The Feast of Saint Valentine

The name "Valentine", is derived from valens, meaning worthy, and was popular in late antiquity.
Of the Saint Valentine whose feast is on February 14, nothing factual is known except his name and that he was buried at the Via Flaminia north of Rome on February 14. It is even uncertain whether the feast of that day celebrates only one saint or more saints of the same name.

At least three different Saint Valentines, all of them martyrs, are mentioned in the early martyrologies under the date of 14 February. One is described as a priest at Rome, another as bishop of Interamna (modern Terni), and these two seem both to have suffered in the second half of the third century and to have been buried on the Flaminian Way, but at different distances from the city.

Of both these St. Valentines, some sort of Acta are preserved, but they are of relatively late date and of no historical value. Of the third Saint Valentine, who suffered in Africa with a number of companions, nothing further is known.
~excerpt from The Catholic Encyclopedia

The feast day of Saint Valentine, priest and martyr, was included in the Tridentine Calendar, with the rank of Simple, on February 14. In 1955, Pope Pius XII reduced the celebration to a commemoration within the celebration of the occurring weekday. In 1969, this commemoration was removed from the General Roman Calendar. However, it remains one of the Catholic saint days.

The full history of St. Valentine's Day is blurry and nobody really knows who the real St. Valentine was. There are many stories and myths, and there were three different Valentines who were martyred. One was a priest who lived in Rome and was supposedly martyred in 269 A.D. The second, a bishop, lived in Interamna (modern-day Treni) in Italy. There was a very obscure third Valentine who met his fate in Africa. The first Valentine, from Rome, is generally considered the right person and is associated with a charming but also gruesome story:

During the reign of Roman Emperor Claudius II from 268 to 270 A.D., it became important to recruit young men to the army, but the response was low because men didn’t want to leave their wives and families. In reaction to the low interest, the emperor decided to prohibit marriages. But Valentine didn’t accept this and secretly performed marriages between young Christian men and women. He was eventually caught and sentenced to death.

The Roman emperors were firmly against the Christians until the fourth century A.D. and persecuted them because they were considered a subversive group. One of the major stumbling blocks to accepting the Christian church were the many holidays in celebration of the pagan gods, in which the people of the Roman Empire believed. For instance, the Apostle Paul founded an altar in Athens to the deity who was called "Unknown God," and immediately used this unknown God to introduce Christianity into that community. By this means the faith came to be accepted.

How Valentine's path to Sainthood began--the future saint’s jailer may or may not have had a young daughter, but in any case a young girl began to visit Valentine. He may have fallen in love with her or maybe not, but they met frequently. On February 14, the day that he was to be executed, he wrote her a note and signed it, "From your Valentine." And that is supposedly the origin of the custom of writing one’s beloved a note and signing it with that well-known phrase.
~excerpt from hurriyet.com

Here's the gruesome part of the story: Valentine was beaten to death and decapitated. In 496 A.D. Pope Gelasius set aside Feb. 14 to honor St. Valentine, possibly to turn Roman minds from the licentious behavior associated with the pagan holiday Lupercalia.
~excerpt from hurriyet.com

It is kept as a commemoration by Traditionalist Roman Catholics who, in accordance with the authorization given by Pope Benedict XVI's motu proprio Summorum Pontificum of July 7, 2007, use the General Roman Calendar of 1962 and the liturgy of Pope John XXIII's 1962 edition of the Roman Missal, and, as a Simple Feast, by Traditionalists, such as the Society of St. Pius X, Roman Catholics who continue to use the General Roman Calendar as in 1954.

Saint Valentine continues to be recognized as a saint, since he is included in the Roman Martyrology, the Catholic Church's official list of saints. The feast day of Saint Valentine also continues to be included in local calendars of places such as Balzan and Malta, where relics of the saint are claimed to be found.
~excerpt from Wikipedia

Nothing Special: Promises Not Kept

"He who does not expect, has all things"

Charlotte Joko Beck writes, "Our human trouble arises from desire. Not all desires generate problems, however. There are two kinds of desires: demands, I have to have it, and preferences. Preferences are harmless, "they are what we would want to like to have,' Beck writes.

"Desire that demands to be satisfied is the problem. It's as if we feel that we're constantly thirsty, and to quench our thirst we try to attach a hose to a faucet in the wall of life. We keep thinking that from this or that faucet we will get the water we demand... We demand countless things of ourselves and the world; almost anything can be seen as desirable, a socket we can attach ourselves to, so that we can finally get the drink we believe we need... self-assured [or not], underneath it all we feel that there is something lacking.

