Heythrop College, January 11th
2014
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WORDS AND PRACTICES –
The Rt. Rev. Prof. Rowan Williams
Theology as “The representing and exploring of the meaning
of the word of God.” Theology is
narrative received in the lives of people.
It begins as people wish to know themselves. As a way of life it becomes a way in which I
understand my-self, my embodiment. These
are the areas were meanings are to be understood. Meanings are experienced in that narrative;
reflecting on the truth of who I am. How
do I educate my-self about who I am? The
theologian must have an ear on the wider culture – new meanings are being
created – as they sit before God.
Theology is a way of patience that allows us to sit with the things that
resist being said quickly; with my own and others inarticulacy. It requires self-reflection; patience;
questioning. The Church needs to be a
learning community.
The two basic moments in the Christian revelation are:
i) Exodus;
ii) adoption
and both spring us from the controlled experience to
freedom. Adoption establishes us in a
new identity.
So we look for a language that risks its own freedom. But what might lead us back to un-freedom and
what gestures us towards the contemplation of the Son-becoming? For the self to become where the Son
happens? We need a language that
gestures us towards that. Theology must
edge us towards that theme. What does a
Christian life look like when Christ is ordering it? The theological way-of-life is about adoption
becoming aware of itself.
For a Christian there is no theology which is not
Trinitarian. Theology is a growth in the
adoption process, an awareness of Christ being present. A growth towards being a son of God. Theology is not alien to either silence or
joy; where chatter and anxiety are present, theology needs to re-assert itself.
THE RETURN OF
CONTEMPLATION TO THEOLOGY – Martin Laird
OSA
Theology is a way of life rooted in the stillness of life
for the well-being of others. S. Gregory
the Theologian (Nazianzen) observed that theology needs a proper ground of
formation. In his Oration he says that heterodox theologians delight in inarticulate
and elaborate verbiage, disordered desires and a desire to ‘know about’
God. As a result they have become
obsessed with conundrums, with “boring nonsense”. They talk too much and fuel competition and
violence. Who, then, is the right person
to be a theologian? One who has
undergone purification of body and mind; who has de-cluttered the faculty of
the mind, of wandering images, and is still (Ps 46:10). Who is the proper audience? Those who have, or are, undergoing a similar
experience and do not regard it as yet another “precious amusement”. There is a certain way of living in the
practice of theology involving hospitality, brotherly love, caritas and fasting. Such bodily practices draw us deeper into the
life of stillness. “Inner chatter” fuels
the disordered tongue leading us to compete with others. Without this de-cluttering of the mind we
cannot truly look at ourselves.
When is the right occasion to practice theology? When we have a vast stillness – the stillness
of the ocean – involving purification of the body; de-cluttering of the mind;
the practice of contemplation. Evagrius
observes that practicos reveals how
much we need to be free from practices that prevent us knowing who we are and
knowing God. Pathos hooks us into something else – those afflictive thoughts
which do battle with us. The ‘demons’
offer the ‘sticky side’ to attract those thoughts which rivet attachment to
obsessive patterns thus keeping us ignorant of the inner life of Christ. The antidote is to develop an internal
practice of vigilance; the ability to interrupt as soon as possible our ‘inner videos’, the stories ‘about’ … We need to get out of the story that we
become hooked into and connect to the story of Love.
There are two sources of ‘knowing’. Discursive/conceptual thinking and ‘nous’ – a
non-conceptual, intuitive encounter with that beyond images – the “eye of the
heart” (Augustine). A proper theological
perspective requires the liberation of the mind. Discursive knowledge is necessary but exists
beneath theology. When you close my eyes I began to forget my-self … when I awoke … I saw
… with the eye of the heart. (Augustine – paraphrase). Theresa of Avila says this is like rain
descending from the sky into a pool so it’s impossible to separate the sky from
the pool. This is not the collapse of
created identity but its flowering; the illusion of separation is dropped. The self is like a sea-sponge which looks
within and without and sees nothing but ocean – that in which it exists. ‘The
Lord’s breast is the sponge of the heart’ (Gregory of Nyssa: Commentary on
the Song of Songs).
