skip to main |
skip to sidebar
"In a sense, I guess I did read my way into the Church. But I didn’t reason my way. I was drawn in large measure by envy of Joyce, who had been raised in a Catholic Church that had spiritual and imaginative power, and that went on haunting him after he had left. I couldn’t imagine writing an autobiographical novel to compare with Joyce’s Portrait, about a young woman who grew up singing 'On Eagle’s Wings.'"
Julia Yost, as interviewed by Matthew Schmitz in "A conversation between two converts," First things, 12 November 2018, an excerpt from the book Mind, heart, and soul: intellectuals and the path to Rome, ed. Robert P. George and R. J. Snell (TAN Books, 2018).
"There’s a lot of talk about how Catholics have something called the 'sacramental imagination.' Often this is said sentimentally, as if Catholics were romantic savages who view everything as suffused with wonderment and beauty, enchanted people who climb up and down the rungs of the analogy of being. This is a way of talking around the actual content of the faith. What the sacramental imagination should mean, first of all, is actual belief in the sacraments: Marriage is indissoluble and ordained by God. Christ is present in the Eucharist and must be revered. My grandparents in their concern for my baptism were much better examples of the sacramental imagination than all the faith-in-fiction litterateurs combined. The sacrament of baptism was real to them, and so long as I went without it, they feared my damnation. They had the sacramental imagination in that cold, narrow sense. My parents did not."
Matthew Schmitz, as interviewed by Julia Yost in "A conversation between two converts," First things, 12 November 2018, an excerpt from the book Mind, heart, and soul: intellectuals and the path to Rome, ed. Robert P. George and R. J. Snell (TAN Books, 2018).
"son amour n'est durable que si son esprit est nourri."
Bernard-Marie Chevignard, O.P., "Formation spirituelle," Dictionnaire de spiritualité 5 (1964), cols. 705 (cols. 699-716).
"It is also necessary to safeguard without let-up the essential contemplative function of the liturgy, which demands an appreciation for [(le sens de)] sacred silence. Silence and song are the privileged expressions of human communion. A liturgical celebration that culminates [(s'achever)] spontaneously in silence gives proof of its religious quality. Monastic wisdom knows how to effect [(sait)] this, for it always mixes silent prayer into the divine office".
"It is necessary to respect profoundly the freedom of the Holy Spirit. If there is no Church, are no Christians without sacraments; if there is no fundamental spiritual formation without incorporation into Christ dead and risen—[an incorporation] accomplished organically via the sacraments and the grace of Pasch experienced in the liturgy—, there are, however, very different ways and degrees of leading the life of the liturgy. In fact, practically [speaking], silent prayer can center a life more than the liturgy. There is no spiritual formation that does not aim at the one as well as the other. Meanwhile a grave deficiency in liturgical life [such as a lack of silence] would be a fundamental omission in spiritual formation".
Bernard-Marie Chevignard, O.P., "Formation spirituelle," Dictionnaire de spiritualité 5 (1964), cols. 710-711 (cols. 699-716).
"The spiritual Christian is thus a man objectively formed [('objectivement formé' or 'ordonné')] for real life. The theological virtues center him on God himself and render him docile to him. By them he is able to live and breathe in God [(sait respirer en Dieu)]. Under the inspiration of God, the moral virtues govern his human steps along [(dans)] the difficult paths of life. Whatever the words employed by the spiritual [writers]—discretion, prudence, strength [(force)], etc.—there is no serious spiritual formation that is not devoted to looking life straight in the face [(regarder la vie en face)] and taking it up with the grace of God and under [(dans)] the inspiration [(souffle, also breath or blast)] of the theological virtues. Supernatural prudence and Christian strength are its pivots; lucidity, courage, a sense of one's responsibilities, even confrontation are its conditions."
Bernard-Marie Chevignard, O.P. on how "The grace of Christ forges in the soul the courageous virtues of life," "Formation spirituelle," Dictionaire de spiritualité 5 (1964), col. 702 (cols. 699-716). According to Chevignard, the supernatural virtues tend to "wed" themselves to (épouser, to marry, wed, espouse; take up, assume) the natural structures of the soul.
"Never in any case whatever is a genuine effort of the attention wasted. It always has its effect on the spiritual plane and in consequence on the lower one of the intelligence, for all spiritual light lightens the mind.
"If we concentrate our attention on trying to solve a problem of geometry, and if at the end of an hour we are no nearer to doing so than at the beginning, we have nevertheless been making progress each minute of that hour in another more mysterious dimension. Without our knowing or feeling it, this apparently barren effort has brought more light into the soul. The result will one day be discovered in prayer. . . . it may very likely be felt in some department of the intelligence. . . . But it is certain that this effort will bear its fruit in prayer. There is no doubt whatever about that. . . .
". . . Even if our efforts of attention seem for years to be producing no result, one day a light that is in exact proportion to them will flood the soul. . . . The useless efforts made by the Curé d'Ars, for long and painful years, in his attempt to learn Latin bore fruit in the marvelous discernment that enabled him to see the very soul of his penitents behind their words and even their silences."
Simone Weil, "Reflections on the right use of school studies with a view to the love of God," in Waiting for God, trans. Emma Craufurd (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1951), 106-108. Note, however, this qualification: "If there is a real desire, if the thing desired is really light" (107).
Cf. Hilary of Poitiers.
"in the history of the mind as in that of towns, the ruins [of a civilization] expose the bedrock [(les fondations)] that, in the case of man, is a matter not of what he constructed, but of what is innate."
"dans l'histoire de l'esprit comme dans celle des villes, les ruines mettent toujours à nu les fondations qui, dans le cas de l'homme, relèvent non du construit mais de l'inné."
Gustave Martelet, S.J., "Information du monde et résurrection du Christ," in Penser la foi: recherches en théologie aujourd'hui: mélanges offerts à Joseph Moingt, ed. Joseph Doré and Christoph Theobald (Paris: Éditions du Cerf/Assas Éditions, 1993), 1056 (1053-1061). relèver (but without de) can also mean to raise, even erect. Unfortunately, relèvent du/de is, in any case, in the present.
"In a sense, I guess I did read my way into the Church. But I didn’t reason my way. I was drawn in large measure by envy of Joyce, who had been raised in a Catholic Church that had spiritual and imaginative power, and that went on haunting him after he had left. I couldn’t imagine writing an autobiographical novel to compare with Joyce’s Portrait, about a young woman who grew up singing 'On Eagle’s Wings.'"