We feel we have to fix our life, quench our thirst. We've got to get that connection, to hook up our hose to that faucet... The problem is that nothing actually works. 
We begin to discover that the promise we hold out to ourselves... is never kept... If we've been trying for years... to attach our hose... there comes a moment of profound discouragement... and it dawns on us that nothing can really fulfill our demands... 
That moment of despair is in fact a blessing, the real beginning... A strange thing [then] begins to happen when we let go of our expectations... 
Practice has to be a process of endless disappointment... [In] good sitting we must notice the promise that we wish to extract from other people and abandon the dream that they can quench our thirst."

Christianity refers to this experience as the dark night of the soul, the moment when one enters into union with that which is greater, and infinite love, though the gate may be narrow, the joys are great:

"Do to others whatever you would have them do to you. This is the law and the prophets.

Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate which is wide and the road broad, lead to destruction, and those who enter through it are many.

'How narrow the gate and constricted the road that leads to life. And those who find it are few."
--The Bible, Matthew chapter 7, verses 12-14

Nature's God the Origins of the American Revolution

"Locke and Spinoza are the chalk and cheese of the early Enlightenment..."  -- Nature's God by Matthew Stewart

The origins of  America, the United States of America as she is formally known, is set down and cast. Generations have studied her beginnings and precepts in schools and universities across this nation. Yet here comes author Matthew Stewart with his new book, Nature's God, to upset the status quo. Not only did the process of establishing a Republic form in the minds of Colonial America, but in European capitals as well where it found fertile soils. The Enlightenment brought a firm change in the usual order of intellectual life. Creation once separated from a divinity and re-assigned to science, now allowed for minds to range freely.

Stewart argues that along with those individuals traditionally credited for the founding of the American Republic, there were a few others. He writes that along with a nation, a civil religion also ensued. He further credits men such as Ethan Allen, Thomas Young, instigator of the 1773 Boston Tea Party, also Dutchman and philosopher Benedict de Spinoza as among those most fervent to liberate themselves and all minds from not the tyranny of one king but from the tyranny of the ultimate, the supernatural religions.

They returned to the fertile imaginings of the earlier Republics, both Roman and Greek, to philosophers such as Aristotle and Lucretius; the widely influential mind of Englishman John Locke. John Locke, who was a student of Frenchman Descartes in his early years, and mentored by the scientist Robert Boyle in close association with Issac Newton.
John Locke developed and promulgated his ideas on freedom of religion and the rights of a citizen which did not go well for him under the English monarchy; he was forced to flee England preferring Holland.
The Dutch received him well enough and he apparently made good contacts there, most importantly Benedict de Spinoza. Author Stewart charges that it was the conflagration between two unlikely minds, German Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibinitz and Englishman John Locke that produced the ground upon which the American experiment came to rest. For the remainder of the book he lays out his case for both the establishment of a land in which those ideas most rank and most fertile would develop into a Republic, and a national sort of religion based on science and reason.

In the evolving nationhood, America came to regard the supernatural in ways known since the much earlier eras of heterodox Rome. While Rome held forth for religion and spiritual practice, it was to nature they gave the most delight. These men of Enlightenment were in their day, deists, those for whom religion was, as Stewart writes, "a watery expression of the Christian religion," arising in England and transported to the American Colonies. He further charges that these same men stirred up a sweeping deism, an atheism that allowed for the simplicity of nature to overshadow and endow the American Declaration of Independence and likewise, the Constitution with so much of its radical force.

Salvation in History

"I think, therefore I am."   -- Rene Descartes, French philosophe

Not the least of accomplishments, the late Pope John Paul II was an artist, an actor, an able statesman for his Polish homeland, exhibiting both bold love for the people, and courage against their Communist oppressors; as well, he was a highly articulate Pastor, tending his flock as priest, bishop and later as Pope, the spiritual leader of the world's Roman Catholic Christians.

Despite his high scholarship and extensive intellectual abilities, it is sometimes less known that John Paul possessed a formidable intellect for the humanities, the sciences, mathematics and philosophy of all kinds. He had a great interest in astronomy. In one of his many works of literature and philosophy, Crossing the Threshold of Hope, John Paul chooses as his subject, salvation in history. Why does the Christian story of Jesus seem so complicated? Is God really so loving? What about other faith groups who look to their traditions for wholeness, peace, for salvation, for unity? John Paul II (JP II) muses that the answers are long, yet he endeavors to make them simple in this essay for those who are not philosophers, to better carry the message of salvation, as he sees it.