The practice of theology becomes a way of life when
contemplation practices break through the illusions of the cluttered mind, integrating
the mind in the ocean of the Father’s love, whose “margins are our margins”
But the silence in the
mind
is when we live best,
within
listening distance of
the silence we call God...
It is a presence,
then,
whose margins are our
margins; that call us out over our
own fathoms.
(R.S.Thomas)
AUGUSTINE ON THE
PRATICE OF THE PRESENCE OF GOD – Prof.
Margaret Miles
Augustine insists that when people encounter beauty with a
particular question – Tell me about God –
that beauty reveals its answers and shows the ‘perfect safety of the Universe’. A person functions differently when either
fear or love determines that behaviour: we need to be aware of the weight of
fear we carry.
THE LITURGY, ICONS
AND PRAYER OF THE HEART – The Rev. Prof.
Andrew Louth
Orthodox theology begins and returns with the Liturgy. When we speak of the ‘practice of the
presence of God’, what do we mean by God?
The Divine Liturgy begins with the censing of the iconostasis – this
simple censing includes all things into that circular movement symbolising
God’s love going out and embracing all things into itself. The cycles of prayer are endless – this
constant movement catches us up into itself.
The presence of God is not static but dynamic. The static Exposition of the Blessed
Sacrament and Benediction are absent in Orthodoxy where the altar, icons and
cross are venerated but not the Sacrament.
But the Liturgy of the Pre-Sanctified Gifts involves the veneration of
the Gifts as they are brought to the altar in silence. They are venerated as they move, not when
they are still, as Christ comes to His people.
It is the One who is coming that we venerate.
At the Marriage (and Ordination) services there is a ‘dance’
around the Holy Table (the Dance of Isaiah - http://triceratops.brynmawr.edu/dspace/bitstream/handle/10066/5924/Riak_33_1-2.pdf?sequence=1),
a circular movement that indicates the beginning of an endless movement into
the world (see also Cosmos, Life, and
Liturgy in a Greek Orthodox Village (Romiosyni) by Juliet Du Boulay). These circular movements reflect the circular
movement in village dances which, in themselves, reflect something of the dance
of life.
The practice of the presence of God is about movement and
encounter – from liturgy to life. Presence
is to be understood as encounter inviting a response to Christ and His
saints. Icons are about encounter and
invite a response. The invocation of the
Name of Jesus makes present the Divine Gift and anywhere we are we can be in
His Presence through invoking of the Name – no longer only in the Temple, but
anywhere.
THE GUIDANCE OF S.
EPHREM: A VISION TO LIVE BY – Sebastian
Brock
Ephrem believed that the vast gulf between Creator and
creature could only be bridged by the design of the Creator; otherwise the
creature would know nothing of the Creator.
He did not believe one could define God; instead he uses
paradoxes and rasa (symbolic mysteries)
which give some aspect of Divine reality.
For him, symbols are everywhere present – in nature and in the
Book. They are latent in Creation but
are beheld through the ‘luminous eye’ of the heart. To start functioning, the eye begins to see
with a minimum of faith that there is meaning in life. As it is opened one begins to see the
interconnectedness (synergy) of all things.
Our free-will allows the operation of this interior eye. The eye must be unclouded by sin, have
right-belief (orthodoxy) in the Trinity and love – reciprocal love between God
and creature “Truth and love are wings that cannot be separated” (Ephrem). Everything has the potential to become a
sacrament: Ephrem has a love of the metaphor of ‘clothing’ and much of the
language we/scripture employs to describe God’s attributes are reflections of
what we see. ‘God gave what
belonged to Him, and took what belonged to us’ – S. Ephrem on the Incarnation
Mary serves for the locus of every Christian and the
Eucharist is the rasa par excellence
for in both it is the descent of the Holy Spirit that is central.
