Inculturation Through The Ages VII: Some Short Thoughts On All Saints And Halloween

When one looks at the history of the Feast of All Saints, one finds a rather confused image of how it began and how it developed. That is because there are many layers to the celebration, and what is true at one place in a given time might not be true at a different place in that exact same time.

It is difficult to pinpoint its origin. Evidence from the homilies of St John Chrysostom suggests that a celebration of the feast developed in the Antiochian tradition sometime before his reign, therefore, sometime in the fourth century. The Eastern celebration of All Saints follows this Antiochian tradition, and commemorates the feast on the first Sunday after Pentecost.

How then did the Western martyrology place this feast on November 1st? The answer to this question requires us to look to the Western origins of this feast.

In 609, the Pantheon was given to Pope Boniface IV, and was turned into the Church of Mary and the Martyrs. The Pantheon was one of the great architectural achievements of Rome, and it was created (as the name suggests) as a place to worship all the Roman gods. The Pope consecrated the Pantheon on May 13, and turned May 13 to be an annual feast of all the martyr. In Edessa, we find May 13 was already a feast day celebrating the brave deeds of the martyrs, so perhaps Boniface took this in account (it would be a great coincidence if he did not) when he transformed the Pantheon from being a temple to all the gods to a church of all the martyrs.

In this transformation, we can see the Pope is engaging in an ingenious attempt of inculturation. The Pantheon was a popular pilgrimage site, and an important pagan temple. Pagans felt the need to honor all the gods, in part because they wanted whatever benefits the gods could give them, but also because there is an inherent inclination in humanity to honor those who we perceive to be great. We think they are worthy of our respect, and we should manifest that respect in some manner. To the pagan mind, who can be greater than the gods? Who can deserve our respect more than the gods? This inclination is itself good, but needs to meet its proper end: God. But this does not mean, and in fact should not mean, that if someone is not God, they do not deserve our honor and respect – far from it! Thus, not only should our worship and adoration go to God, but it is natural to also honor those who have done great deeds, like the martyrs who suffered so that the Church could thrive. In consecrating the Pantheon to Mary and all the martyrs, Pope Boniface took what was good in the old Roman worship and transformed it, showing how cultural traditions can be used for the glory of God. This is exactly what inculturation is about, and this shows us how inculturation has been an ideal since the earliest of times.

Now, after the time of the persecutions, subsequent saints were seen as one of the martyrs, not because they suffered and were killed for Christ, but because their life was lived out in such a way as they became an example or witness (martyr) for Christ in the way holiness can be achieved through our interaction with grace. All saints therefore are martyrs if one looks to the meaning of the word martyr (explaining why the official record of saints and their feasts is a martyrology).

Now, the movement in the West from May 13 to November 1 did not happen all at once. There seems to be many elements at play here, and not all of them demonstrate inculturation in the way the Western origin for the feast indicates. For example, it seems that in Rome, the feast was moved to November 1 by Pope Gregory III when he dedicated a part of the Basilica of St Peter to all the Saints. Slowly through Western Christendom this date would be used, and it was not until Pope Gregory VII (1073 – 85) that May 13 was suppressed and November 1 became used universally in the West.

Many believe that the change of date from May 13 to November 1 was done for the sake of the Irish. Of course, this would seem odd: why change a universal feast for one small corner of Christendom? Nonetheless, this does not mean that within Ireland Christians did not take advantage of the cultural situation to reinforce the meaning of All Saints. Therefore, even if it was not changed universally to November 1 as a means of inculturation, this does not mean inculturation was not involved in how it was adapted in Ireland.

What kind of inculturation are we talking about? In the Celtic tradition (in Ireland, Scotland, and Wales), around we find an end of summer festival, Samhain, being celebrated for several days, starting on October 31. Some nineteenth century speculation on the festival believed it was also a time when the Celtic year changed, but there is debate upon that point by modern scholars. What is not debatable, however, is that in the Celtic tradition, this was an unusual time of year, a time when the Gods and the dead dwelt closer to the world we lived in. It was a time when the dead could be contacted and seen moving around us. It was also a dangerous time, as the darkness is setting in, bringing evil in its wake. Bonfires were lit as a kind of protection from evil. It was also a time of the harvest, and harvest celebrations. In their mirth, families not only took joy in their bounty, but also took of the season to reflect upon the dead, and honor them.

It is not hard to see why this tradition could fit well with the Christian celebration of All Saints. The Celts rightfully had a sense of the awe and mystery which could easily be transferred from the gods to Christ and his saints. Moreover, with All Saints, there developed a secondary tradition, inspired by the Benedictines and Carthusians, that is, of All Souls, a memorial service for the dead. In the development of Christian tradition on the place and experience of the dead, All Souls took upon itself as a time of help and aid for the dead, a time to pray for them, a time to help bring them closer to beatification. This easily fit with the themes surrounding Samhain, and helped ferment with the Celts the notion that the new Christian religious tradition was an adaptation of their local customs, and allowed for a continuation of themes and ways of celebrating the time to be transferred from the old pagan rites to the new Christian tradition.

Halloween, All Hallow’s Eve, the Eve of All Saints, as it is commonly understood in the English tradition, is inspired by this inculturation of Celtic traditions by the Christian feast. Yes, we can find pagan remnants in the Christian feast, but this shows what was good and holy in the pagan tradition can and does receive its home in the Christian tradition. Sometimes those remnants, as we see with the Celts, were added to the feast either by local custom or by missionary work, sometimes these remnants can be found at the heart of the feast. Medieval Europe was ripe with inculturation. Because it is often the culture we find ourselves living in and associated with, we often do not realize it. Looking back, and seeing how the Christian sympathies blended with the previous pagan traditions, it should give us pause and wonder – how much inculturation should be done from above? That is, how much of it should be invented by someone who thinks they know how the adaptation should be done, and then “forced” upon the people whose culture we are trying to adapt because we think “this is how it works,” and how much of it should be done from within and lived out? True inculturation needs to be organic, like we have seen in history, where the Christian faith meets the inclinations of the nations of the world. Perhaps one of the reasons why modern attempts of inculturation make many cringe lies not with the idea of inculturation, but by the inorganic way it has been tried of late. Many such attempts look forced transformations, perhaps with a beautiful exterior, but in their core, they are shallow without substance.

New Contributor

Like the Inklings before, The Well at the World's End will slowly open its ranks to include new contributors. They will be people who not only have shown their interest in the blog, but also the ability and willingness to provide meaningful material to the site.

We now have our first new contributor, Patrick. He has already become a significant dialogue partner on the blog, as anyone who has read the comments should know, and this change in his status just makes official what has already occurred unofficial.

With eager anticipation I want to welcome him to the contributors list and to say we look forward to any writing he might share with us here.

The Significance of Human Action, Part 2: Action as Defining the Person--The Way to Perfection

The following is a continuation of the previous post, again taken from an essay written a couple of years back. This essay does not take into account the many finely-crafted comments regarding the previous post, though it perhaps presses a little further the central question driving the comments. Such account will have to be given at some point...

It is important to realize that, at the same time that action expresses the person, action also defines or determines the person. We are how we act and how we act makes us who we are. At bottom, each person has the task of freedom. This task is not aimless, for the person is free for the true good. The challenge is to choose the good. In the following, we will focus on Wojtyła’s reflections on the potentiality of the will as well as his phenomenological reading of the experience of action in freedom. In the end, moral action is really about perfecting the person and actualizing his full potential.

