The philosopher Paul Ricoeur compared reading a text to the execution of a musical score, an analogy that highlights the plurality of possible readings while keeping those readings situated in the text. Just as each musical performance of Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto differs from all others, even those others performed by the same musician, while still remaining true (or false) to the score, so too will each reading of Moby-Dick differ and realize new semantic possibilities of Melville’s novel. Each reading of a text and each execution of a score involves interpretation; each interpretation brings forth more than the intended and inherent meanings of the text and sheet. What the author and composer write functions more as a guide for interpretation than a dictator of meaning. Nevertheless, the reader has no more liberty to make the text mean anything he wants it to mean than the musician has the liberty to play impromptu melodies when performing Chopin. Reading is an exercise of pluralism, not relativism. It gives birth to a surplus of meaning, not its absence.
Deal Hudson at Inside Catholic wrote recently about the divisions in the pro-life movement over the Personhood Initiative, a nation-wide effort to legally define “personhood” as beginning at the moment of conception. The testing ground for the initiative was Colorado, where the movement’s founder, an admirable 19 year-old by the name of Kristi Burton, hails from. The lowdown, according to Deal, is that,
Colorado voters turned down the amendment by a stunning 73 percent to 27 percent, in spite of support from Focus on the Family, American Life League, and legal advice from the Thomas More Law Center. But the effort had failed to gain the support of either National Right to Life (NRTL) or the Colorado Catholic Conference.
Whether or not that extra support would have resulted in a less unbalanced result, I cannot say. For those wondering why the Catholic Conference, and many American bishops are hesitant to embrace the PI, the concern was apparently that if it were taken to, and shot down by, the Supreme Court, it would have the effect of “actively reaffirm[ing] the mistaken jurisprudence of Roe.” According to Deal, however, some Catholic bishops are reconsidering their position on the PI.
Not long ago, in the context of the debate over the efforts of Bart Stupak and the pro-life Dems, I wrote about pro-life pragmatism. I argued that the much-derided “incrementalism” is actually the most viable way of winning the long-term war against the abortion industry in light of the facts about where the American electorate stands on abortion. With respect to the PI, and with all due respect to the founders and supporters of this movement, I must reaffirm that position.
Despite my disagreement with his position on interrogations, I have to give credit to Marc Thiessen for at times using the term “coercive interrogations” for those controversial methods he believes do not reach the level of torture. Unlike the adjectives “enhanced,” “aggressive,” or “harsh,” which tell us next to nothing definitive about the interrogation methods, the adjective “coercive” has a clear-cut meaning.
Coercing someone differs from motivating someone, even when painful possibilities or realities are used as instruments of motivation. Motivation works with a person’s will. Coercion works to undermine it. Coercion forces one to act involuntarily, without volition or will. It forces a one to act contrary to their nature as a person, as a free moral agent.
We can distinguish coercive interrogation techniques from torture not because torture doesn’t involve coercion – it does – but because not all coercive techniques involve the infliction of severe physical or mental pain. Torture is one type of coercion.
Contrary to Thiessen, I oppose all coercive interrogation techniques, whether or not those techniques fall into the category of torture. Why? Because coercion is a sin against the person; it reduces the one coerced into a mere means to an end, and does so by stripping him of his capacity to make free, moral decisions. To be sure, we may take away a person’s liberty by putting him in prison, but the prisoner is for that imprisonment no less of a free, moral agent, capable of making free, moral decisions. But to coerce a person is to render them less than a person.
Thiessen would call me a radical pacifist for holding this position, a label I wouldn’t be quick to shake off, but he would be more accurate to call me a personalist. Personally, I think a society that disrespects the person is not long for the world.
Experience the Bible like never before.
That is the promise of Glo, the worlds newest, most technologically advanced interactive Bible.
But what makes it so different from a standard biblical text?
The multi-faceted computer-based creation does things a conventional Bible cannot, bringing the Word of God to life through HD video images, animations, maps, 360-degree virtual tours and more.
With thousands of photos and encyclopaedic articles, there is a diverse array of visual imagery to accompany the Bible’s text.
