done systematically thinking like a computer and then i do my work and i go home and then i just go wild as and a kind of think and this wild oscillation back and forth between these two modalities of being this is an implicit we have understood
finding ourselves perhaps of many many moderns that calculated very rational thinking and they just go wild with the the senses or something but in this fuller anthropology there's body in that mind not a sense of just analytic but also has since of the more intuitive
seeking wisdom but then there is also spirit which is uniquely different from mind as mind is for body and to become aware of that dimension and to nurture that dimension to nurture all three of these this is the patristic patristic and a medieval
tradition in a very careful asceticism and also care of self
the a medieval monk william of same theory as wonderful things to say about how to minister to all three of these so they come into a real harmony
and i think we've done a lot in these last decades as we discovered also all that can be learned from the eastern religions in this regard all that can be learned from the native american tradition etc where we fit into the larger of nature context etc
so that our body might really of repose and flourish and don't be strengthened and also the mind and spirit but it's in that context that we need to have a programme of self care self nurturing self growth precisely to fulfill our know
it's command to love our neighbor as ourself if we want our neighbor not to destroy themselves through drink or drugs or sex or cognos but again it's only makes sense that we want this for ourself also so that the command to love is right there
with the need of of discipline of ordering our life of asceticism the need to rediscovering that and so all the things that we bred and we know about i'm slowing down a having time for ourself of the real importance of by
balance with an exercise of but the whole main point here is love the whole self and all these components and loving such a way that the body can sustain and dumb or so enlivened and give concreteness and reality to the mind and the
mind of can guide but also be illumined by the spirit these three
our father cyprian whose of just about to be it a liturgical conference in cincinnati he's thinking of writing his degree on this
triadic anthropology and all its implications also for spirituality
so again so much of western anthropology after de young
for the sixteen hundreds and done
we kind of fun
words are not committed but the kind of breakthrough of the renaissance etc assume that it's the human mind if it's it's the highest level we can get to but to be aware it again that there is this spirit image which all it can realize and intuit and done celebrate and be
aware of that this is up there and it's kind of the crown of who i am many many people aren't even aware of that dimension of their existence and that's what certainly prayer and silence and contemplation and liturgy and supportive faith community are all about to a for
oh and a key thing here that i think is so helpful yes a benedictine stress on balance on both and there is a kind of extremist tendency in the modern psyche
i'll discover exercise and seventy i'll be jogging seven hours a day and bring down my knees and ankles or something like that they know discover sitting and i wanna sit there eight hours forcing so kind of mantra prayer on my psyche or something to go forward gently again with self compose
patient patient acceptance and to try to embrace the whole and let one component kind of support the other in neutrality that would be the way to go in this song benedictine approach to it all
oh some of our youngest monks had just taken the briggs myers for instance synergist just delighted that through this letter and rather than that better or something and up was can be very reassuring
but at least as it was presented to us it didn't say model it has its distinct limits but it does suggest certain up more emphatic polarity sickness us but that doesn't mean to repress or have disdain for the other but rather as it was explained to us precisely to nurture the a
either if i tend towards the extrovert that doesn't mean to get into a kind of up our collective egoism with all the extrovert so to put down introverts between must never do but to worldwide wine gives the introvert pole and me recessive can i work on that can i strengthened
that capacity to find an energy source within myself and not just when i with others and through being with others and vice versa maybe i'm very strong introvert where their son extrovert potentialities me so to work on that and so with the thinking and sub distinct from the feeling for the feeling is dist
linked from the thinking etc so this kind of approach to this model or might be the enneagram model whatever model who are working you if where we just don't claim to the immediate identity did it gives us but then we start working on the other other rubbed value
said the other recessive numbers or of wings or letters that would be part and parcel of this love of self that helps us to grow and not just to get locked into one place
any questions comments on this
so for instance what can not get these three dimensions if that's a helpful anthropology of particularly the spiritual it's that that perhaps we tend to set aside quickest with all the demands of daily life i certainly after