Through his exposure to Aristotle and Thomas, Wojtyła is very taken with the metaphysical distinction between act and potency. This distinction is important with regard to how the moral act is formative of the human person. Wojtyła speaks of a certain “potentiality” in the person that makes “formation” through good action or “deformation” through evil action possible.[1] This potentiality is found in the will. The will does not only function as an efficient cause, bringing about action. In addition, the will is “a kind of ability to become.”[2] A person can become good or bad through the will. There is thus a simultaneous external and internal aspect working in the exercise of the will. While a person wills an external act, the moral quality of that act redounds back into the person, forming the will either to good or to evil. As stated above, the will must be in relation to reason. Since reason is the ability to know the truth, including the truth of the good, the will is guided by reason to its fulfillment. As Wojtyła remarks in the context of Aristotle and Thomas, “[T]he very essence of human action consists in the actualization of the will acting under the direction of reason.”[3] Through the actualization of the will, the human person hopefully becomes good and is led further on the road to perfection.

The determinative character of action is also manifest through a phenomenological reading of the experience of acting in freedom.[4] In the experience of acting, the person experiences himself as the efficient or effective cause of the action. Here, Wojtyła remarks that the action proper to humans should really be designated as actus personae. For in an act, it is always a specific person connected to a concrete act who is involved. The connection is so vital between the individual person and his act that another person cannot suddenly be made the agent of such a particular action. The causal efficacy of the person—experienced in activity itself—leads to a greater efficacy manifest in self-determination. Self-determination denotes the originating movement of the will in causing the act and, at the same time, the fact that such a movement of the will not only has an outward effect but an inward one as well.[5] By acting the person determines himself. It is in light of self-determination that two other properties of freedom, self-possession and self-governance, come into play as well. In freely acting, the action “returns” to the person and is taken up into the person, hence affecting the person. In this free action, the person possesses himself as the subject of his free action which is also self-determinative. As self-governing, the person experiences the task of bringing together or integrating the various dynamisms of his person in order to become as thoroughly human as possible.[6] In all of this, the significance of a person’s action in shaping one’s self is paramount. Moreover, this shaping takes place in and through human freedom. By the unique subjectivity of the human person, a human act is much more than an extrinsic performance or occurrence. A properly human act involves the entire person, originating from the person and also forming that person.

The determinative nature of action is very much related to the development of virtue (or vice on the negative side). Through good moral acts, a person can begin to be habitually disposed to doing good. I think we see this in particular acts especially. For example, take a simple act like making the bed for one’s spouse. If I begin to make a concentrated effort on making the bed out of love for my wife and actually fulfill that effort over a number of consecutive days, I am more disposed towards doing that good act without as much inner tension (involving the decision process). Each act of making the bed comes back to me and forms my will in the good; in other words, this is habituation in virtue. However, let’s say that I have a resolution of making the bed every day out of love for my wife. The first day is a success. The second day, on the other hand, I find myself a little busy with other things. There is still a good bit of inner tension in my decision. “I just have too much studying to do”, etc. Even though I know the good act is a sign of love and will only take a couple minutes, I choose to forego making the bed, letting my wife do it when she gets home from work. This choice comes back to me and affects my will. The good choice I made on the first day has now become somewhat undone in that my will has now become weakened. If I continue to make excuses, it will be harder for me to reform my will and choose the good. In addition, when attempting to will the good, I will have more inner tension with regard to making a decision. “I have given in before to the excuses…why not one more time?” Bad choices and actions have a deformative effect upon the will. This is a simple example, but it illustrates well the experience that every person has with regard to the formative nature of action.

In light of the determinative aspect of action, Wojtyła makes clear that the moral task is one of perfectionism. Living a moral life means that one is on the road to perfection. Every human act has the possibility of contributing to one’s fulfillment, if good, or of contributing to one’s lack of fulfillment, if evil. In the development of the human person, a two-fold task presents itself. The first aspect is integration. As the human being develops, the different “somatic and rudimentary psychic dimensions of humanity” are to be submitted to the spiritual elements of the person.[7] This means nothing else than learning to act as a person while also not ignoring all the unique aspects that make up the human self. The person is body and soul. For instance, certain physical happenings in the body are largely involuntary and out of the person’s control (e.g., we cannot do much about our beating heart). However, certain urges—for example, the sexual urge—may come about largely unexpectedly at times but are still to be integrated within the person as a whole, i.e., as a rational, spiritual being (cf. Wojtyła’s Love and Responsibility). To immediately act upon an urge is to become an animal. Regarding sexual urges in particular, the person must learn to integrate such urges within an overall framework that respects the gift of sexuality and the dignity of the human person.

The second aspect of moral development is transcendence. Through his conscience, a person is called to “go out beyond” himself towards the true good.[8] In fact, it is only in this going beyond oneself towards truth that one remains truly free to act in a morally good way. In the end, human development hinges upon moral development. Wojtyła emphasizes that the nature of the human act is such that it plays a profound role in furthering or hindering the development of the human person.

As seen above, not only is morality the most characteristic aspect of the human person but it is also the most definitive aspect of the person. Through morality, a human being actualizes his personhood through subjectivity. While the human is always a suppositum humanum from conception to death, the human self on the other hand—the personal suppositum—is developed throughout one’s life in free, responsible action. True development is founded upon the good. Only a good act truly completes the person. Wojtyła himself continues into his pontificate as John Paul II to be very alert to the significance of morality with regard to every person—so much so, in fact, that he can say: “[I]t is precisely on the path of the moral life that the way of salvation is open to all” (Veritatis splendor 3).

[1] “Human Nature as the Basis of Ethical Formation,” 98 (Again, all article citations are taken from KW's Person and Community: Selected Essays, trans. and ed. Theresa Sandok [NY: Peter Lang, 1993].)
[2] Ibid., 99.
[3] “The Separation of Experience from the Act in Ethics,” 24.
[4] “The Person: Subject and Community,” 228f.
[5] Ibid., 229.
[6] Dr. Kenneth Schmitz, class notes, 4/13/04.
[7] “The Person: Subject and Community,” 225.
[8] Ibid., 234.

Show Me Your Original Face

“Before you were born, what was your original face?”

St Maximos the Confessor earned his place in history by the suffering and persecution he endured for his commitment to an orthodox Christology. Pious tradition says that when his tongue was cut out of his mouth, he was still capable of speaking, to the horror of his tormentors. Certainly the humble acceptance he had of his fate and the charitable response he gave to his opponents more than made up for the loss of his tongue, enabling his words to be spread far and wide.

For many today, it might seem that the debate St Maximos had with the leaders of Byzantium was insignificant and maybe even petty. St Maximos tells us that because the Logos assumed human flesh and made it his own, Jesus Christ has two wills and two energies to act upon those wills. His opponents, as for example Patriarch Pyrhhus, accused him of heresy and said that Jesus had only one will.

