Veritas et Sapientia-The Ancient Soul Glowed & So Will The Modern

Mandeville, LA – It is then that Christianity, with its conception of man, comes once again to give hope to the world. Without intoxicating him with dreams, without presenting to him suspect novel- ties, today just as twenty centuries ago, strengthened by its unchanged doctrine, by its ever-new sap, it comes to save all, to accomplish all! What it did for the ancient soul recommends it for humanity today, with a power of assimilation in- tact. It comes to gather all that is sought in this humanity, the best of its effort and the best of its thought, in order to subli- mate it again—and at the same time in order to give it founda- tion. A historical search would show us that in it we have the deepest source, the most certain origin of the current impulse of our race toward.a new type of man. But it is much more. It is a force in the present as well as a source in the past. A force too often asleep but intact. This is due, first of all, to its realism.

This is a mark which cannot be overemphasized. Christianity is, of course, not realistic in the way those systems are which, able to see in man only the “real” that they have conceived, begin by changing his nature; which discern in him only a ready-made, wholly determined being; which, failing to recog- nize his essential characteristics, take no account, other than to diminish it by treating it as an illusion, of all that is plan, freedom, anticipation, thirst for transcendence in him, in brief, of all to which Christianity gives its true name: vocation, call. Christian realism is a realism of fullness. Without hiding man’s misery from him, it shows him his nobility as well. There is therefore no point in asking it how to furnish additional argu- ments to the sceptics and disenchanted. It will never take sides with those who would sum up the whole possible history of our race in a “parable of the blind” a la Bruegel. It will never, in order to avoid mistakes, invite him back into the rut. It is not in the name of Christian wisdom that laziness of mind or consent to social alienations or the renunciation of dreams of greatness and unity can be preached. Does our faith not teach us that our humanity is one, that it has altogether the same destiny, that a Future is being prepared in which all are invited to collaborate, that the salvation o f each is a function o f the salvation of all, that the universe has a meaning to which man is the key, that we are all in progress toward a City set free from death and destiny, made for a free and brotherly society, and that we must here on earth serve our apprenticeship for our future condition? That all this would have no effect on the temporal plane is not possible, or rather, not admissible.—But our faith reminds us, too, and with equal force, of two other things. – Henri deLubac, S.J.

TheKingDude

Host of the Mike Church Show on The Veritas Radio Network's CRUSADE Channel & Founder of the Veritas Radio Network. Formerly, of Sirius/XM's Patriot channel 125. The show began in March of 2003 exclusively on Sirius and remains "the longest running radio talk show in satellite radio history".

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