to eat and i have to do my exercises not to do all the work and beat all the other people if anything yields it certainly up meditation quiet liturgical prayer that after all isn't essential for me up to be alive tomorrow just physically whereas eating and sleeping and up
of the nine the money that the child brings home so that can yield quickest but in this anthropology that's kind of the crown and completion of it all and that's the ultimate yearning of body and mind swept anything to a kind of been on privilege chain
everything that sustains and encourages and affirms my spirit and our spirit here you get into the community identity the not just the i but the we what about the spirit dimension of our family our faith group our parish that kind of thing of
so to not let go to quickly of time for spiritual reading time for silence time for littered of his kind of thing and then the mind up
some stop thinking at a certain age etc just keep going with a guy but to continue to nourish the mind not just as a kind of other computer analytic machine there but as this astonishing capacity to perceive
to have insight to wonder to attain wisdom and so very good a spiritual reading when we when we push into our head sometimes we're into a lot of junk food at the brain you know and not even to get into television here by that
kind of thing but to really have an asceticism that involves a nourishing of the mind of the way we would inevitably three times a day as good americans sit down to nourish the body
the monks had this astonish astonishing daily schedule where they would dedicate according to the rule of st benedict something like seven hours a day to seal to a ruminating over the word or commentators on the word just so that there would be this ongoing growth in
gods were this listening and this kind of transformation into god's word
and if that word finally is summed up as crisis in love this would be the completion of this like seal this spiritual reading that and goes into made it touch for your kind of a meditative claiming for me and finally into or on silk finally into prayer
which is on both kind of fun in its cleaning to god in any way in any way also nurtured the mine and also the body that's where some of us especially if we come out of the jansenists tradition or out of the calvinist tradition we need to recover this guy
reverence for this astonishing our creation of god which is the human body
yeah and what are we image and likeness of god this is one of the questions of the fathers used to ponder
and a many theologians such as a augustan said was particularly in the highest point of the mind because it is there that i am image likeness of god as logos or to the body was kind of where i'm least in the image and likeness of god that's where i get into patient so obviously the
personal patience and god and cetera that's one way to go but there's another very different anthropology so princess of assisi god loves him says within so far as were body were image and likeness of god because god assumed a human body in christ so
it's their most immediately that i'm image and likeness of god and so to up to reverence the biden
the problem with a bunch of hedonism have to self indulgence as it's truly destructive up the self and first of all of the body
and up so we had questions this morning about well what about self about it gets him to destructive patterns will if it's authentic self not it's precisely have committed against destructive patterns and precisely on the way of the up in handsome
but of the whole person so this with this we can conclude this first little phase of the theme of christian love which is self love of christ in the gospel of john exhorts us to abide in love remain in love and this start
being with his first phase can meet a by just in myself come back to myself and accept myself of reverence myself in so far as an image and likeness of god and nurture that so so that i will be able to serve and minister to others and to god
odd
questions comments about that
yes i have found a worse for care of salt a very helpful of nature printing the spiritual dimension and more concrete i i use for very very topical very pocketable yeah
nah spirit spot and good writer
that of self-love as coming back to oneself st gregory the great in commenting on the parable of the prodigal son notes that that's the line the tub jesus uses it book the the decisive moment there's the poor prodigal son
where with the peaks in the in the mud etc so suddenly he comes back to himself
and great recession she were outside of ourself we're so caught up in distraction of in the etymological since we're torn apart from are so so we can come back to ourself usually also in some way rather were running away from ourself and can't stand ourself that basic problem but to have the courage to go back
repost with getting the heart you been there in the heart of darkness the heart of anguish etc etc that's the beginning then of rising up and returning to the your father's house and also the mother's house we don't want to waste so much on the the image
of fuck the mail image of god and we forget that other to mention if there's not more on this that versed in some ways most modest moment of christian love we could go on to love of neighbor