"To be redeemed in salvation, is a profound question." Many faiths' practice for spiritual redemption; it is not limited to Christians. Jews and Buddhists are two other faiths that come to mind. In history, salvation in the west finds its modern roots in the teaching of the Enlightenment thinkers of Europe. John Paul writes, "I put Descartes at the forefront, because he marks the beginning of a new era of European thought, and because this philosopher, who certainly is the greatest France has given the world, inaugurated a great shift in philosophy: 'I think, therefore I am'...the motto of modern rationalism."

"The objective truth of this thought is not as important as the fact that something exists in human consciousness." Descartes inaugurates the modern development of the sciences, including those humanistic sciences, ushering in the new, modern age of western thought.

The French Enlightenment ushered in the "cult of the goddess of reason." To those minds shaped by a naturalistic consciousness of the world, God is decidedly outside of the world. "God working through man turned out to be useless...to modern science, to modern knowledge...which examines the workings of the conscious, the unconsciousness. The Enlightenment, thus, put God, the redeemer to one side."

Consequently, man, divorced from traditions of faith, of spirit, is now expected to live by reason alone. The collected wisdom of the ages, ever present in traditional society is cast aside in favor of reason alone. The presence of a divine Creator, a loving intellect that knows the heart of his creation, that so loved the world, does not need God's love.

The modern world is self sufficient; thus this world must be the world that makes man happy. Yet in the world today, man continues to suffer in body and mind, in poverty and neglect, in loneliness and greed, this world suffers alienation, aimlessness, anxiety, poverty, and suffers alone. Science has not been its help.

"This world,' says JP II, 'in which knowledge is developed by man, which appears as progress and civilization, as a modern system of communication, in a structure of democratic freedoms without limits, is today a world in which man suffers." The world is not capable, despite its reason, to make man happy, to free him from his sufferings, his pain, his death; it cannot save man from evil, illness or catastrophes. Still, now today, the world needs, wants to be saved, to be redeemed and renewed.

Immortality is not part of the world; that is why the Christ speaks in the Gospels of God's love which expresses itself in the offering of his son, so that man may not perish, but have life, eternal. He came that man might be free in love, to lift him and embrace in a redeeming love. For love is always greater than any force of evil."

"The Easter story is the culmination of the story of the "return," of redemption possible and available to all humankind. The history of salvation "not only addresses the question of human history, but also confronts the problem of the meaning of man's existence. It is both a confrontation of history and metaphysics; the encounters between man and God in the world, the divine mysteries of souls constitutes the modern Church." --paraphrased.

Gathering Communities

We gather together to work, to learn, to grow; we gather into communities, towns, universities. People everywhere, they live in groups, they live in families; they cherish their friends and they spend time together, supporting and enjoying their ways and their company. We get sick, we go to hospitals to help us recover.
What all these things have in common, with each of us in our everyday lives, is that inescapable fact that humanity, as a species, seems hard wired for gathering.

 Into groups we collect and revel. Together. It all seems so natural. Why, by working together, supporting and accomplishing worthwhile tasks, what could be better?
The person who lives stalwartly alone, who is friendless, who has very little or no community to speak of, that is a person often pitied and eyed suspiciously. We exclaim, "are they ill? Why are they such loners?"
This all makes simple sense. It seems so natural to gather, to enjoy the company of our brothers and sisters, our loves and loved here on earth.
Yet when the matter turns to named things such as 'religion', many of us recoil. Why? Well, it seems we don't think to belong after all. Some don't want to belong. Thus reinventing the 'spiritual' wheel is okay.

In fact, it's better than okay. It may be for these persons, the only way to demonstrate their will to 'pull themselves up by the bootstraps.' Many among us think, in spiritual terms, that there are aliens around us, to be avoided at all costs.
Infected with perhaps a strong sense of humanist enlightenment, a person with such notions eschews anything of community within the context of faith.

Yet if a faith community is true, existing for a higher purpose, for the common good, then it is, it must be and it will do something. Let me say this again: Churches, mosques, temples, ashrams and so forth exist because they do something for others.
If they do not, they they exist not for long. Communities survive and thrive because of the activities of each of its constituents. What each of us contributes to the good of all, is the community.