Glo also allows you to read through the Word of the Lord, in anyway you see fit. You can look up where a biblical event took place, check out timelines for the Bibles events or use the search tool to find specific topics or themes.
MyGlo, you can take your personal Biblical experience to a new level by setting up reading plans and goals. Or simply type in your mood for the day and Glo will pull up passages tailored to your own emotions.
H/T to Fr. Steve.
The Glo Bible can be purchased for $59.99 or 2 for $99.99. It sell in stores for $89.99
What do you all think of this? It could be a great tool, especially for classroom use. But I am very wary of introducing technology into a regular experience of the bible. Multimedia seems to often work against real prayer and reflection, distracting and entertaining instead.
In Part 1 I reflected on the disillusionment and frustration suffered by those who, through misinformation, thought that NFP would require little sacrifice. Here I shall more closely consider a second, probably smaller group of people who, we shall assume, have an adequate perception of all that NFP entails, but have encountered extra-ordinary issues with discerning or charting fertility, problems which are often biological in nature. These issues can place great strain on their marriage and may require different types of ministry. How can we offer support to those who must exert incredible effort in order to properly practice NFP while remaining faithful to what they have discerned to be responsible and prudent family planning?
Before attempting to answer our question we ought to more clearly describe these extra-ordinary issues. read more…
Several months ago I wrote a post in honor of National NFP Awareness. One of the commenters, Brett from Vox-Nova, asked me to discuss the issues which arise when couples who are sold all the praises of NFP wind up experiencing great difficulties in putting it into practice. They often struggle to discern fertility and become weighed down by guilt as if they were doing something wrong. Some couples who are using NFP out of obedience and do not understand Church teaching on the issue may be tempted to reject Church teachings over their difficulties and abandon NFP. Brett is “convinced we need to do some serious ministry to those who struggle with NFP.” I concur, and now that I have a few spare moments I hope to offer my own reflections based in part on personal experiences and on those of friends and acquaintances.
It seems there are two separate but related issues. read more…
A series of recent events has returned my thoughts toward the literary significance of the Final Fantasy videogames. My nieces and nephew received a Playstation 2 for Christmas, routine and repetitive duties at work called for some soul-lifting melodies courtesy of Nobuo Uematsu, and three weeks without home Internet access, while giving me an opportunity to get some book reading done, did invite the temptation to break out Final Fantasy XII and complete a few still awaiting side quests. I did spend more time reading than playing. Really.
Each game in the series, with an exception or two, has its own world, cast of characters, themes and plot. Each presents an anachronistic blend of futuristic technology, magic, monsters, medieval weapons and armor, and names referencing myriad mythologies from East and West. In pretty much all the games, though, the villain is marked by the desire to become a god, usually by means of some dark magic that involves mass murder and mass destruction. Chaos, the clownish and mad Kefka, the consummate soldier Sephiroth, Exdeath, the sorceress Ultimecia, the summoner Yu Yevon, Vayne Solidor: each, in his or her own devilish way, threatens the world in a murderous pursuit of false divinity. They seek eternal life through the death of others. The heroes, on the other hand, show real grace by their sacrifices of love and loving willingness to give their own lives. Aeris comes immediately to mind, of course, but I’m thinking also of Zidane, Balthier, Terra and others.
While organized religion plays into some Final Fantasy stories more than others, religiosity is a theme central to them all due to the aims and methods of the villains and the responses of the heroes. Indeed, the religion of Final Fantasy is not foreign to the story of Christianity. Where I hear the villains shouting, “We will be like gods,” I hear the song of sacred self-giving love in the struggled breaths of our heroes.
Mark Shea directs my attention to a defense of torture by Rep. Aaron Schock, who doesn’t muddy the waters with euphemisms, but says plainly, “I don’t believe that we should limit waterboarding – or, quite frankly, any other alternative torture technique – if it means saving Americans’ lives.” Shea draws out some flesh and blood ramifications of this sort of thinking. Of course, if physical salvation really is the greatest good, as it is all too often positioned, then anything of lesser value, everything really, can and should be sacrificed in its name. The saviors of Americans’ lives raise all manner of sins to virtuous and heroic deeds. Relativism reigns, as our saviors and their defenders, such Rep. Schock, posit a realm – acts intended to save Americans’ lives – as free from the applications of morality. If anything is justified as long as it saves American’s lives, then there is no moral truth that applies in all places, time, and circumstances. This is the ethic that accompanies the gospel of political and material salvation.