again we're taking it in this reese burst order from jesus commands cause this is the way it seems to work itself out for us experientially a said bernard notes we start with love of self then we become aware of the neighbor and we loved the neighbor and then from there
were we start to move into this small stuff elusive and profound and this closest kind of love of love of guy so all this business about love of self but if we don't get out of it it it can be any a terribly confined in prison and and we can a
a lapse into narcissism here and this perhaps is a danger of lots of the self help stuff lots of the new age stuff me obsessed with me kind of thing and american individualism feeds that and all kinds of stuff can feed that so what really
causes us to break out of that tomb yes of it were to love our neighbor as ourself
so that's an incredible challenge so i'm going to esteem and reverence myself and home bad but that's only going to be healthy in so far as i'm committed to our referencing and steaming my neighbor it precisely the same way up
because the god who bugs me and embraces me and receive me back also loves and embraces the she's back of my neighbor
and so scripture is very emphatic on on love of neighbor and rather pushes more and that side of am here so what i barked might be right that is it's at least up
for many of you got distress more on this altruistic is moving to the other discovering that we are we and not just me me this is the christian conversion and this based on trust nature a kind of a creation theology we are created as social
beings oh we become human person only in the context of love received from mother and father and the language to we pick up in our capacity to have social said cetera
so that there's a lot of bizarre alienating of myth in the whole western in particular american up ideology of the rugged individual totally self sufficient et cetera so the second commandment in its fullness can save us
from that
oh god loves me infinitely but also everyone else when i become aware of god's love of me what do i do with that i can just of stop there or the only thing to do with that is then pour that of love out to others
rs this is about it most safely are kept up by giving away st catherine of sienna this very passionate lover of jesus and she's very emphatic in this regard and as such some wonderful
some wonderful
lines
it is therefore essential saw be constant in or charity for her neighbors and in true knowledge of herself both and as i'm aware of how god is received me that i can't but pour that out on all others in this way she will feed the frame of my chair
already within her this is jesus speaking through catherine because charity for others is drawn from mine charity that is from the knowledge the soul gained by coming to know herself and smoke by jesus and my goodness to her which made her see that i loved her unspeakably much so she loves
every person with the same love she sees herself loved and with this
as soon as she comes to know me she reaches out to love her neighbors because she sees that i love them even more than she does she also loves them unspeakably much since she has learned that she can be of no profit to be no return to me the same pure love with which he feels herself well by me she sets herself
to repaying my the through the means i established her neighbors they are the ones to whom you must be of service to stay as i told you that every virtue is realized through your neighbors that's a very powerful line years this up woman who had the beginning could barely read or write and she
he has all this sublime theology out of her lived experience of jesus his love for her but she says every christian virtue is realize precisely in and through our encounter with the neighbor
and up so that inevitably the fullness of the second commandment is realized with two other
and this as we mentioned this morning mean so excruciating suffering offering often because i risk being open not only to my own ups and downs in earth stuff but to any suffering any grief and depression in the set back of my neighbors
oh it's an incredibly hot challenging way of the cross
i don't know how many of you saw the film of shadowlands cs lewis
he up he was fascinated by this theme of love and suffering and how they go together and he said if you walk this way of love you and inevitably open yourself up to the deepest of suffering the other hand if you close yourself to love the suffering will be there but in a repressed kind of denied way
that is incredibly of sicker at least as we open in love to the other and risk the suffering involved that's a suffering that somehow purifies somehow transforms but then if you remember in the film is one thing to say on this but it's another thing too
the absolutely blown away by the suffering of the beloved
and wondering what on earth is at all about et cetera so christianity doesn't offer any easy answers to this problem of the suffering of the beloved other which is the heaviest cross that anyone who are authentically bugs has to bear but at least it gives us this lived example of fun
the suffering servant on the cross was there up with us and for us
ah
so that
we're talking just about the horizontal if you like with the second commandment
but in the christian perspective it can't be just that whenever i truly open up to love of my neighbor as st catherine says that is simply aren't the sharing of the love i received this is a copy love again this isn't just a neat law this isn't just wanting the