Ephrem teaches us how to find meaning in life: he shows the
underlying interdependence of all things; the right and just use of free-will,
and the necessity of approaching the biblical text with orthodox belief, love
and an unclouded eye.
THE TRINITY AS OUR
ASCETIC PROGRAMME – Fr. Nicholaï Sakharov
Above the Icon of the Trinity which hangs in the Monastery
of S. John the Baptist in Tolleshunt Knights (Maldon, Essex) is inscribed: Let us make Man in Our Image and Likeness.
S. Sergius of Radonezh (1314
– 1392) made an appeal to the Russian people to the unity "in image of
a Holy Trinity". S. Basil realised
the Trinity as our social/ascetic project rooted in ‘amo ergo sum’ – I love, therefore I am. The Trinity is the universal principle of
unity.
The image of God in man is not static but dynamic – a unity
of Persons; the distance between the prototype – God – and the image – Man – is
not so great. The ‘I’ needs ‘Thou’ to
become ‘I’, but ‘Thou’ needs He or She to become We. Therefore Sobornost/Catholicity is within all
persons – I/Thou/We. The image of God
does not belong to the individual human being but to all humankind. The Trinity manifests itself everywhere – ‘consubstantial’
(same substance), rather than ‘synagogical’ (bringing together): we are in the image of God. We are united to love God with
one heart and
mind. Fr. Sophrony (Archimandrite Sophrony (Sakharov), also Elder Sophrony, a disciple
and biographer of St Silouan the Athonite and compiler of St
Silouan's works, was the founder of the Patriarchal Stavropegic Monastery
of St. John the Baptist, Tolleshunt Knights 1896-1993) emphasised theology required
gestalt (wholeness), the Church,
dogma and ascetic practice. The history
of salvation is to restore this relationship of Unity through Covenant – from that
with Noah (singular) to the whole of Creation.
Obedience, submission and authority. Obedience is not a submission to external
authority but to Love until Love becomes the Commandment by which we live. Anything imposed on free persons has o spiritual
value. We do not submit to authority but
to Love – ‘Thy will be done’. In
Christian obedience we exercise ‘submission’ to love. In Orthodox monasticism one gives obedience
not to a Rule but to a person: there are no ‘Orders’ in Orthodoxy, “only
dis-order!” “Wherever there is a disintegration of human community there is a place
to practice the Trinity.”
THE THREAT OF DEATH
AS A TEST FOR AUTHENTICITY IN THEOLOGICAL ACTIVITY – Fr. Luigi Gioia OSB (http://www.luigigioia.com)
‘“Is life worth living?” “What did you expect!”’ (Stoner: A Novel – John Williams)
Death(s) are the inevitable moments when we cannot avoid the
questions that lie deep within us. We
must be observant/suspicious of those questions (cf. The Rule of S. Benedict: Prologue
1) rather than ignorant of them. We must
be open to the possibility of meaninglessness in life and to the non-evidence
of God. The threat of death is a test of
the authenticity of our theology. We
must not overlook these questions if we are to live authentically.
God’s Self-revelation only comes to us through a fallen
world. Even the humanity of Christ is
not Self-revelatory as such; a Christian only seeks to follow the Word of God
in darkness. We are not set apart from
the rest of humanity in finding meaning, but by grace we come to faith by hearing
what God says. The fides qua cokes from a natural, living relationship with God, yet
we remain vulnerable to our doubts.
Authenticity is to be open to our vulnerability. We must beware of that truth which simply
appeals to what-I-like and what supports me.
The non-evidence of God and the tendency to idolatry condition our
approach to Truth. We have been born
unto a culture of nihilism, yet even this can be the means of keeping us awake
to God. “Fulfilment does not belong to life … (we are called to) faithfulness to
what it means to be human.”
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