Von Balthasar on how Erich Przywara’s thought anticipated some of the conciliar teaching, but also offered the corrective which may have prevented some of the unintended results and upheaval following the council:
[Przywara] had long anticipated the opening of the Church to the world [das All] that came with the Council, but he possessed in addition the corrective that has not been applied in the way that the Council’s [teachings] have been inflected and broadly put into practice: namely, the elemental, downright Old Testament sense for the divinity of God, who is a consuming fire, a death-bringing sword, and a transporting love. Indeed, he alone possessed the language in which the word “God” could be heard without that touch of squeamishness that has led to the tepid, half-hearted talk of the average theology of today. He lives like the mythical salamander in the fire: there, at the point where finite, creaturely being arises out of the infinite, where that indissoluble mystery holds sway that he baptized with the name analogia entis.
from Von Balthsar, “Erich Przywara,” in Tendenzen der Theologie im 20. Jahrhundert, ed. Hans Jürgen Schulz (Stuttgart and Berlin: Kreuz Verlag, 1966), p. 354f.
As some of you may know the Archdiocese of Washington, DC and the City Council of DC have recently been at odds over a new proposal. The tension seems to be over the requirement that Catholic Charities would be forced to offer adoptions to homosexual couples.
Before reading Archbishop Weurl’s op-ed you should check out the Post’s original column, a commentary by Thomas Reese, SJ, and blog posts by Henry Karlson and Morning’s Minion.
Without further ado, the Archbishop’s column, which will be printed in the Sunday Op-Ed column.
What do you think?
In his book The Nature of Doctrine, George Lindbeck wants to offer a new theological theory of religion and doctrine because he feels the two currently active fail to offer real opportunity for ecumenical results.
He describes the types as follows: read more…
Considering the continually growing voices of atheists in our society, who make arguments against religion on grounds that religion is unreasonable and even immoral, I was taken aback upon opening The Texas Catholic and seeing an editorial about how it’s foolish to argue with atheists. The Catholic News Service editorialist asserts, without any evidence, that atheists have a hidden agenda and have set their will against believing. Therefore, they won’t let you convince them.
I could point to a number of blogs by former atheists who became convinced of God’s existence, and I doubt not that I could find blogs by former theists turned atheists. Believers and unbelievers change their minds. Struggles happen, evidence is considered, arguments are made, and minds change. There’s no universal hidden agenda here.
In his editorial, Fr. Father John Catoir continues to assert that theists shouldn’t argue with atheists because atheists laugh at theists at their mentioning of angels. Atheists are in denial, he says, and “would rather enjoy their delusion than admit they are subject to God and his supreme law.” It couldn’t be that atheists are atheists because they have come to the conclusion that their position is true, could it?
The editorial concludes:
The next time an atheist asks you to prove that God exists, just say, “I don’t have to. God will do that for you one second after your death.”
Or say, “Albert Einstein is arguably the most brilliant scientist in the history of the world. He was convinced that there has to be a supreme intelligence behind the universe. Are you smarter than Einstein?”
With all due respect, if I were to say such things to my atheist friends, they would deride me, and they would be right to do so. I understand that the arguments of Aquinas, Anselm, Descartes, and others may not have the sway the once had, but these snarky gibes just aren’t the way to spread the Good News in our postmodern society.
Should the warning attributed to Edmund Burke – that all that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing – itself cause us some concern? The answer depends on how we interpret the warning: in particular, what we mean by the implied “something” that good people must do else evil triumph.