other for myself but this is of unconditional gift love and this is coming in and through me so to kind of let that happen and so we're already talking about love of god
love of god in the sense of god's love that the anglo-saxon genitive the so wonderful because it can mean the love of god that is the love that has its source from god for me but also for all of humanity but it can also mean our love for god or can be just a godly love love
kind of which are binds in god because precisely it is love whoever abides in bob abides in god because god is love
so this is the catholic and i think anglican theology of large that it is one love one a guppy
force and energy with which we are loved from god with which we love ourselves and with which we love one another when we're truly loving as christian
some theology is have very different kind of loves who the danger up also the young lutheran theologian niagara who distinguishes radically god's love from our love and our love is always on it and tired a different plane and it's always have the for and done
and calculating and amped up i just basically utilizing the other etc excepted moments of pure
goal but in this other i think more optimistic theology also the orthodox church we can open ourselves up to this incredible ultimate life force which is a guppy which is the one i got be
karl rahner art uses very rigorously it's the same love with which were to love god with which were to love our neighbor with which we are loved
so lucky any questions comments on them
at last supper jesus says a new mm long by you as i see that things running the others unconditionally first of all it also means parade them to herself
so but that means living rooms and that for ourselves
and yet jesus also have time for himself
five looks teams always go after himself pretty so we don't become so concerned with many others left ourselves to him
so i've given you an example on the desired don't you also should do that's the kind of text of right on the job that sustains we feel his thesis that of we can participate in the divine got the and that is that is our highest calling
i mentioned where are we image and likeness of god
well agree that theology of st bernard which i like it's precisely in our capacity to love god islam
and it's of that moment that we become godlike we become one with god and if love has to do with a living the good of the other or willing union with the other this deepest level oh then we become
kind of psychology to the highest a mystical theology of if one proceed to log this way of accounting it's not that it just functions in one area or another but he can provide a way of bringing together just about everything and we'll see hopefully tomorrow if there's time
time that's a way of understanding church when church wants to be as so as community of beloved disciples it's a way of understanding what eucharist is about his a gulping feast what up sacrifices are all about a greater love has no than listening to lay down one's life
et cetera so all the way through suddenly the christian mysteries that can be so various and consume so unrelated one to another can pull together in this one though issue so we have a with yeah it and spell spelling on how
if we truly love that the fear suffering
so on however
hospital a on whatever that tail
so suffering part of love that there's something about the love him that he something
oh i think he'll absolutely
i'm sure my way
there was the suffering on i'm picking from that on
then
karen more
quite sure and i expect
i think is true he end up just to use example the cs lewis movie shadowlands cs lewis at the end of it will be who's been through hell because of his love is quite a difference yes louis than this yes it was the beginning who's is extremely successful and brilliant christian act
mission goes to all these women's groups and talks about love and support etc and you ever but he's been profoundly deepen
and ah so that's it and somehow the way of the cross and renders as human jesus uses that beautiful image of the up suffering as birth paintings
oh if it's christian suffering somehow it brings forth newness of life if it's simply a masochist so in some just the opposite it feeds on itself in some kind of dark and destructive way there we have to be very careful cause if we do have all this bad self image bred into us
some out by our culture we have all kinds of masochistic impulses also and the flipside of that is a sadistic etc and to be careful of that also religiosity up some see a policies which is kind of institutionalized sme
i have been the and is simply mother superior speeding on poor know some things are and on these guilt trips about mortal sin it's understood to break through that but not in a way that i never want to suffer again
and i think that's maybe part also of the have extreme ah insufficiency and inadequacy of consumer society culture where a basically i'm after pleasure base basically like this about being happy kind of thing
and if i'm sorrowing somehow that's bad how are you doing i'm doing fine
so i have my happy face on others so movie that are brother cypriot talks about i hadn't even seen it but but the main thing is to always have your happy face on but to acknowledge suffering and to let it be betting is deeper way the best part of the way