It is this fact that escapes many in the blog-sphere. Simply talking isn't sufficient, nor are kind thoughts or nice words and graphics. Communities must do something, and religious communities continue and persist for this very simple reason!
 Join the collective, engage in acts of social justice. Learn about yourself from another's eyes.
Help a friend. Be a community, be a support.

Christianity and India

"Christians living in Kerala astutely relate the Christ to the Vedic tradition."

Christianity in India is about as old as Christianity itself. In the south, in the Tamil province, especially, the cult of the Christian is especially well developed. In parts of India it easily adopted the Brahminic mode of expression. Syrian Christians living in Kerala engage in casting their horoscopes for example, and astutely relate the life of the Christ to Vedic traditions. In some regard, Christian-ways in these regions are ubiquitous; in turn it gives culture to India.

 The deeply imbedded notion of the Avatar inspires many. Through divining the personality of the Christ, Indians see the Christ as something of a Supreme Being, incarnated, come to earth to save mankind. The idea of wrong, of sin is overlooked. In this type of salvation drama, Christ, the Avatar is most appealing. Sabrania Bharati, a Tamil poet of national prominence and a Shakti devotee wrote:

My Lord expired on the Cross

and ascended in three days.
Beloved Mary Magdalene

 saw this happen.
Friends! Here's the esoteric sense.
The gods will enter us
and guard us from all ills 

if we transcend pride.
 

Mary Magdalene is Love,
Jesus the Soul.
The outer evil destroyed,
the good life sprouts.
She praised the radiance 

in that golden face.
That was the love of Magdalene,

ah, what joy!
If Sense is bound to the Cross of Truth,
and crucified with nail austerity,
Jesus of the strengthened soul 

will rise as the boundless sky

Magdalene is Eternal Feminine,
Jesus Christ is deathless dharma,
Draw we close to the symbol:
look, an inner meaning glows.

The poet does not mean to give a philosophical view here. Instead he is deeply moved to record his experience in poetry, the song of words. Praising the image of the Christ upon the Cross, he attempts to reconcile this image with the sure knowledge of deep suffering, of passion. Why should there be so much suffering? Is the persecutor Pilate to be the ever source of this suffering? What remains now of godliness, of mercy, of holiness? The heart in ascension rises and opens to the eternal, to hope.

How, muses the poet, shall we coax, the Lord of Hosts to enter our consciousness, making us the carriers of the imperishable Dharma? With Mary Magdalene as love incarnate, love then is the entrailing of the gods to combine the human with Jivatman and Supreme, the Paramatman.
Where love is expressed, smallness falls away; there lives instead the Divine, for God is Love, we learn. The Supreme responds to the sincere strivings of the Human being.

Another Indian of great repute, Sri Aurobindo also felt the indescribable pull towards the imagery of  Christ upon the Cross. Affected by the story of The Divine Comedy,  Dante who remarks with simple clarity, 'in His will is our peace,' reflects the view of Aurobindo equally himself.
Aurobindo freely engaged the life and gospels of the Christ in his own writings. For Aurobindo, the Christ represented the ideal, the strivings of the One to completeness, to wholeness. The Avatar, he believed, was significant for man's spiritual progress, for his ultimate ascension. In his epic poem, Savitri, he writes about the Christ as Avatar in a step towards human unity.

Tarsius and the Council of Nicaea

"Be still, and know that I am God." Bible, Psalm 46:10

While many have heard the word Nicaean (Nicean) and may know it has something to do with christian religious experience or spirituality, historically exactly what it is, many fewer can say today.

The councils of Nicaea were convened in response to controversy about theological ideas around the nature of the Christ. These meetings were ecumenical councils. The second Nicaean Council took place in Constantinople about 786 BCE lasting until civil unrest disturbed the councilors so much they took early leave. These councils are considered the councils of the undivided church of this time. The imperial secretary, Tarsius figures importantly in this second proceeding. He later became the Patriarch of Constantinople.