We can find the idea that evil might triumph over the whole world at play in a contemporary collective imagination, an imagination fed by the fears of terrorism, weapons of mass murder, the social and economic collapse of civilization, foreign ideologies, and even political opponents. In the world created by this play of ideas, images, and fears, we narrate evil as something exterior to us that resides in our enemies, and we imagine ourselves and our instruments and our ideas as forming the necessary weaponry in the fight against evil. We see ourselves as the true hope for the world, as the knights who will deliver us all from evil’s triumph. We, the good people, are the solution to the problem of evil.
In the Christian imagination, evil is seen as something both caused by us, all of us, and something (yet not a thing) already present before we exercise our freedom, before we are even born. Evil corrupts us, makes us less that what we ought to be, and separates us from God. From the Christian standpoint, the solution to the problem of evil is grace: God’s power, not ours. The ultimate response to evil, the divine response, isn’t destruction or prevention, but salvation. Though we are not saviors, we may participate in God’s act of saving grace, in his plan of salvation. We can, alas, also refuse salvation and embrace our own destruction.
If we understand the “something” that good people must do as in some way participating in God’s power, as living a life nourished by grace and marked by the virtues, as fundamentally responding to evil as a terror from which only God can save us, then Burke’s warning is of no concern. May good people respond to evil. May our good deeds help prevent the triumph of evil. On the other hand, if by that “something” we mean trusting in our own powers to defeat evil, we will only help push us along toward evil’s triumph.
In his On Christian Teaching, Saint Augustine intends to share knowledge with his reader — knowledge which he hopes will enable them to interpret Sacred Scripture for themselves so as to lead them to union with God and to enable them to share that knowledge via proclamation. He offers a grammar or rule to aid in the process of illumination and ascent. He explains that in order to understand scripture properly, we must be aware of it in its entirety, we must be aware of the way in which the tradition interprets it, and we must understand everything according to the rule of love and the rule of faith. In other words, if my perception of any “ambiguous” text favors a depiction of God which is unloving or contrary to the deposit of faith, then I am interpreting a figurative passage too literally, a literal passage too figuratively, or I just don’t get it. The problem is with my comprehension, not with the text.
Augustine’s approach is one firmly grounded in faith, but he demands that his reader attain a liberal knowledge of the secular sciences to aid in his understanding scripture, which is to say that his position is not fideism at the expense of reason, but a heavy use of reason which is purified from false conceptions by faith.
I am no Biblical scholar, but it is interesting to note the contrast between Augustine’s rules and the standard approach which most modern biblical scholars seem to take. Their use of the historical-critical method often seems to me to rely on reason and the secular sciences too heavily, to dissect the text sometime for great insight, but also often at the expense of the faith. When a problematic text arises, many times all interpretations offered by tradition are cast aside to root out the problem. The problem is not presumed to be in our comprehension, but in the inspired text itself.
I do not mean to say that the historical-critical method is necessarily or intrinsically a bad method, but often it is used on the literal sense to the neglect (and implicit derision?) of the other sense of scriptural interpretation.
Should not our approach to God’s self-revelation be less scientific, more prayerful, more humble? Would not such an approach as Augustine recommends better aid those attempting to ascend to God in holiness?
“When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less.”
- Humpty Dumpty, who, we learned today, has an apparent influence on the Nobel Peace Prize Committee.
This is probably not news to most of you, but I thought it worthy of a post… From Common Dreams:
The G20 in Pittsburgh showed us how pitifully fearful our leaders have become.
What no terrorist could do to us, our own leaders did.
Out of fear of the possibility of a terrorist attack, authorities militarize our towns, scare our people away, stop daily life and quash our constitutional rights.
For days, downtown Pittsburgh, home to the G20, was a turned into a militarized people-free ghost town. Sirens screamed day and night. Helicopters crisscrossed the skies. Gunboats sat in the rivers. The skies were defended by Air Force jets. Streets were barricaded by huge cement blocks and fencing. Bridges were closed with National Guard across the entrances. Public transportation was stopped downtown. Amtrak train service was suspended for days.
In many areas, there were armed police every 100 feet. Businesses closed. Schools closed. Tens of thousands were unable to work.
Four thousand police were on duty plus 2500 National Guard plus Coast Guard and Air Force and dozens of other security agencies. A thousand volunteers from other police forces were sworn in to help out.