i find that great aroma high school students are kind of desperate materials that prevailed
when they enter aids are finally on the rise search and then and there there's chain and they're they're suffering a fleet to drugs
ha and so this generation of young people on way
i'm very concerned and estimates that
hi or not
even if to luxor post i have a suspicion that all generations you know the incidence of alcoholism monga
so i don't know it's just the young but this is the danger the or incapacity to be there with the suffering to stay with suffering
yeah i have my own pages my my current my to cupola be classes of freshmen students in high school to what their favorite pastime what what will they must like and by five majority and going to the more
good americans yeah
mckinney note it is and if you look at the all the products of madison ave it's just like is one pleasure after another that i'll just drink this whiskey and buy this car and touch down the line smoking cigarettes and central
and is very scary how what a pack of wine incidents we have a and here and again and then encourage me when my son a with that frantic times well as the love that movie as an example copper to our personal transformation
we've been to hours we are out to go through any one time and then it is a day by day process and an enormous service
no to realize that i too
and would want to manage and we wanted to go quick that's another modern thing if it's not quick and grieving and sometimes take a lifetime were all grieving the loss of another of our father dear ones and to let that happen
am i'm sorry we have here to your wish my going to be rigorously checked yet i think i understand one way or the of spirituality and be nice for seeking for said ah mean books and white and the stretch from the for the distance and so
everybody has one that we tended to give the name of spirituality to something tied to leave so in today's world where that has been offered and investment people the spirituality in a hands on a estar en yeah
and i think really that in in the absence of spiritual wisdoms and traditions into this world in america particularly that the bracebridge of eyes become consumers that we that we won't have come to believe that by buying stuff they will have a need for like one more thing
and so that was when it becomes her that he rolls rather the parish churches new spirituality
the to they promise community and sacraments said the whole thing all the things that we have to be an shock in
what tickles our ultimate concern and it might be sex it might be drugs it might be consumerism we need some some faith some a guard some religion just of were so inevitably religious creatures and so if it's not going to be
the god almighty hits going to be one of these other things so that's why i'm spiritually is also the whole prophetically and tearing down the idols i did we have a hand here and then they're young and
i in a lot more
i'm out
never caught fine
bad
enactment and i hear the not a by on my mind now at half time it like our children that's right me my daughter had heard it up those evil that the i've been thinking you're tackling yeah i ever does it
and a half
now when you very long suffering now it happened yet know how you know count down got not you know what like a that
are why i'm here only had half he got on will not just almost been absolutely answer his guilt and faith that's right and what towing is saying is it's not just be christians who have this crazy stunts feet but everyone
the person who commits himself or herself to the wall that's based on faith they can prove that the mall will give them ultimate satisfaction or the whole yuppie v of do with more and fancier electronics is some of them saying to me at lunch ah that's an act of faith
but it's an act of faith as much less convincing if you examine of rigorously than the christian and of thing i read them
hum i creates a about without counting on turn the marriage now where have i went back and enough time with how willing i get your now are stored and that with you have now store
you with french their their lives here that you know whether covenant you're looking at with just as by me
it was almost shocking in their him that has
my any up watching the relationships and the i myself on the last time that i am covenant of what kind and come time changes time and not
name or kind of
they asked me
i would just toss in also for the discussion also an a plea may be to appreciate hidden areas of deep spirituality also in our young guns also when they get into wild stuff and of drugs even in alcohol etc
in the claim can be made that at least sometimes the arrive at that kind of covenant that kind of solidarity that they don't find in the middle class bourgeois world of your politeness and propriety and mom and dad mom's going out to tender sundance going off to the bars be
but i know how many of you have seen some of these wild kind of a fringe films like my own private idaho
for rub basketball diaries recently jim carroll that's based on the true story of this brilliant kid who grows up in yeah no new york jim carroll very profoundly traditional catholic family yeah
he gets into drugs but in that culture and discovers a solidarity preparedness to give everything for one another the clinging to another one another on that some extremely moving and sometimes suck at least moment seventh seem to be paid