What does it matter to us if Jesus Christ had two wills or one? According to St Maximos, the very humanity of Christ was at stake. Did he truly incarnate himself or was it all a sham? How are we to see the actions Jesus did in his life? When he ate like a man, when he walked around like a man, when he prayed to the Father like a man – he acted like a man. These are perfectly fine human actions, and it makes sense for us to say that Jesus therefore was acting like the man he is. If there was no human will in Christ, then all these actions would be willed according to the divinity, acted out by the divine, and it would indicate some odd things about God as God – that God, for example, wills to eat, or, because Jesus slept, God wills to sleep.

As the Logos, as God, Jesus willed in accordance to his divinity. He never stopped being God: he never stopped willing and sustaining creation as God. Just as it would be foolish for us to see the divinity as willing to eat, it would be foolish to see the humanity as sustaining creation.

However, the question gains its importance and relevance to us when we look at the way people will. It seems that we will and act according to who we are as persons. How can we say Jesus wills as human and as God, without also saying Jesus is therefore willing as two separate persons? Do we divide Jesus and make him two? That, to be sure, was what his opponents claimed would be the result of his Christology. Since the Council of Ephesus taught that Jesus was only one person, it would seem St Maximos was contradicting the dogmatic theology of the Church.

St Maximos has a rather ingenious answer to this question, and his answer leaves itself open as a place a Christian could engage Buddhist thought on the question of human nature, that is, on the question of our “original face” before we are born.

The way we normally will is a fallen mode of willing – we have to deliberate, to reason out and decide upon that which we will or will not do. According to St Maximos, this is a gnomic mode of willing. We act according to our personal desires as modified by and dependent upon what we know and how we think we should best achieve what we want by our limited knowledge. It is the way we will as a result of the fall, and because it is normative to our experiences, we confuse this fallen mode of willing as being how we should normally will. St Maximos proposes this gnomic mode of willing as being over and against a natural mode of willing. This natural mode of willing is when we act out only according to our nature, and follow our nature in its pristine purity. “It belongs to nature itself that its purposes should be fulfilled. A lack of realization does not affect this purpose as such, but human self-determination is certainly divided against itself,” Lars Thunberg. Microcosm and Mediator: The Theological Anthropology of Maximus the Confessor. Second Edition (Chicago: Open Court, 1995), p.217. St Maximos’ opponents confused our present mode of willing to be the proper way we should will, and therefore misjudged what it meant to have two wills in Christ. Interestingly enough, St Maximos suggests that if the only mode of willing was according to the person then there would not be one but three wills in God, because there are three divine persons (cf. St Maximos, Opuscule 3; 52A-53C).

In St Maximos’ eschatological vision, persons will overcome this gnomic mode of willing and will act according to their real nature, purified from any personal defilements imposed upon that nature. Christ in his perfect humanity does not act according to a gnomic, questioning, deliberating, constructive consciousness. When we move from our fallen state of being to our original state of being, when we recover our pure nature, we shall be like him, and his humanity becomes the exemplar for what humanity is in and of itself.

Virtues are, by their nature, natural; when we act according to nature, we will be virtuous; when we act contrary to it through our gnomic mode of willing, then vice can thrive. When asked why we do not all show the same virtue if virtue is natural, St Maximos says, “Because we do not all practice what is natural to us to an equal degree; indeed, if we [all] practiced equally [those virtues] natural to us as we were created to do, then one would be able to perceive one virtue in us all, just as there is one nature [in us all], and that ‘one virtue’ would not admit of a ‘more’ or ‘less’,” St Maximos. The Disputation with Pyrhhus Of Our Father Among the Saints Maximus the Confessor. Trans. Joseph P. Farrell. (n.p.: St Tikhon’s Seminary Press, n.d.), p. 33.

How do we return to our original nature? “Asceticism and the toils that go with it, was devised simply in order to ward of deception, which established itself through sensory perceptions. It is not [as if] the virtues have been newly introduced from outside, for they inhere in us from creation, as hath been said. Therefore, when deception is completely expelled, the soul immediately exhibits the splendor of its natural virtue […] Just as when rust is removed the natural clarity and glint of iron [are manifest].” Ibid., p.33-4.One can state that St Maximos’ answer as a monastic response. However, we must remember that the monastic endeavor was in itself an attempt to live out in our present life the transformation needed for our entrance into heaven. We need to purify ourselves, return to who we really are, not who we think we are, or who we try to make ourselves to be by turning our individual personality against our internal nature. We must lose our selves if we want to gain eternal life.

In Mahayana Buddhism, we find a similar notion under the category of the “Buddha nature.” This idea suggests that all sentient creatures contain within them the seed for enlightenment. The reason for this is simple: all sentient creatures are, at their core, already an enlightened one, already a Buddha. Our nature is to be a Buddha. However, we have defiled our nature, and the path to enlightenment is seen as the purification of those defilements over our Buddha nature.

Just like a Buddha in a decaying lotus, honey amidst bees,
a grain in its husk, gold in filth, a treasure underground,
a shoot and so on sprouting from a little fruit,
a statue of the Victorious One in a tattered rag,
a ruler of mankind in a destitute woman’s womb,
and a precious image under [a layer of] clay,
this [Buddha] element abides within all sentient beings,
obscured by the defilement of the adventitious poisons. Uttaratantra Shastra. Trans. Rosemarie Fuchs (Ithaca, New York: Snow Lion Publications, 2000), p.32.

This notion of the Buddha Nature was a popularized vision for Buddhism. It presented through analogies the core insight of Mahayana Buddhism. It takes equally from Madhyamika and Yogacara, though it is usually associated with Yogacara. In fact, some traditions classify the Uttaratantra text being dictated to Asanga by Maitreya, the founder of Yogacara Buddhism.

Anthropologically, we can see what it says is similar to what St Maximos is trying to tell us. We live in a defiled mode of existence. We can analyze this a bit further, and find even more agreement between this view with the thought of St Maximos, if we follow a Yogacarin insight: our consciousness itself is the cause for those defilements. Our consciousness, in a state of ignorance, creates the means by which we interpret the world in a defiled way. However, because of this ignorance, the way we act will not be pure, but defiled. We find St Maximos saying similarly, “humankind has brought into being from itself the three greatest, primordial evils, and (to speak simply), the begetters of all vice: ignorance, I mean, and self-love and tyranny, which are interdependent and established through one another.” St Maximos, “Letter 2.” In Maximus the Confessor. Trans and Introduced by Andrew Louth (London: Routledge, 1996), p.87 (Letter 2; 397A).

Yogacara can show this by how two (or more) people would react to a corpse differently: a husband seeing the dead body of his dearly beloved wife would feel grief; someone who hated her and wanted her dead, for whatever reason, would feel elated. A hungry dog might see the corpse as food.

Yogacara wants us to understand the way we act, the way we experience the world, not only is dependent upon our consciousness, but our consciousness is transformed by what we think about, by what we do. As our habits and concepts are created by our experiences, our experiences are understood only by the concepts and habits we have developed. One generates the other in a continuous loop.

Zen Buddhist thought takes this into consideration as it tries to open us up to our original nature. It says the way we are to do this is to transcend all thoughts and concepts which we now have and to experience reality as it truly is. While philosophical debates are not rejected by Zen, the tradition wants, in our moments of meditation, to reflect upon such things which break open our consciousness, to let in an experience of ourselves as we truly are, to let in an experience of the world as it truly is. What is our true face before we were born? This is a question of our nature, a question of who we were “before” we became trapped in a defiled realm of experience.

