Today was a nice break from the not-quite-fast-paced-yet-full schedule of the seminary. We had a day of recollection with two conferences from Fr. Chris O'Connor, Vice-Rector of St. John's Seminary. It was good to have another of the faculty join us here at St. Clement's to get a more personal sense of who the Oblates are.
He spoke on various themes surrounding priestly formation, primarily the need for honesty and trust on both sides of the seminarian-formator arrangement. He also shared many stories of his own priestly ministry that illustrate the various points he was making. He opened with the story of Zacchaeus from Luke 19, inviting us to take notice of the Lord passing by and respond to His presence by "climbing a tree." This relates to a previous image that came to me in prayer, accompanying the phrase from a Preface to the Eucharistic Prayer: "You have no need of our praise, yet our desire to thank You is itself Your gift." My image was that of a turtle reaching up its head while the rest of its body remained on the ground under its shell, a symbol of the weight of worldly realities of our human experience that we seek with the slightest movement of "our own" to reach for higher things, the things of God.
Evolution comes into the picture with tonight's movie choice. A fellow postulant chose Expelled, a documentary by Ben Stein about the arguments not only in support of Evolution as a partial or complete explanation of the origin and history of life on earth but also in support of Intelligent Design as such an explanation and then about the startling atmosphere of censorship with respect to raising the possibility of Intelligent Design as such an explanation. Stein follows several researchers and leading authors in each school to determine not only each of their stance with respect to the scientific theories and/or world view, but also their perception of the reality of censorship of not only proponents of Intelligent Design but honest scientists and journalists pursuing reasonable dialogue on the general question. In the documentary, Stein continually refers to Naziism and the Berlin Wall as a direct analogue to Darwinism (and actually investigates a real connection there) and modern-day censorship of the voice of those seeking to investigate Intelligent Design. He asserts in closing that truth and freedom will prevail, using quotes from Reagan's famous "Tear Down This Wall" speech.
Otherwise, this week was more normal and packed full of interesting things in class like the irrelevance of truth in John Rawls' political liberalism, the modern era philosophers who filled gaps in their science with faith-based explanations, a soup of Greek pronouns, and the mighty Categorical Syllogism! I also got to meet briefly with pilgrims going with Fr. Jeremy to various religious sites in Canada and praying for vocations, and I donated platelets downtown yesterday.
Today, as we celebrated the memorial of St. Therese of Lisieux, we were invited to reflect on her life of complete self-sacrifice, in the smallest things, and constantly, to the point that this way of life was so instructive that the Church calls her "Doctor." Let us take her example of humility and offer the daily sacrifice of our lives for the salvation of all!
Love the Immaculata!
Mariam cogita, Mariam invoca
No comments:
Post a Comment