The first council of Nicaea took place some centuries earlier in Alexandria Egypt about 325 BCE. Present at this council notably were the patriarchs of Egypt, Libya, Syria, Persia, Palestine and also Greece and Thrace among others. Manuscripts of the proceedings have been discovered written in Arabic describing a number of significant events which took place here. There were a number of decisions made: notably that Bishops must know the Gospels by heart, not cursorily; that they must be exemplary in character and the still widely used, Nicene Creed was devised and agreed upon. If you learn nothing else, read and understand this creed, for it is all that Christianity proposes and all that it believes. Here it's in its original, unedited form:

We believe in one God the Father Almighty, Maker of all things visible and invisible; and in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten of the Father, that is, of the substance [ek tes ousias] of the Father, God of God, light of light, true God of true God, begotten not made, of the same substance with the Father [homoousion to patri], through whom all things were made both in heaven and on earth; who for us men and our salvation descended, was incarnate, and was made man, suffered and rose again the third day, ascended into heaven and cometh to judge the living and the dead. And in the Holy Ghost. Those who say: There was a time when He was not, and He was not before He was begotten; and that He was made out of nothing, ex ouk onton; or those who maintain that He is of another hypostasis or another substance, not the Father, or that the Son of God is created, or mutable, or subject to change, those the catholic* church anathematizes."
Source-- www.newadvent.org/cathen/11044a.htm

In the previous era of Christian unity, the convening of ecumenical councils was an important way for Christian leaders from far off lands to come together, discuss the Gospels and their meaning and come to unified conclusions regarding the spirituality and practice of the Christian faith. At this early time in history, the Bishop of Rome, todays Pope Francis, was widely regarded as the bishop who presides in love and charity, as St. Ignatius of Antioch termed it, and thus the Bishop of Rome (the Pope) takes precedence in the order of Bishops. At the time, there was an order of precedence among the ancient bishops' seats: Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem; the order was recognized by all in the era of the undivided church.

After centuries of rising tension, Christianity finally broke apart in 1054 CE. The reasons included abstract theological differences involving issues like the understanding of the Holy Spirit and practical disagreements over the extent of the Western pope’s authority over worldwide Christianity.
After the breach, the rival primates hurled mutual excommunications at each other. For nearly 1,000 years, the two churches did not interact on any level.

* Catholic is defined as: whole, universal, undivided

Popes and Diatribes

"a theology which out of love, wants to know the beloved better." --God Is Love by Pope Benedict XVI

As many, such as the writer quoted below, would like to distort the state of the world's largest Christian denomination with splenetic diatribes-- in other words, puking guts and not much else, T. Sanderson of the National Secular Society writes today:
"Under Ratzinger [Pope Benedict XVI] the Vatican has become despised and resented throughout the world. He has played a major role in reducing the Catholic Church's popularity and its authority.
Catholics have deserted the Church at an increasing rate, repelled by the inhumanity of Ratzinger's  unbending adherence to what are perceived as cruel doctrines ..."

It is a display of regrettable ignorance that one would attempt to characterize 1.3 billion persons of the earth's population as such. Are these world-wide Catholics fools? Why do they keep coming? Why does the Church increase world-wide in numbers?
Think carefully, seek creditable news sources such as Catholic News Service, before you form an opinion about another faith based on something different from your own.

It is in practice the truth that while the Catholic Church is regulated from the top down, from the Vatican to the world; equally true is that the Church is local. She, the Church, is regulated by the average person in the pews and by the local Bishops every bit as much. And in the working of the Holy Spirit, it is so that faith based on what one can know but may not see is true, like the truth of the wind blowing upon one's face. And that while some members may be in commission of grievous faults, the Church, the body of Christ is composed of those same persons in the pews who live the greatest call to "love one another."

That leaves little room for scathing diatribes against humanity. The Church is present upon all continents and under all governments from the most liberal to the most repressive dictatorships, offering care and comfort to the human family. May those same blessings of the Spirit be yours and mine.

Today I Read, The Dilemma of Diversity

"Parents worry that their kids' beliefs will be influenced by exposure to other faiths. They needn't be." Sacred Ground by Eboo Patel

Today I read something really remarkable, an essay written by Eboo Patel, educated at the University of Illinois and Oxford, England, whose book is Sacred Ground: Pluralism, Prejudice and the Promise of America. In his essay he describes an American scene: A woman goes into an American hospital to deliver a baby. She enters an institution founded by Jewish philanthropy, with a Muslim physician attending her, while a Hindu physician administers anesthesia, and a Catholic Christian woman is assigned her nurse. Think about that a moment.

What joins all these persons together is their commitment to care, to care for persons who have  medical, physical needs, and possibly to attend to other emotional or spiritual needs as well. In America this scene is real and many of us have already experienced such compassionate care by those persons of faith who minister as doctors and other medical professionals. Because America is a Pluralistic nation as founded and announced by our Constitution and Bill of Rights. We may really be more defined by Pluralism than by Democracy.