Joshu asked Nansen, “What is the Way?” “Ordinary mind is the Way,” Nansen replied. “Shall I try to seek after it?” Joshu asked. “If you try for it, you will become separated from it,” responded Nansen. “How can I know the Way unless I try for it?” persisted Joshu. Nansen said, “The Way is not a matter of knowing or not knowing. Knowing is a delusion; not knowing is confusion. When you have reached the true Way beyond doubt, you will find it as vast and boundless as outer space. How can it be talked about on the level of right and wrong?” With those words, Joshu came to a sudden realization. – Katsuki Sekida. Two Zen Classics: The Gateless Gate and The Blue Cliff Records (Boston: Shambhala, 1995), p.73.

The way is a way of ordinary mind, that is, the way of the mind as it truly is when it is undefiled. Christians see Jesus Christ as the exemplar of what it means to be human -- in his humanity, he is not supramundane; instead, the way we live and act is sub-par. “How can I know the Way unless I try for it?” Do not try, do. The way is not by knowing, not by dialect and debate, but it is not ignorance either, it is not the confusion of not knowing. It is rather unknowing, transcending the defiled ways of thought into pure experience of how things are as they really are. We must realize that what we see is not what we get as long as we place our own mental constructions over reality. We need to see mountains are not identical to the ideas we have of the mountains, but that they are what they are in themselves. Concepts establish and reveal things in a way less than they actually are. Knowledge, as it is normally understood, is the accumulation of all such concepts, and therefore will only end up in ignorance.

Buddhism, however, does make it clear – however useful meditation is, and indeed it is necessary, it is incapable of itself to overcome this false perception of the world. It provides a place where this experience could be had, but this direct experience can only be encountered by an undefiled mind, and this means, we must work to correct and overcome whatever defilements we might have. If our Buddha Nature is like a gold statue encased in mud, we must wash off that mud. Like St Maximos, Buddhism understands that we must acquire the virtues and act in a way which creates the habits that overcome and counteract whatever habitual vices we have. In a Zen monastery, this includes ritual practice, and even diligent study over the classics of Buddhist thought. We must not confuse a Western notion of Zen with the way Zen is acted out in its proper place. While the goal is an awareness by which we can live and experience the world as it truly is beyond concepts and therefore live with a sense of freedom, this goal must not be confused with the path which gets to the goal.

While St Maximos’ insight on the two wills of Christ might seem at first to be of secondary importance, nonetheless it opens up a subtle and yet powerful discussion on human nature and who and what we actually are. As he does this, he opens up a way in which Christians can interact with Buddhism, and it can help to show us how the Buddhist goal shares at least this in common with Christians, that is, a desire to empty ourselves of all our defilements so we can return to who we are “beyond” those defilements.

The Four Noble Truths and St Maximos the Confessor

Fundamental to Buddhism is the teaching of the Four Noble Truths. “The Four Noble Truths are the very foundation of the Buddhist teaching, and that is why they are so important. In fact, if you don’t understand the Four Noble Truths, and if you have not experienced the truth of this teaching personally, it is impossible to practice the Buddha Dharma.” The Dalai Lama, The Four Noble Truths. Trans. Geshe Thupten Jinpa (London: Thorsons, 1997), p.1

For a Christian such as myself interested in Comparative Theology, an important theological work could be done by offering an analysis of the Four Noble Truths and showing how they can be adapted for Christian thought. Is this at all possible? To answer this question, we must look at the Four Noble Truths, see what it is they teach, and then see if we can find something comparable within Christian theology.

For the sake of this inquiry, the exploration of the Four Noble Truths will be brief, partial, and will focus on the Pali Canon without an analysis of the major differences that differentiate Theravada Buddhism from other Buddhist traditions. Certainly elements of what I say here will be rejected by one school of thought or another within Buddhism, but I would expect members of those traditions would at least understand the conventions being used here. After looking at Buddhist thought. we will look at some writings of St Maximos the Confessor, whose theological teachings I think offer a place where dialogue between the two world religions can take place.

Sometimes one finds each of the Four Noble Truths designated by its own word: Dukkha, the truth of suffering; Samudaya, the truth of the origin of suffering; Nirodha, the truth of the cessation of suffering; Magga, the path which we need to follow to attain the cessation of suffering.

The truth of dukkha is the truth of suffering, that is, the truth that in life we will suffer, and the life that we live is unsatisfactory. This is not a denial of happiness or pleasure, but it is an understanding that happiness and pleasures are fleeting: they are impermanent. “’[Life in] any world is unstable, it is swept away.” The Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha. Trans. Bhikku Nanamoli and Bhikku Bodhi (Boston, Wisdom: 1995), 686 (MN 82.36 – note, as a secondary reference, I will indicate the dialogue source, number and section in parenthesis).

In the First Noble Truth, Siddhartha is offering us a diagnosis. All throughout life we suffer: from birth to death, we live in the midst of our own suffering. “And what, friends, is the noble truth of suffering? Birth is suffering; ageing is suffering; death is suffering; sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief and despair are suffering; not to obtain what one wants is suffering; in short, the five aggregates affected by clinging are suffering.” Ibid. p.1098 (MN 141.11).

According to Buddhist teaching, five aggregates – that is, the material body, feelings, perceptions, volitional impulses and emotions, and consciousness, are used to indicate the basic makeup of human existence. When combined together, they are conventionally seen as the self, but they are in themselves in constant flux, moving and interacting with each other – and the world at large. This is at the core of the Buddhist teaching of anatman, that is, there is no unchanging, uncaused, unconditioned, permanent, and therefore no eternal, self which exists within a human person. The self is radically contingent.

This leads us to the Second Noble Truth – the explanation for suffering. In his analysis of life, Siddhartha does not want us to end up hating life and commit suicide, nor does he want us to end up as nihilists (to do so would be a great error, and has terrible consequences); rather, he wants us to understand the situation we find ourselves in life. Suffering is conditioned, and if it is conditioned, it can be overcome.

The Second Noble Truth is best understood by the teaching of Dependent Origination. All phenomena are conditioned, which means all phenomena have an origin, and all phenomena have an end. For every Y, there is an X which caused it. If we do not want Y, we must find a way to eliminate X.

In the discourse literature, Siddhartha offers many analyses on suffering. Central to them is the fact that we are clinging to and craving for things which are impermanent. What we desire can only offer a fleeting joy, and when we get what we desire, we wish that joy we felt would last forever. It does not. We end up feeling empty and unsatisfied and wanting something else instead. If we do not obtain it, we are obviously not satisfied. Thus, whether or not we obtain what we desire, our desire leads to an unsatisfactory end:

It is that craving gives rise to rebirth, bound up with pleasure and lust, finding fresh delight now here, now there: that is to say sensual craving, craving for existence, and craving for non-existence.

And where does this craving arise and establish itself? Wherever in the world there is anything agreeable and pleasurable, there this craving arises and establishes itself. The Long Discourses of the Buddha . Trans. Maurice Walshe (Boston: Wisdom, 1995), 346 (DN 22:19).

Our desires and passions become disordered and are the base for our suffering, because we do not know how to give them up. We might be able to give up one desire and replace it for another, but that does not change the fact, that whatever we desire will not meet our expectations and will only leave us wanting something new, something more.

