nunblog

Sr. Helena has been working for a solid week to figure out how to transfer her media literacy collection of sundry video clips and commercials to a workable DVD. Today she has proclaimed her technological victory! Meanwhile, I have been pouring over our Founder's works (in English and Italian) to mine for his thought on methods for spreading the Word of God--in view of next week's gathering in Texas. Which I am eagerly anticipating, given that today's temps in San Antonio were to be between 65 and 80, and here in Chicago I was watching the snow fall about an hour ago.
Spring started last week, actually.
At least I caught up on one old, forgotten commitment: providing a summary book review of a manuscript from another publisher. I don't think we'll be carrying the book in PBM centers, though. (A bit too hard to reconcile with Church teaching.) Glad I got that over with! But having read through it, I have been distracted by its overall tone. The author was trying to inject the findings of contemporary quantum physics and so on into spirituality. So far, so good. It's an important thing to do. But to attempt that with only one or two references to the entire New Testament (and only two canonized saints) seems to me to be redefining "spirituality" in all too generic a sense. It is as if the 2,000 year history of Christian spirituality, which naturally expressed itself (in its "positive" formulations) according to the dominant world view and culture, had nothing of real significance for us today (unless it be for the via negativa formulations of certain Germanic mystics and the writings of the late Teilhard de Chardin); as if all our spiritual thought should come from the findings and theories of science. And there was very little room for anything like "divine revelation" outside of the world of quantum science, too.
I didn't want to dismiss the whole book, but I kind of had to, given its overall tenor. But I still want to think out the ramifications of mind-blowing science for how we see ourselves in the world, and what Augustine might have meant when he wrote that eternity would be the "One Christ loving himself."