Day 7 – CHRIST For Augustine teaching was only possible because of Christ, the LOGOS, and ultimately when Christ became our teacher. For only Christ as God and man spoke to us both from within and from without at once. Only Christ the Son of the Father, incarnate of the Virgin Mary, joined our internal and external discourses. Only because of Him, and ultimately by Him, can we discover from […]
Day 6 – MEMORY The culture of our time is a culture of experiences, of facts, of information. We have self-consciously turned against our Augustinian origins, deconstructing the self, in order to live at the surface in passions and poses. We deny metaphysics and ontology and thus have lost our memory. For us thoughts do not reveal the structure of the self. At best we have only diverse ‘insights’.
Hekk qallu Alla lil Salamun, li kien Re żgħażugħ. “Itlob x’nagħtik”. Hija mistoqsija li Ġesù wkoll jistaqsi xi drabi fl-Evanġelji. Hija mistoqsija li jistaqsi lili llum. Kif ser nirrispondi? X’irrid li jkolli jew li nkun bħalissa? Nistgħu nobsru b’mod tajjeb ħafna minn nies, inklużi aħna, x’nixtiequ nitolbu. Għal ħafna hija xi ħaġa marbuta mal-flus jew ma’ xi sigurtà materjali. Għalkemm uħud ukoll quddiem mistoqsi bħal din jitħawdu u ma jkunux
Xi skop fiha l-ħajja? X’nixtieq fil-ħajja? F’hiex l-iktar li qiegħed inpoġġi l-impenn tiegħi? Dawn il-mistoqsijiet jisfidawna biex ninżlu iktar fil-fond tal-ħajja tagħna. Lkoll nafu li m’humiex mistoqsijiet faċli u jista’ jkun li nibżgħu naffrontawhom u nirrisponduhom, jista’ jkun ukoll li l-kultura tal-lum tħeġġiġna iktar għal ħajja iktar superfiċjali imma ħafna minna nirrealizzaw li qegħdin nitilfu ħafna mill-iskop tal-ħajja. X’inhu t-teżor tiegħek? X’sens fiha l-ħajja? X’jagħmel il-ħajja sabiħa? Ir-raġel tal-parabbola tal-lum
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Day 5 – FALL and CONVERSION Augustinian spirituality is one of fall and conversion, of grace and forgiveness. The human which is without intermediary the mirror of God’s Trinitarian life is abased when it sees its actual ignorance and enslavement in that light. Memory becomes guilt and shame; its essential activity is confession.
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Day 4 – PASTORAL Augustinian spirituality is not authoritarian and hierarchical even in the Church. It will be a spirituality for a church attempting to replace a hierarchical and authoritarian clerical style with a pastoral one. There is in Augustine no “divine” bishop. Though the bishop is a priest, pastor, father and preacher, he is not the perfect or divine hierarchy, nor the causally mediating link between the heavenly and
Day 3 – CONVERSION Confronting a narcissistic culture, what is called the “me” generation, we shall acknowledge that the secular western self has not and will not disappear. The attempts to deconstruct it and to make it only intuitive, immediate, impulsive, extatic, nothing but spontaneous erotic creativity have not succeeded, though this has been the chief effort of humanistic education, many religious and most cultural institutions for some time. Even
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