…
Since no terrorists showed up, those in charge of the heavily armed security forces chose to deploy their forces around those who were protesting.
Not everyone is delighted that 20 countries control 80% of the world’s resources. Several thousand of them chose to express their displeasure by protesting.
Unfortunately, the officials in charge thought that it was more important to create a militarized people-free zone around the G20 people than to allow freedom of speech, freedom of assembly or the freedom to protest.
…
Then a group of young people decided that they did not need a permit to express their human and constitutional rights to freedom. They announced they were going to hold their own gathering at a city park and go down the deserted city streets to protest the G20. Maybe 200 of these young people were self-described anarchists, dressed in black, many with bandanas across their faces.
…
This drove the authorities crazy.
Battle dressed ninja turtles showed up at the park and formed a line across one entrance. Helicopters buzzed overhead. Armored vehicles gathered.
The crowd surged out of the park and up a side street yelling, chanting, drumming, and holding signs. As they exited the park, everyone passed an ice cream truck that was playing “It’s a small world after all.” Indeed.
Any remaining doubts about the militarization of the police were dispelled shortly after the crowd left the park. A few blocks away the police unveiled their latest high tech anti-protestor toy. It was mounted on the back of a huge black truck. The Pittsburgh-Gazette described it as Long Range Acoustic Device designed to break up crowds with piercing noise. Similar devices have been used in Fallujah, Mosul and Basra Iraq. The police backed the truck up, told people not to go any further down the street and then blasted them with piercing noise.
The crowd then moved to other streets. Now they were being tracked by helicopters. The police repeatedly tried to block them from re-grouping ultimately firing tear gas into the crowd injuring hundreds including people in the residential neighborhood where the police decided to confront the marchers. I was treated to some of the tear gas myself and I found the Pittsburgh brand to be spiced with a hint of kelbasa. Fortunately I was handed some paper towels soaked in apple cider vinegar which helped fight the tears and cough a bit. Who would have thought?
After the large group broke and ran from the tear gas, smaller groups went into commercial neighborhoods and broke glass at a bank and a couple of other businesses. The police chased and the glass breakers ran. And the police chased and the people ran. For a few hours.
…
The G20 leaders left by helicopter and limousine.
Pittsburgh now belongs again to the people of Pittsburgh. The cement barricades were removed, the fences were taken down, the bridges and roads were opened. The gunboats packed up and left. The police packed away their ninja turtle outfits and tear gas and rubber bullets. They don’t look like military commandos anymore. No more gunboats on the river. No more sirens all the time. No more armored vehicles and ear splitting machines used in Iraq. On Monday the businesses will open and kids will have to go back to school. Civil society has returned.
It is now probably even safe to exercise constitutional rights in Pittsburgh once again.
The USA really showed those terrorists didn’t we?
How sad is that?
Today marks the expected delivery date of our daughter Vivian Marie, but her birth may be a few weeks away. This is a difficult day for us, both longed for and feared. We learned over Holy Week that our daughter has anencephaly, a rare and fatal condition. Statistics say that about half of the babies diagnosed with this condition make it to term, but those statistics may not be accurate as the typical response to anencephaly is abortion. We hoped during Holy Week and we continue to hope now that we’ll be blessed to share some time with Vivian. Anencephalic babies that survive the birth typically live a few hours to a few days. Vivian continues to be very active, kicking and twisting and bending and stretching. My wife and I want very much to hold her and comfort her and say hello to her before we’re forced to say goodbye. We want our three-year-old son to meet his sister.
The months since April have challenged us physically, emotionally, and spiritually as we’ve prepared for both her birth and burial. We’ve struggled with responding to people who in passing congratulate my wife on the pregnancy. What do you say? How do you say it? We’ve had to respond many times but still lack a definitive answer to those questions. Many people around us know about Vivian’s condition, and the support we’ve received from our family, friends, parishioners, neighbors, and even strangers has been an awesome blessing to us, but many others do not know and won’t find out until they see us post-birth with no baby in our arms. We’ve also faced uncertainty about what it means to be good parents to Vivian. We plan to baptize her, but we won’t be able to raise her in the faith. We won’t be able to educate her or play with her. We can’t fix her condition. We couldn’t have prevented it. Nevertheless, we have loved her and will continue to love her. We have suffered with her and will continue to suffer with her. She may not know us, but her not knowing us doesn’t prevent our presence to her. Whatever happens, we will be with her.