There are many things we can crave, but one fundamental craving which causes a subtle disquiet with life, is a craving for an eternal, non-conditioned self. Even if we know we are conditioned beings, we do not act like it: our pride leads us to make more of ourselves than we really are. When we abuse others, it comes from a subtle misunderstanding of our place in the world. We justify ourselves based upon a misappropriation of our self-worth, thinking we are greater than others, and whatever slight which causes us to react is seen as a slight against our very self. Pride, greed, and hate are all indications of this fatal flaw – to put in Christian terms, they are indications of an attempt to place ourselves on an equal footing with the Creator instead of seeing ourselves as creature.

If all phenomena have a condition, it is also true that our craving itself has a cause. Our actions create the suffering we experience. The law of karma is the law that right actions will provide happiness, and wrong actions will create our own misery. Siddhartha suggested a looped sequence of twelve steps, the twelve links of Dependent Origination, which is used to further explain the origin of suffering. That is, Siddhartha understood suffering not only to be caused, but to help cause its own continuation by our reaction to it, providing for more clinging, and it is capable of reiterating itself into a never-ending cycle of suffering. While we will not explore them here, Siddhartha believed that there is one link in the chain of suffering weaker than the rest, and the one which we should focus on: ignorance. If we understood reality properly, we would know the consequences of our actions, and we would act skillfully so as not to create the conditions which cause our suffering.

This leads us to the Third Noble Truth. It is the Noble Truth of Nirvana, the truth that suffering can be extinguished. Nirvana transcends the temporal world. The temporal world is a world in flux, a world of suffering: all of these things Nirvana is not. Nirvana transcends all possible conception we could have of it, and yet, by way of analogy, it can be described as the extreme bliss we desire. Moreover, following that analogy, unlike earthly things, Nirvana is uncaused, unchanging, and eternal, therefore, it is actually capable of fulfilling our desire.

The Fourth Noble Truth is the Truth of the Path – what it is we are to do to obtain Nirvana. Realizing that Nirvana is itself uncaused, this path should not be understood as creating Nirvana, but just the way to reach it, just like a road which leads to a mountain does not create the mountain itself. The path is called the Eightfold Noble Path, and requires us to follow through with right understanding, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration to finally reach Nirvana. When they are brought together and put into practice, they can lead us to Nirvana, the cessation of suffering. It is something we can do and accomplish by ourselves. Indeed, others might show us the way, but they cannot take us there.

What can a Christian make of all of these ideas? First and foremost, we must not instantly reject all that Siddhartha said just because he is the founder of a non-Christian religion. That would be foolhardy. Indeed, we must recognize there are many fundamental truths being portrayed here. Even something which is seemingly foreign like the law of karma might not be as foreign as we might think. Pope Benedict XVI rightfully understood this point when he wrote:

First, we can ask whether a human being can be said to have reached his fulfillment and destiny so long as others suffer on account of him, so long as the guilt whose source he is persists on earth and brings pain to other people. In its own way, the doctrine of karma in Hindu and Buddhist teaching systematized this fundamental human insight, though it also coarsened it. Nevertheless, it expresses an awareness which an anthropology of relationship would be wrong to deny. The guilt which goes on because of me is a part of me. Reaching as it does deep into me, it is a part of my permanent abandonment to time, whereby human beings really do continue to suffer on my account and which therefore, still affects me. --Joseph Ratzinger. Dogmatic Theology: Eschatology. Trans. Michael Waldstein (Washington, D.C.: CUA Press, 1988), p.187.

The law of karma is something Christians can engage. Certainly there are many questions a Christian should raise about it, like how does one deal with the concept of reincarnation. Yet these questions should not stop us from learning from the concept of karma. Christians gained quite a bit from Greek thought and thinkers, despite Hellenistic acceptance of reincarnation. While the question of reincarnation is not our concern here, perhaps one could look further at the Buddhist concept of anatman, and consider whether or not it might offer a way reincarnation could be reinterpreted in a way which follows the fundamental Christian belief of the uniqueness of each human life.

It is Siddhartha’s emphasis on suffering, and its causation, that is the central concern of this essay. Perhaps it is from his similar monastic background, but St Maximos the Confessor’s writings seem to raise the same questions about suffering and its origin that are behind the Four Noble Truths. His answers, moreover, have much in common with Siddhartha’s analysis, and offer a place where the two religious traditions can have a fruitful dialogue with one another. Moreover, he takes his answer and uses it to create an interesting Christological point, offering us a new way to understand the incarnation of Jesus.

First, we find him stating the origin of pain and death lies in our inordinate use of pleasure. “Because of the meaningless pleasure which invaded human nature, a purposive pain, in the form of multiple sufferings, also gained entrance. It is in and from these sufferings that death takes its origin.” St Maximos the Confessor, “Fourth Century of Various Texts” in The Philokalia: The Complete Text. Volume Two. Trans. by G.E.H. Palmer, Philip Sherrard and Kallistos Ware (London, Faber and Faber: 1990), p.244.

We were meant to long for God, who transcended all earthly things, but instead, we transferred this longing to the created world, idolizing it. “But on his creation the first man, through an initial movement towards sensible objects, transferred this longing to his senses, and through them began to experience pleasure in a way which is contrary to nature. Whereupon God in His providential care for our salvation implanted pain in us as a kind of chastising force; and so through pain the law of death was wisely rooted in the body, thus setting limits to the intellect’s manic longing, directed, in a manner contrary to nature, towards sensible objects.” Ibid, p.243.

We might want to explore what is being said here a bit further. We were meant for communion with God, and only that communion provides for satisfaction. God is unchanging, transcendent, eternal, and therefore, communion with God can fully provide for that which we long for, it can provide that happiness which we seek. However, in our ignorance, we turned from God and to the senses, to the delights of the world, raising them above their proper place (they are indeed good, they are indeed beautiful, but by placing our longing into them, we try to make them something they are not. When we do not get what we are seeking out of them, pain is the reminder that what we seek can only be found in something greater. That is, it is a reminder that we seek God).

Pleasure for Maximos is the acquisition of what we desire. He does not say pleasure of itself is bad, only inappropriate ones are. In our inordinate pursuit for pleasures, we will have to face the consequence of our action. “All suffering has as its cause some pleasure which preceded it. Hence all suffering is a debt which those who share in human nature pay naturally in return for pleasure.” Ibid., p. 244.

Both Siddhartha and St Maximos see suffering rooted in inappropriate desire. Siddhartha points out that whether or not we acquire it, we will suffer. Yet, St Maximos would point out that there is some pleasure we acquire through our desire, so I do not see he would disagree with Siddhartha’s point. “For when desire combines with the senses, it is changed into pleasure, itself contriving the form the pleasure takes. And when the senses are stimulated by desire, they produce pleasure, taking advantage of the sensible object.” St Maximos, “Fifth Century of Various Texts,” in The Philokalia: The Complete Text. Volume Two.. Trans. by G.E.H. Palmer, Philip Sherrard and Kallistos Ware (London, Faber and Faber: 1990), p.277.