the problem fitting
challenges to a very properly the ah city in in this my own private idaho there's this wild scene where the street kids are are grieving ah blasphemy over and celebrating the funeral that their beloved the guy who has died
i'd and on the other side of a hill in the cemetery there's a very proper catholic funeral going on he's very wealthy
and there's as contracts and you have to ask which is the true literature you know and i think the film suggests you know the kids
and where maybe half stoned and but they truly love one another new truly greedy and so that's your leading i toss and that we don't get into a kind of odd
a parasitical their wrong were right come to think that also here where's their grief and anxiety coming from and why do they get into these desperate forms that are so evidently self destructed and many worried to self destructive patterns they're much more proper light gun the bridge club but the
tennis you know and following the stock market and central just a thought but there's not so much so suggestions that true spirituality is happening in these bizarre inches of society thomas merton was saying that the real
ally of the monk is the is the hippie is the other the aren't stop there
not junkie consists of the victim and hits family albert is also very
was hurt other hand yes
that in language that came out low enough that you know ah i don't have yeah of funny how to drive that won't happen you
the one on one elena
why i'm lagging like up
why
got him and he had a lot only not really into the alchemy that you and i like him to come back oh how they like the i wish talk about lovely and i tell ship
are the only now me that the weight on on empty one glad i had a twinkle in our it now we keep talking a new identify will look at me that when i replace people that of it can go in and he
i think which which i get it
i know they now come from available online
oh hadn't laughing in the one that has the big apple up the challenging in the world and he complained about the even at which valley and and five will have to have know which allow for it all down and he also said
really ago and calculated you go after the love and challenge you name it the or company now alive well and all that it is not an object in felt that something should have a battle now land half
and ah about it what about about christian isn't an complication or isn't it on our wall collapsed in and talk about without that not little bit now been titled in the end of the that have is valid a talent that it's rifle
it and let them eat it was doing would enjoy that than it was that
of will try to think try to dry
well i think this is a huge topic of how to evangelize basically in the best sensor at he me that i talked to the night they had a thirty with
i've found that out the online will check into and i would be rather than given that it will be held as after you've i i'm probably our understanding it on me if the a m and i will have to do it and that seven i two chip and out an image myself and and
that will never come and i think the how to i hope you won't have expectations it will be better that there are of whole groups that are exploring the theme of how do evangelism today evangelism in the best sense of announcing the good news for
of all to ourselves we need that night and then up to others around us and fear there's a whole range of proposals of or most stump pastoral approaches etc so i would just suggest that it's not that religion spirituality god is with some place
is a god is everywhere i'm working everywhere in the most hidden away so part of it is been there but i would think that the bottom line we could offer here in terms of our topic is love that is if you just love the other or the others you might try this strategy you might try that strategy but sooner
later this will have an impact might be years down the lines but if any one perceives that their authentically truly loved not even explode exploitive way not to have proselytize or because i got the truth and you have but truly concerned for the wellbeing of the other that's astonishing
in that always
that's i think the basic how to jesus as they will know you are my disciples by your love kind of thing so that any and ah
ah a manage a manufacturer of had him into a lot of it and even if never been on that that he had on of that people would have been love yeah idol and which which
a that yeah yeah it's certainly an indictment of what's happening in christianity this is a christian nation and dumped millions of christians all over the world and done ah but there's this extreme poverty so i think this op-ed
and however many churches we have how much money in the vatican etc this causes back to deep humility and that's an important starting place and i think reverence i can dialogue with the other awareness of god is working through the other of we can't have a a model according to which the world is
getting less less less christian war more post-christian we can get anxious about that etc
this is widely discussed and debated a very serious american sociologist of of religion or andrew greeley he argues that we're not getting away from deep commitment to god as we get more secular he says the the to are not opposite at all and he said we are