Motherhood is bound up with the structure of the woman as person. John Paul II reminds us that Man only finds himself through a sincere gift of self, and that this truth about the person leads us to a full understanding of motherhood. Motherhood is the fruit of the marriage union of a man and woman, and this mutual gift of the person in marriage opens to the gift of a new life, another human person.[1] “When a woman agrees to sexual intercourse she consents to God’s direct partnership with her in creating new human life. This is an amazing affirmation of her personhood. With it comes a great responsibility.”[2] For the woman, becoming a mother is an event that consumes much of her energy; she dedicates her entire self to the task of growing, birthing, feeding, and caring for each of her children. Woman finds herself in this giving of herself. Although both the man and the woman are parents, motherhood comprises the most demanding part; parenthood as such is realized more fully in the woman. “It is the woman who ‘pays’ directly for this shared generation, which literally absorbs the energies of her body and soul. It is therefore necessary that the man be fully aware that in their shared parenthood he owes a special debt to the woman.”[3] A man is somewhat separated from his own child, but the woman gives her very body over for the sake of the child. They exist together, and in a sense, it is woman who gives the child his personhood, for it is in the relationship between mother and child that the child becomes a person and not a mere individual. John Paul II writes, “‘Communion’ has to do with the personal relationship between the ‘I’ and the ‘thou’…. On the human level, can there be any other ‘communion’ comparable to that between a mother and a child whom she has carried in her womb and then brought to birth?”[4] Therefore, “it is essential that the husband should recognize that the motherhood of his wife is a gift.”[5]
Washington Archbishop Donald W. Wuerl is plunging the Catholic Church deeper into the battle over legalizing same-sex marriage in the District, a tactic that could complicate the D.C. Council’s efforts to quickly take up the matter this fall.
Wuerl sent a letter to 300 local Catholic priests Tuesday reminding them about the Church’s opposition to same-sex marriage, and he launched a round of media interviews to bolster the church’s presence in the debate.
In his efforts to mobilize Catholics, Wuerl joins a group of Baptist, predominantly African American preachers in stepping up the pressure on D.C. officials to allow a public vote on whether same-sex marriage should be legalized.
“We will continue to let the voice of the Church, the teachings of the Church, be heard as clearly as it can be heard,” Wuerl said. “That is why we have sent out so much material to our priests to help them explain this to our faithful people.”
Read the article in its entirety at the Washington Post
Interesting considering his usual low profile. While I agree with the Church’s teaching on the matter, I am not sure what is the most prudent, effective, or compassionate approach. What do you think? I am open to having a reasonable, civil, and respectful dialogue on the issue from a Catholic perspective.
Although American culture is highly individualistic and its emphasis can be quite overpowering, the human tendency toward relationships is still present. Americans across the country still gather in small groups around the country: voluntary associations, country clubs, bowling leagues, church groups, sewing clubs, just to name a few. However, it is necessary to make the distinction between superficial and genuine communities, which Bellah calls lifestyle enclaves and communities of memory, respectively. Bellah notes that lifestyle, as opposed to community, is “fundamentally segmental and celebrates the narcissism of similarity.”[1] Lifestyle enclaves, then, are self-contained groups in which only those with similar tastes and interests gather together. Lifestyle enclaves are sectarian. Due to their heavy reliance on affinity, they tend to create boundaries and fences, where those outside of the group who are dissimilar or different are unwelcomed. They fragment and limit the person, because they offer a narrow view of the world: the only one that is shared in common. Lifestyle enclaves impoverish relationships rather than enrich them. Any attempt on the part of the members to share other skills or values that may contradict or not completely align with the interests of the enclave can be considered a cause for conflict and division. The members of lifestyle enclaves do not enrich one another; they maintain a monologue among each other rather than a dialogue with outsiders. Thus, the search for our selves and for our identity as Christians within the American culture becomes fruitless in these lifestyle enclaves, because these groups do not offer us a window to the world through which we can understand how we fit in it as individuals and as a group. Instead, they are merely a mirror that reflects an image that we have invented or that we have allowed society to create for us.