St Maximos would point out, however, that not all pleasures are forbidden, because we should desire God. Not all pleasure brings pain, because communion with God does not bring pain. While an astute reader will see there is a possible conflict between Buddhist thought and St Maximos, it does not have to be. Following the analogy we have had for Nirvana above, full communion with God is eternal bliss. Moreover, St Maximos points out, in a rather Buddhist fashion, that the heavenly state is above the passions, “Man’s heavenly abode is a dispassionate state of virtue, combined with a spiritual knowledge that has overcome all delusory notions.” St Maximos, “Third Century of Various Texts,” in The Philokalia: The Complete Text. Volume Two.. Trans. by G.E.H. Palmer, Philip Sherrard and Kallistos Ware (London, Faber and Faber: 1990), p.221. This one passage shows great harmony with the basic elements of Siddhartha’s thought.

Now, our pursuit for pleasure and its subsequent pain, leading us to search for new pleasures, has become a repetitious cycle in humanity, and especially for human reproduction. “Because Adam disobeyed, human nature has come to be generated through sensual pleasure…” St Maximos, “First Century of Various Texts,” in The Philokalia: The Complete Text. Volume Two.. Trans. by G.E.H. Palmer, Philip Sherrard and Kallistos Ware (London, Faber and Faber: 1990), p.168. Reproduction, seen in the light of human passion, both provides great pleasure, but also suffering, as for example the suffering women experience in giving birth. This cycle could in theory be never ending. Yet, St Maximos sees the solution is in the incarnation, where Jesus is conceived in the womb of Mary without sensual pleasure, and he is given birth without the pain associated with childbirth. A new way of life is established:

Once human nature had submitted to the syndrome of pleasure freely chosen followed by pain imposed upon one’s will, it would have been completely impossible for it to be restored to the original life had the Creator not become man and accepted by his own free choice the pain intended as a chastisement for man’s freely chosen pleasure. But in His case the pain was not preceded by generation according to the rule of pleasure. In this way, by accepting a birth which did not originate in pleasure, it was possible for Him to liberate birth from the penalty imposed upon it. – St Maximos, “Fourth Century of Various Texts,” 244.

Jesus Christ reestablishes humanity as the second Adam, and he has overcome the pleasure-pain cycle which dominated our race. Like Siddhartha, St Maximos believes the way to overcome this cycle is by the elimination of its cause, and in Jesus he finds the elimination of its cause. “That is why He who made man became a man and was born as a man, so that He might save man and, by healing our passions though His passion, might Himself supra-naturally destroy the passions that were destroying us, in his compassion renewing us in the spirit through his privations in the flesh.” St Maximos, “First Century of Various Texts,” p.168.

Certainly there is a common theme and understanding between Siddhartha and St Maximos the Confessor. Both of them seek to understand the root cause of suffering, and find it to be our inordinate, impassioned desire. While this brief examination of their thought cannot be seen as a sufficient, developed analysis showing the points of commonality and differences between Siddhartha and St Maximos, certainly some differences can be seen from the two. One fundamental difference is that Siddhartha offers the way out through our own effort, while St Maximos believed the cycle of suffering could not be broken by us. While an examination of their common analysis of suffering could enrich both traditions, a thorough examination of this fundamental difference might be a better place for dialogue between the two religions. It would provide a better understanding of what differences there really are between the two religious faiths, preventing the kind of injustice a synchronistic vision of the two would create.

On The Filioque

Before the proclamation of the Nicene Creed in the Liturgy of St John Chrysostom, we find an intriguing dialogue between the priest and the people. The priest begins with the words, “Let us love one another, so that with one mind we may confess,” and the people conclude, saying, “The Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, the Trinity, one in substance and undivided.”

Our declaration of the Trinity should be had only in a declaration of love. The unity of belief is attained only when the congregation is united together as if having one heart. This follows the teaching of St Paul who believes it is better to hold the faith together in charity (or agape love) than it is to hold the faith together by knowledge without that same charity. “If I have prophetic powers, and understand all the mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing” (1Cor. 13:2).

When this agape was lost among the Christians, the unity of faith was also lost. Through agape one can understand the other in the best possible light; when there is no agape the other is often read in the worst possible light. Unity is preserved by agape, not theological argumentation; theological argumentation (while necessary) must only be done in the light of agape, a light which is always beautiful, otherwise it becomes divisive. The great schism between Constantinople and Rome can only be understood when we understand how political and linguistic divisions eliminated the agape between the two Sees.

We are called to proclaim faith, and with this proclamation, to declare our faith in the Holy Trinity. Some think the way to do this is to investigate the deep mysteries of God, and proclaim their own, newer understanding of this mystery, even if it divides the faithful. Yet, St Symeon the New Theologian warns us that this is not a fruitful method, because its foundation lies not in a desire to proclaim God in the unified love of faith, but with an inclination to proclaim one’s superior knowledge over and above the rest of the faithful in a prideful, self-serving manner:

It would be the sign of a rash and presumptuous soul to speak or discourse about God, to investigate all that concerns him, or to try to express what cannot be expressed, or understand what for all men is beyond understanding. This is not only the affliction of those who take it upon themselves to talk about God, but even those who try to repeat the sayings of the theologians who have been inspired by God, [sayings] with which they fought the heretics in times past and which have been handed on to us in writing. Such persons interpret these in every conceivable sense, not in order to gain spiritual profit, but to be admired by their audience at banquets and gatherings, and in order to make a name for themselves as theologians. -- St Symeon the New Theologian, “The First Theological Discourse,” in Symeon the New Theologian: The Practical and Theological Chapters & The Three Theological Discourses. Trans. Paul McGuckin. (Kalamazoo, Michigan: Cistercian Publications, 1994), p.107.

St Symeon establishes a caveat that all theologians should consistently reflect upon throughout their career. Their task is to edify the faith, not to dismantle it. Even if what they say can be shown to be true, this is only one aspect of their work. Theology must impart the truth with the interpretive meaning that makes the truth relevant to the faithful, and the truth should be presented in a fashion so as to attract the faithful to accept it in a loving, holistic manner. That is to say, theologians need to make their work beautiful, because beauty, as the ancients said, attracts others and produces love in its wake. Without beauty, there is no love. When we see scornful divisions among Christians, this is a sure sign that, no matter which side (if any) holds the truth, no side has kept the beauty needed to make that truth relevant.

This makes for a rather sorrowful realization when one sees that the great divide between Constantinople and the Christian East with Rome and the Christian West resides in debates on the Holy Spirit, the Lord of Beauty. The East and West do not have a real theological difference in their understanding of Holy Spirit, but they do have distinct ways in presenting this theological truth. If they held to the universal love that is required by the Christian, Constantinople and Rome would have been able to overcome their different methods for discussing the Holy Spirit: they would have been willing to read each other charitably, and seen the common profession being proclaimed by both sides, instead of trying to denounce each other for being in error.

Mutual condemnations were given from the East and the West, one to another, in 1054 on the use or lack of the use of the filioque on the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed. In the East, the Creed reads, “I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and giver of life, who proceeds from the Father, who together with the Father and Son is worshiped and glorified.” In the West, with the addition of the filioque, that is, the phrase, “and the son,” the Latin Creed became, “I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son, who together with the Father and the Son is worshiped and glorified.”