In his book, Sacred Ground: Pluralism, Prejudice and the Promise of America, Patel poses a simple question, "am I just preaching to the choir?" While he initially interpreted this as some sort of rebuke, further reflection has led him to a different thought. Embodying the Social Change Theory, he writes that the issue is: less defining the problem and more identifying those who hold solutions, and assisting them in promoting those methods and ideas for social change.

He continues his thoughts by relating his impressions of a visit to Chicago by the 14th Dalai Lama. He was definitely "preaching to the choir. The Dalai Lama can obviously assemble a pretty large choir, but still he was strategic about how he went about it." He assembled a group of interfaith leaders in Chicago for a panel discussion; in other words "he had created a religiously diverse choir." The Dalai Lama, as some may know, has become active in the teaching of interfaith literacy. His recent book is titled, Towards a True Kinship of Faith: How the World's Religions Can Come Together. He emphasizes the ability of building relationships across differences. He inspires others to do the same.

Patel also tells a bit of the history of Cordoba, Spain during the Early-Medieval period of the Moorish Invasion, a time when Muslim people of North Africa came onto the Iberian Continent and successfully colonized it. In the ultimately peacefully co-existence of people of different faiths, Spain carved out regions where Moors predominated and intermarried with the native population, thus a peace established itself. Today the Moors are recognized for their genius and inspiration that energized Spanish society at large.
It was this attitude, Patel writes, which transplanted easily to the American shores, brought first by the Conquistadors and their colonies along the Gulf of Mexico, from Florida to California. He writes how he realized that because of active cooperation these communities did thrive, rather than a modern attitude of oh, so politically correct 'co-existence of lukewarm tolerance.' Finally he concludes that Cordoba predicted America.

So it is indeed Pluralism, the active cooperation and participation in the affairs of American society which defines this nation, concludes Patel. Reading his book in its entirety sets one to thinking about  just how.

Asking Questions, Tillich and the Existentialists

"I start with man asking questions about the ultimate meaning of life. People who listen to me are those who declare they don’t understand the Christian symbols that are given by the church and need them translated into modern language." --Paul Tillich

Paul Tillich emerged out of the Nazi regime and the era of Fascism to a world in wonder. The explosive force of the Atom bomb and the Hydrogen bomb left the known universe ajar. The pre-war answers to life's questions no longer filled a world searching for meaning at the world wars' end. While the First World War had been known as The Great War, its combatants, referred to as the Lost Generation. The Second World War gave way to the Beat generation, the Existentialists,  and authors such as Vicktor Frankl, a concentration camp survivor, who wrote titles such as Man's Search For Meaning.
Theologian Paul Tillich wrote about living in a Christian way within the revised world order of the mid 20th century.
Authors such as Jean Paul Sartre wrote books like Camus and La Peste also exploring the topic of Being and Nothingness, what has now become called Existentialism.

Existentialism is a view that was popularized, carried over into the arts-culture and into general society. While existentialism is sometimes called "the philosophy of the absurd," most existentialist thinkers would likely define themselves by a sense of free choice and lack of sense for past or future, only a present.
The one first identified as an existentialist was Soren Kierkegaard who wrote that this sense of self and time leads into humanism, a state where man in his own experiences, maintains the center the universe.
Paul Tillich wrote, "being religious means asking passionately the question of our existence and being willing to receive answers, even if the answers hurt."
Such an idea of religion makes religion universally human, but it certainly differs from what is usually called religion. It is here that Tillich makes his contribution to the understanding of the modern, technological world.

Love, Our Moral Witness

"Love is the necessary condition of justice" Caritas in Veritate, by Pope Benedict

In a world increasingly influenced by the click of a mouse and the "viral" transmission of ideas, some ideas still, even today, travel slowly. Writing in his recent encyclical [essay], the current Pope and spiritual leader of the world's 1.3 billion Roman Catholics, Pope Benedict, writes in Caritas in Veritate [Love in Truth] that not only is God love, but that we too are to love one another. This is not news for many who are familiar with the Christian teachings. But then in this piece of writing he goes on further to say, "the development of peoples depends, above all, upon a recognition that the human race is a single family."

Well, many would have not even considered this a teaching originating from this community; they will be surprised to know its continuing work for justice. The exhortation that the human family is one is in fact, a long time teaching coming from this body, the same body that is instrumental in shaping the now standard and accepted "human rights" doctrine embraced by the United Nations and most others world-wide. It is this same institution to whom the Pope addresses himself, as well as to others, christian or otherwise.

