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Thursday, October 19, 2000
Faith Alihrei
The Southern Cross, Page 9
CNS photo (left) from The Crosiers, (right) by John DeRosen
Times when culture was more familiar with signs and symbols
By Father Eugene LaVerdiere, SSS
Catholic News Service
w,
e cannot escape our culture.
Modernity permeates every aspect of
culture, including religion and our
faith. We even read the Bible through
the lens of modern culture. Reading
Genesis, we want to know exactly
what happened when God created the
heavens and the earth.
If we open the New
Testament Book of
Revelation, we seek in
formation about how
the Lord Jesus will re
turn in the Second
Coming.
Modern culture is
interested in facts, not
images and symbols.
As modern people, we
are interested in clear,
distinct ideas and pre
cise definitions, not
mysteries.
So our tendency is to
reduce biblical signs
and wonders to scien
tific and historical
facts. Against the at
tacks of the rational
ists, we try to defend
our faith by rational
arguments.
The modern era be
gan with the Renaissance 500 years
ago, and it continued with the En
lightenment, the Industrial Age and
in our Age of Information.
Before the Renaissance and the En
lightenment, we Christians lived in a
pre-modern culture for 15 centuries.
We lived in a sacramental universe
revealing God’s power and grandeur.
We lived in a symbolic world, sur
rounded by stained-glass windows.
In a symbolic world, instead of
measuring the mystery, we entered
the mystery.
A few years ago I taught a two-
week course in Paris. Each week I
visited the Cathedral of Chartres, fo
cusing on the portals of the west
fagade, built at the end of the 12th
century.
Above the lintel
of the south portal
portraying Jesus’
life I saw five pan
els. On the left were
the angel Gabriel
and Mary. Beside
them I saw Mary
and Elizabeth. In
the middle, Mary
was lying on a low bed. Joseph was
standing at her head, looking on. Be
hind her bed was a table, and the child
wrapped in swaddling bands was ly
ing on the table.
You see, in the Cathedral of
Chartres, Jesus’ manger became an
altar table, relating the incarnation to
the Eucharist.
In the 12th century, people’s under
standing of the story of Jesus’ birth in
Luke’s Gospel (2:6-7) resulted from
seeing the divine through the human
images.
We read that “while they were
there, the time came for her to have
her child,” and Mary “laid him in a
manger.” That is, she offered her son,
the firstborn of God, as nourishment
for the flock. And “there was no room
for them in the inn”; there was no
place for the heir to David’s throne in
the city of David, which evokes the
Passion and the Last Supper.
—Pre-modern culture wanted t<
know the meaning of Jesus’ birth an<
its implications for the human race.
—Modern culture wants to knov
when and where Jesus was born.
Today, the times are changing
We are entering a post-modern era
Unlike the modern era, which was
interested in facts and in precist
definitions, the post-modern era i.‘
interested in mystery and persona
relationships.
Concerning Jesus, the emerging
'efore the Renaissance, we
Christians lived in a sac
ramental universe revealing
God’s power and grandeur.
Today we are entering a post
modern world where we
contemplate the divinity of
Jesus in his humanity.
post-modern era is interested in the
Lord Jesus as he is presented in the
New Testament. And with the post
modern era, we are entering a new
symbolic world that invites us to con
template the divinity of Jesus in his
humanity.
Now, we are beginning to under
stand the story of creation in Genesis
and the wonders and signs in the book
of Exodus.
But we are not returning to the pre-
modern era. We are going forward,
integrating our modern values into a
greater vision as we search for the
realities revealed in the Scriptures.
(Father LaVerdiere, a Blessed Sac
rament priest, is a Scripture scholar
and senior editor of Emmanuel
magazine.)
Capturing an understanding of Christ
By Lawrence S. Cunningham
Catholic News Service
-W hen Thomas Merton was 15
he made a solitary trip to Rome dur
ing his vacation period from the En
glish boarding school he attended. In
the Roman church of Sts. Cosmas and
Damien, he was overwhelmed by the
power of the sixth-century mosaic of
Christ in the apse.
That was the time, he wrote later
in his famous book The Seven Storey
Mountain, that he first asked who
this Christ was.
In many Byzantine churches apses
are decorated with majestic depictions
of Christ as “Pantocrater,” who holds
all things in his hands. That vision,
common in the Christian East, at
tempts to capture an understanding of
Jesus Christ as depicted in the Gospel
of St. John’s Prologue — the Word who
“became flesh and dwelt among us” (Jn
1:14).
The Byzantine “Pantocrater” re
flects the conviction that Christ’s full
meaning has to include his place in
the Holy Trinity, role in creation,
earthly life as Savior, and sustaining
power as the One “at the right hand of
the Father” and who will come again
to “judge the living and the dead.”
Such a picture of Christ reflects the
end of the long controversies about
Christ in the early church settled at
the Council of Chalcedon (A.D. 451)
where the church affirmed that Jesus
Christ, perfect in divinity and perfect
in humanity, is one person with two
natures.
St. John of the Cross, the Carmelite
mystic of 16th-century Spain, cap
tured this understanding of Christ in
a striking observation to the effect
that “God once spoke his Word, and
having spoken, needs speak no more.”
John meant that the same Word
poured out in creation, who spoke to
Israel through the prophets and who
took flesh, still lives with us. We all
are called toward that Word.
When the adolescent Merton looked
at the great figure of Christ in Rome,
he encountered the church’s ancient
faith. After his conversion and en
lna Nutshell
Different historical periods have differing needs and
opportunities. Thus, during different time periods some
aspect of Christ may either he ignored or heavily accented.
Pre-modern culture wanted to know the meaning of Jesus’
birth. An analytical modern culture wants to know when and
where Jesus was horn.
Today we’re entering a post-modern era. Will it, unlike the
modern era, show much greater interest in mystery?
trance into monastic life, he encoun
tered that same Christ in the world’s
beauty and in people’s hearts; in his
monastic prayer, at the altar as a
priest and in his writings, where he
used words to glorify the Word.
Father Merton’s Christ was the
Word made flesh, the Wisdom of God,
and, as St. Paul says, the Christ who
will unite all things both in heaven
and on earth (Eph 1:10).
This is the Christ in whom all of
creation as well as human labor is
elevated, consecrated and trans
formed so that “the whole world enters
into a hymn of glory in honor of the
Creator and Savior” (Merton’s New
Seeds of Contemplation).
(Cunningham is professor of theol
ogy at the University of Notre Dame.)
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