Now, it must be pointed out that the West used the filioque long before 1054, and the East never included it in their rendition of the Creed. While it is a fact that the original rendition of the Creed did not include the filioque, when Rome added the filioque to deal with a local theological crisis, Constantinople and Rome remained in communion with each other. It was only during the reign of St Photius of Constantinople (c. 820 – 893) that significant theological arguments were issued by the East against the West on the inclusion of the filioque. However, there seems to be political reasons for this. When there was a dispute as to who was the rightful Patriarch of Constantinople, between Sts Ignatius and Photius, Rome rendered its decision and declared St Ignatius to be the rightful Patriarch. St Photius was enraged, and in his anger, wrote against Rome, its authority, and provided in his analysis a detailed criticism of the filioque, trying to use it as a justification for his non-compliance with Rome. When St Ignatius died, St Photius was able to restore communion with Rome. He even made his peace with St Ignatius by declaring Ignatius’ sainthood. When St Photius reestablished communion with Rome, Rome did not remove the filioque from their rendition of the Creed. Unity between the East and West was able to be had while the East and West had variant renditions of the Creed.

When the great schism of 1054 occurred, we see the rhetorical polemics of St Photius being elevated into theological declarations, and the East reified St Photius’ arguments as a justification for schism. They turned the filioque into a dogmatic issue, and in spite, the East called the West heretics, and the West followed suit with polemics against the East. Soon, theologians (and Saints) from both sides of the split lost the spirit of agape needed to read the theological opinions of the other side of the schism properly. Yet, if one took the time to study what is being proclaimed behind the words, one can easily see it is the same Trinitarian faith being pointed to by both sides of the schism.

The East centers its understanding of the Trinity on the monarchy of the Father. The Father, following St Gregory the Theologian, is the source or foundation for the Trinity.

But the Monarchy is that which we hold in honour. It is, however, a Monarchy that is not limited to one Person, for it is possible for Unity if at variance with itself to come into a condition of plurality; but one which is made of an equality of Nature and a Union of mind, and an identity of motion, and a convergence of its elements to unity – a thing which is impossible to the created nature – so that though numerically distinct there is no severance of Essence. Therefore Unity, having from all eternity arrived by motion at Duality, found its rest in Trinity. That is what we mean by Father and Son and Holy Ghost. The Father is the Begetter and Emitter; without passion, of course, and without reference to time, and not in a corporeal manner. The Son is the Begotten, and the Holy Spirit the Emission; for I know not how this could be expressed in terms altogether excluding visible things. -- St Gregory the Theologian, “Second Theological Oration,” in Nicene and Post Nicene Fathers, Second Series. Ed. Philip Schaff and Henry Wace. Volume 7 (Peabody, Massachusetts, Hendrickson Publishers: 1994), p.301.

Without going into all the theological justification for their understanding, the East holds that the Father is unoriginate, the Son is begotten of the Father, and the Spirit proceeds from the Father. The Father has no source for his person, and the other two rely upon the Father as their source, although outside of time and without losing their respective equality to the Father.

Now, the West, it can be said, seems to differ from the East, by saying the Son shares in the generation of the Spirit. The East allows for the fact, as Scripture points out, that the Holy Spirit proceeds through the Son by his sending of the Spirit unto us (John 17:7), but they do not want to say the Spirit proceeds from the Son. However, St Basil in chapter three of On The Holy Spirit, shows us that this distinction between “from” and “through” does not have to be a real distinction. It is a linguistic distinction employed by some philosophers to divide the matter of which something is made from the instrumental manner of its making. “They have been led into this error, however, by their study of pagan writers, who apply the expressions ‘from whom’ and ‘through whom’ to things which are distinct by nature. These writers suppose that ‘from whom’ refers to the matter from which something is made, and ‘through whom’ to the instrument which assists in its making.” St Basil the Great, On The Holy Spirit. Trans. David Anderson (Crestwood, New York: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1997), p.19. As St Basil points out in chapter four, while this grammatical distinction can be employed as a useful tool, it is not necessary, and in fact, in the case of Scripture, this linguistic convention is not always followed “Now we admit that the Word of truth often uses these expressions in the manner just described, but we absolutely deny that the freedom of the Spirit is controlled by pagan pettiness. Rather, it appropriately varies its expression for each occasion, as the circumstances require.” Ibid, p.21. Following this argument, we can say that when the East allows for a procession of the Spirit through the Son, then they can read the Western declaration of a procession of the Spirit “from” the Son as acceptable – if it can be shown that the West continues to accept the East’s view that the Father as the ultimate, unoriginate source for the Trinity.

St Augustine is one of the great sources for the West’s understanding of the Trinity, and specifically, for the West’s use of the filioque. His notion of the Trinity became the foundation for Western theological reflection on the Trinity. Yet, when he proclaims the Spirit proceeding from the Son, he points it out as a gift of love from the Father to the Son: that is, there is still an aspect of the Spirit having the Father as a unique source, and the procession of the Spirit is a procession through the Son back to the Father as the mutual love between the Father and the Son. In Book XV of On The Trinity, St. Augustine writes “… I say, understand, that as the Father has in Himself that the Holy Spirit should proceed from Him, so has He given to the Son that the same Holy Spirit should proceed from Him, and be both apart from time: and that the Holy Spirit is so said to proceed from the Father as that it be understood that His proceeding also from the Son, is a property derived by the Son from the Father.” St Augustine, On The Trinity in Nicene and Post Nicene Fathers, First Series. Ed. Philip Schaff. Volume 3. (Peabody, Massachusetts: Hendrickson Publishers, 1994), p.225. Indeed, St Augustine wants to make it clear that the Holy Spirit, in principle, proceeds from the Father. “For the Father alone is not from another, and therefore He alone is called unbegotten, not indeed in the Scriptures, but in the usage of disputants, who employ such language as they can on so great a subject. And the Son is born of the Father; and the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father principally, the Father giving the procession without any interval of time, yet in common from both” Ibid, p.225.

In Augustine, the monarchy of the Father is preserved in the immanent Trinity, but there is the added benefit in his thought because the economic Trinity, the way the Trinity is revealed to us, is shown to be a reflection of the immanent Trinity. Nothing in the way God acts is accidental. The way God acts shows us something of the persons of God. The way the Spirit proceeds through the Son to us therefore shows us something of the person of the Son in the immanent Trinity. It is not, however, a double-procession of the Spirit, or a double-generation, as he expressed in Book V of On The Trinity. “If, therefore, that also which is given has him for a beginning by whom it is given, since it has received from no other source that which proceeds from him; it must be admitted that the Father and the Son are a Beginning of the Holy Spirit, not two Beginnings; but as the Father and Son are one God, and one Creator, and one Lord relatively to the creature, so are they one Beginning relatively to the Holy Spirit. But the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit is one Beginning in respect to the creature, as also one Creator and one God” Ibid., 95

The Western notion of the filioque must be read through charity, and must be understood as an attempt to explain the Trinity following their social-linguistic norms. Linguistic difficulties aside, both see the Father as the person who is the principal foundation of the Trinity. The West, following St Augustine, reflects upon the implications of the economic Trinity and what it signifies of the immanent Trinity. The East, ever cautious about defining anything about the Trinity, does not want to delve far into the intra-personal life of the Trinity. However, these methodological differences do not end, as some claim, with different conceptions of God, but they both preserve the one understanding of the Trinity which both sides of Christendom received from tradition.