I have written a bit over the last year about my problems with technological progress and consumerist ideology. One of the most serious consequences of these trends that I have yet to touch upon is delayed adulthood.
Commentators and social theorists are observing that my generation is not growing up. Young adults now take five years on average to get a bachelor’s degree. Marriage, children, home ownership, and a career that can support them all are each coming much later. In the meantime, my generation is living at home with mom and dad, if not all the time, at least some of the time – I myself have had to move in and out of my parent’s home a few times since I graduated.
Only in modern day Western societies, where the struggle for daily existence has been abolished for the majority of the population, could the phenomenon of delayed adulthood arise. It isn’t just that there are too many college degrees and not enough jobs, though that plays an important role. Prolonged education is a part of delayed adulthood. Millions of young people have absolutely no idea what they want to do, what sort of goals they should set for themselves, or what it is that makes life worth living. Meaningful religion has been scrubbed from most of their lives, replaced with some version of Cafeteria Christianity, New Age occultism, or far more frequently, agnosticism, cynicism, relativism and nihilism.
Edith Stein begins her discussion of vocation by explaining what it means to be called. “A call must have been sent from someone, to someone, for something in a distinct manner.”[1] Furthermore, a calling develops on the basis of one’s ability or gifts. Finally, it is God who calls each human being to a personal calling, and he also calls “man and woman as such to something specific” which can be discerned from Scripture, the nature of man and woman, history, and the needs of the time.[2] Based on the creation accounts in Genesis, Stein then points out that, in the beginning, man and woman were assigned a common vocation: to be in God’s image, to be fruitful and multiply, and to be masters over the earth. Only after the Fall is there a split in the duties assigned to man and to woman.[3] “Sin alters the unity within the couple: in addition to an uneasiness consecutive to sin, the relation between man and woman is transformed into a relation of submission and obedience and their respective vocations become specialized due to a lack of cooperation.”[4] Stein follows the tradition of her time in understanding the subjection of woman to man to be natural and one-sided; later, John Paul II will emphasize mutual subjection as the norm in the redemptive condition of humanity while one-sided subjection is a result of the fallen condition of humanity.[5] Stein begins her discussion of woman’s vocation by noting that woman, in soul and body, is formed for a particular purpose – “woman is destined to be wife and mother.”[6] Some of the things she writes of woman include that she “naturally seeks to embrace that which is living, personal, and whole” and that her natural, maternal yearning is to “cherish, guard, protect, nourish and advance growth.” Lifeless facts for no sake than themselves generally do not hold woman’s interest; “abstraction in every sense is alien to the feminine nature.” That which falls under woman’s care is seen as a concrete whole, a totality, by her. Theory and practicality correspond; “her natural line of thought is not so much conceptual and analytical as it is directed intuitively and emotionally to the concrete.”[7] Stein speaks of woman’s basic spiritual attitude in terms of her destiny to be wife and mother:
[H]er relation to her husband is one of obedience, trust, and participation in his life…; to the child she gives true care, encouragement, and formation of his God-given talents; she offers both selfless surrender and a quiet withdrawal when unneeded. All is based on the concept of marriage and motherhood as a vocation from God; it is carried out for God’s sake and under his guidance.[8]
Stein speaks of woman in terms of her relations to others and how this relates to her vocation; woman is endowed with characteristics that lend to her calling to be spouse and mother. Woman mirrors the divine perfections of knowing, enjoying, and creating in characteristic ways, which are particularly adapted to her role of being companion and mother.[9]
However, Stein does not limit the vocation of woman to that of wife and mother. read more…
M.J. Andrew
Katerina Ivanovna
Joe Hargrave
Kyle R. Cupp
Joshua B
Ashley Marie