as fully as spiritual a society today as we were in the middle ages as we were in the sixth century to it's a great history but their ways of exploring this as he has so without falling into anxiety where i think without falling into great ambitions of up we've got to get this many congrats to our particular day
nomination for something but i think again in terms of our we can the bottom line is our lord summing up in those commandments should we do that will be doing what we call to do
so jesus takes his first apostle peter and to guarantee that he'll for 'em up the other apostles do you love me
feed my lambs it's from that place that we can not really fruitfully ministering yes
and he nine
an
worked
too often time
yet
let him come back
check have half
and time and time again or maybe
oh i like a little
no no no i had yeah
and now and written winning
i am my home your lab county
wow
oh no he would not
yet
i'm gonna come here
i met
while hip hop
what happened i can relate
my own children allowing
the youngest in every package add out
no sharing
he had come a long way
the i
oh gee
the of
we have name
and yesterday
should
and will my family
wow
he would never know what and eleven jan
hello
one
that's lovely
hear very nest egg
me
he he well one can i do too
change the english on one july two key
indeed
my i yes file
power of prayer i just have
last call
i don't want it when might not apply for me not now
he go can get his lab coffee
hi
i think it's right on each one of us i think had as a call to a specific place and it's there will recall to love and it can be extremely efficacious maybe not in terms of hundreds of thousands of suddenly doing god knows what but in terms of maybe one mine radically changed
when am i greece's that i can't go back and find a couple of teachers at least in junior high and absolutely changed my life in terms of i don't know if you're a christian but in terms of their commitment to my good to just dump turned around my perspective and also friends with
zandra so i think it is this miracle sometimes we plant a seed and we can be only years later that may it a word or have been available for something but the role of the teach writing is absolutely sacramental and ah if you're there at your way to i think
witness to the good news i do we take one more question and edward quite over and there was a conclude i heard session thank you for this rich discussion so yes that a common
on curse i it
and i too
have no more experiences that has their classes at school scotus antigen one he will get my kids and i never knew why things a total had influence than mls system while scraping his death a word that i hope this guy with
what can being pushed to sick it
the was very particular
contrived man is very calm down
this is you know we tell about that was think abstract that the enactment of love is very particular in particular at a particular moment in a particular way of being the person in a particular moment in a particular whatever it's very pretty
mm
and we never know last night where where it's going to go
so i have come to
used to understand that may be clear that's that's a lesson in another for me because i can influence a lot of people i can only in a particular person in particular loan
and i never know what that's what it may not be what by idiots
that's right and we don't have to depend on success britain says on if anything expect unsuccessful have much of the ideology of modern societies bigness a big success of thing you can't be as a failure but some ways of reading the crisis this ultimate failure of jesus
a few disciples scattering denying the sintra so up that particularity i think that's right on and another way of expressing that is it's incarnate and it's a in fleshed and it's person to person
chesterton has said delightful limerick
i learned this trick and i learned it without labor to love all of humanity and to hate my next door neighbor and is a man
jack have will see that that this is the difficulty the person right there next to me with whom i called to work that's the problem not the great term fields have eventually some over the hill and instead of all right i thought a lot of national l actor
the challenge of over point is that said on problem a contribution higher london not the current position in a hallway is that some worry and that new happen
data mining a bunch of without come effect in the opening along the
on
well first weekend the help you to an to accomplish that never thirty factory now need with for the position and involving to go out and that whatever will be it the only that finance now
that define to either either way and i think that that was very carefully they've made a dramatic change
now with the environment with are particularly funny really important to me but i didn't realize that you don't come out from voucher plan and women actually that jump from not yet thirty on the you think i that's right i got some ways it's produced to
get back from the level of doing in achieving to the level just to be should say in a predisposition with and guess right on interested up i watched given of natalie i think i deserve what am i doing it you can be what be an employee right
coverage that were very bad and canada effects and i get helpful
this enables us to get back to kind of a contemplative place where do we allow ourselves to be and we just have kind of
abide in the i am god
that but we concluded with each other tomorrow morning and
can day