While many scholars now do not want to establish 1054 as the official date for the schism between East and West, it clearly reflects the point in which the political agendas of partisans from both sides were finally manifest. It was not the East that was making an issue of the filioque, but it was the papal envoy, Cardinal Humbert, who issued the anathema against Constantinople, believing that Constantinople had to obey his own dictates. Charity was lost, the desire for the one heart of love needed to proclaim the Trinity was lost. Thankfully, in recent times, the desire for Christian unity, lost at the end of the first millennium, has returned. Perhaps the anger, hate, and political intrigue which allowed for partisans of both sides to denounce the other’s interpretation of the Creed can now be replaced by the love and oneness of heart needed for us to once again proclaim, “The Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, the Trinity, one in substance and undivided.”

The Feast of St Francis of Assisi

Today's the day! It's the feast of St Francis of Assisi!

Troparion Tone 3.
When riches had impoverished the world, you enriched it with the poverty of Christ, and by your love for all creation, you revealed to us the radiance of Tabor's light, so that all nations see in you the deep desire of all mankind. Beg Christ our Lord to save our souls.

Kontakion Tone 6.
Hearing the words of the Holy Gospels, you left your earthly father to serve your Father in heaven, showing us the riches of poverty and the perfect joy of the Cross. And in opposing the pride of the mighty with the humility of the simple, and breaking down the walls of hatred with the power of your love, you became yourself an image of the crucified Christ, who is everywhere present and fills all things.

When St Francis was told to repair the church, he was given this message while kneeling in front of a Byzantine-style Crucifix, reportedly in an Italo-Byzantine parish. St Francis saw the ruined building he was in and believed it was the church he was supposed to fix -- and in a way, it was, but it was to be the foundation for his greater mission, the mission to help rebuild the Catholic faith from within. Yet, what an amazing turn of events - this mission, this foundation for one of the greatest saints to grace the pages of history, took place in an Eastern Church. Could there be another message here, an indication of the kind of mission Francis and his friars can play in church unity? Perhaps.

Despite some Orthodox who reject St Francis, usually from small sectarian groups which present their limited understanding of tradition as normative for all, we find in the Orthodox world profound respect for St Francis. Indeed, there is an understanding of many Orthodox that St Francis is for the Catholics what St Seraphim of Sarov is for the Orthodox. St Seraphim, like St Francis, was filled with the spirit, and constantly seen interacting with animals, treating them as his personal friends. Indeed, in some spiritual biographies of St Seraphim, some Orthodox have reported seeing a vision of heaven where St Francis of Assisi is standing next to St Seraphim, showing us that theway of holiness they offer is one and the same, and (as some see it) that the East and West are not so fundamentally divided as the political situation on earth makes it out to be.

It should come as no surprise that, among the scholastic theologians, it was St Bonaventure, a Franciscan, who seemed to edge closer to the East than any of the rest. His theology continued with the Eastern sympathy of theology with mysticism (all the major scholastic saints did this, to be sure, and St Thomas Aquinas is a profound mystic, but there seems, at least to me, a greater mystical overtone throughout all of Bonaventure's writings, even in his systematic treatise, than any of the other schoolmen). St Francis was his guide in understanding the Christian life, and Bonaventure's theology can be read as a theological commentary on what St Francis said and did.

In the way of St Bonaventure, I wanted to write a small treatise to celebrate St Francis' feast, showing how Francis has influenced my own theological ideas. Every time I read one of the major, early biographies of St Francis, I learn something new, and I find it somehow mixing itself into my own thoughts and transforming them in subtle ways.

This was a treatise I was not able to write for today. Perhaps next year.

However, I thought I would share one thing I have learned from St Francis, something I think Catholics today need to know more than ever: the true path of inter-religious dialogue. This path is ever loving, ever open, and yet ever willing to state the truths of the Catholic faith in bold, but compassionate, ways. In a time where Christians and Muslims were fighting each other in the Crusades, St Francis decided it was his mission to go into Muslim territories and proclaim his love for Christ. He did not go to defame anyone, he only went to uplift the faith. His sermons were simple and humble, never inflammatory. He showed the truth without having to be harsh. Even in the most hostile of territories, where a bounty was given to anyone who killed a Christian, St Francis was able to turn the tables around, to earn the respect and affection of even the darkest of hearts. He was given the freedom to preach, and through his work, the Franciscans were given the protection of the shrines in the Holy Land.

We need more like St Francis today, people so filled with a radical love for Christ and their neighbor, that they become imitators of Christ, who was love incarnate. And where did St Francis get such love? By the grace of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Beauty, who transformed St Francis' eyes in San Damiano so that St Francis could only see the world in the light of this spirit, in the light of beauty, which we see in his famed Canticle of Brother Sun.

A Prayer In Honor Of St Francis of Assisi

This week the Church will be celebrating the feast day of St Francis of Assisi. As one of the greatest saints of the Church, he has also held a considerable influence on my own spiritual and theological development.

To start this week off, I thought I would share a prayer I wrote for my Master’s thesis. That work was an examination of some of the problems that are debated in traditional Christology, and I tried to show how a different philosophical framework (Yogacara Buddhism) could be used to help answer those problems.

In it, I wrote the prayer to show the practical applications of my Christological reflections. As one can see, in it one can find St Francis’ prayer for peace. St Francis, I believe, shows us one way for inter-religious dialogue, and his spiritual insights have a strong concordance with the best of Buddhist thought.

I have edited the prayer slightly since the time I wrote my thesis, because I needed to smooth out a couple rough portions from the end of the prayer.



Vows

My Lord and My God,
I will work for the salvation of all beings.
I will work to remove all my evil desires and attachments.
I will study and practice your ways,
So that I can realize the way of truth.

My Lord and My God,
However innumerable the sentient beings, I will work to help them all.
However inexhaustible the passions which lead to sin, I will work to extinguish them all.
However immeasurable are your ways, I will follow them.
However incomparable is the truth, I will work to attain it.

My Lord and My God,
I will work to save all beings from difficulties,
I will work to destroy all evil passions,
I will work to learn the truth and so that I can teach it to others,
I will work to lead all towards union with you.

My Lord and My God,
I will work to deliver all beings from suffering,
I will work to cut off all afflictions,
I will study all approaches to the truth,
I will follow the path to the Beatific Vision: nirvana.

My Lord and My God,
As sentient beings are numberless, I will help ferry them across the ocean of suffering,
As confusion is inexhaustible, I work to uproot it,
As your ways are without measure, I will seek to know them all,
As unity with the Mystical Body of Christ is unsurpassed, I will work to actualize it fully.

Concluding Prayers

My Lord and My God,
Make me an instrument of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
Where there is doubt, faith;
Where there is despair, hope;
Where there is darkness, light;
Where there is sadness, joy. (Prayer of St. Francis)

My Lord and My God,
Make me an instrument of your compassion.
Where there is ignorance, let me bring wisdom;
Where there is sin, virtue;
Where there is suffering, healing;
Where there is pride, humility;
Where there is discord, harmony.

Through the prayers of the Mother of God and of all the saints, may I obtain the grace I need to know the needs of others, the way to help them out of their suffering, and the strength needed to guide all souls on the path of salvation, especially those who are in most need of mercy. Amen.