Some thoughts on inspiration and seeking:
Never let us live with amousia.
That is C.S. Lewis from Surprised by Joy. Let us never live without the Muses, or rather, without the muse of our souls, the Holy Spirit, who alone makes scripture sweet, others sweet, ourselves sweet, prayer sweet, trees and birds sweet, all things sweet. Without her, life would be pure frozen stasis.
If I spoke to him, he would hear only growlings and roarings. Oh Adam's sons, how cleverly you defend yourselves against all that might do you good!
Lewis again from The Magicians Nephew. Aslan here is speaking about Digory, who cannot hear Aslan speaking words, but only roars. Hearing the Spirit of Christ is not a physical phenomenon. Nor is it non-physical. The physical is transformed, from roarings physically heard, to words spiritually spoken to our hearts. This is Newman's illative sense, where the Holy Spirit points out to us the salient clues to her will.
De Lubac calls a human being in the Mystery of the Supernatural
a creature made out of nothing which, astoundingly, touches God.
Not on the merits of her own strength. Yet if she does not touch God, what terrible loss! Michael O'Brien describes this loss in A Cry of Stone:
It seems to me that it is about losing and finding. And losing again. When everything depends on the finding.
What a despairing thought. So let us pray. Let us listen. Please, please listen. When we pray, the Spirit thaws our hearts, and movement begins again, poetry begins again, the Muse speaks in us again. O'Brien says of this:
All things moved as the poetry in them thawed.
Then they hear and sing.
Markel, SJ
No comments:
Post a Comment