As a Catholic Christian, Benedict wishes to clarify that the teaching of his brethren is inclusive; it is encompassing race, and culture. He reminds his reader that 'anyone who says, I love God, and then hates his brother is a liar.' 1John 4:20
The takeaway from Caritas in Veritate is summed up as something like: the fundamental attitude we take towards others is akin to our regard for a brother, our neighbor and family. He reminds and instructs that this fraternal attitude is not limited to one's intimates and family, but to society in general. This attitude he insists, is fundamental to the economic development of a just, civil society.

While some will dismiss this notion out of hand as mere sentimentalism, the Pope is steadfast. A highly educated scholar, he makes salient argument in areas beyond and including theology for the good of all, his prime interest. Recalling the struggles of those living under a-theistic communist regimes, the struggles for racial justice in the United States and elsewhere, Benedict echoes the words of  Martin Luther King who said, "Justice is really love in calculation. Justice is love correcting that which [would want] revolts against love."
As these two world leaders teach, love is indeed the necessary condition of justice. On a person to person level, if we love someone, will will likely insist that they be treated fairly, both within personal relationships and within the larger community. This realization brings us to affirm that love is at the very heart of a true and faithful witness.

Incarnation, One Grand Miracle

"The Christian story is precisely the story of one grand miracle, the Christian assertion being that what is beyond all space & time, what is uncreated, eternal came into nature, decended into its own universe...  bringing nature up with him. It is precisely one great miracle. If you take that away, there is nothing specifically Christian left."  --The Grand Miracle by C.S. Lewis

God became human. Seldom do we stop to consider the meaning of this notion, that the infinite Creator came down. C.S. Lewis held the Incarnation in such high esteem that he called it and his book by the same title, The Grand Incarnation. Lewis' tale, is a devotion directed to the Christ, the anointed one, who is God become man. He, the God, Immanuel, God is with us, gives eternal life; we are energized through this contact with the One, the Creator, who makes in us a new creation, a central theme for Lewis.

C.S. Lewis, it is said, loved the story of the birth of the Christ. He argues in his (fictional) account, The Grand Miracle, that the miracle is not the crucifixion, nor the resurrection, while dramatic and awe-inspiring as they are, Lewis instead regards the simple, humble birth of the One Lord, the Christ child, to be the first event in the preparation for the coming Incarnation. Christians believe that the Christ is near, that through God, his father, he is with us; the Holy Spirit pours out over the fruits of Creation. Yet God remains hidden in these miracles.

The Christian is reminded often that the Gospel stories tell of an arc in the life of Jesus; that his story begins with incarnation and ends with a physical death. This is a powerful message to believers who grow in devotion to the One, who through the Spirit, the news of salvation, and God's grace presents to one and all. His love, the gospel teaches, is greater than any other thing; it is greater than death itself. Thus, from the earliest maturity, Christians are called into relationship with the Beloved, their Lord. Through spiritual practices, devotions, rituals, signs, Christians are evermore taken up into embrace, into union with the Beloved, the One who calls them home.

The Songs: What is Really in the Bible, Anyway?

The simple mind is away from the computer. this article was posted here previously, March 9, 2009.
"I sought the one I love" --Tanakh, Shir Ha-Shirim


Reflecting on the often forgotten or overlooked patrimony of the Christian, the father of whom is Yaweh, el, adonai, G-d, among other names, we in the modern world sometimes feel a disconnect from this vital source of our being. As Catholic and Orthodox Christians, to a varying and lesser degree, Protestant Christians, our heritage of joy, creativity and love owes itself to this very Jewish of fathers: Yaweh, G-d of the Tanakh, or "Old Testament."

Remembering our father ancestor is vital in understanding the whole of the Christian mind. Jesus was a Rabbi, a teacher of the Jewish people. He lived a Jewish life in a Jewish world. The earliest Christians who came to follow him, thought of themselves as very Jewish; they had seen and found the way to G-d's salvation in the Christ. Yet others, Jew and Gentile alike, in their Greek and Roman world, were unconvinced.

Over a period of time, Christian-Jews found themselves persecuted and misunderstood by many; excluded from many Temples, and engaging in new religious devotions, these Christians moved away from their Jewish center. By the first centuries in the Common Era (also referred to as A.D., after death) Christianity emerged from the home of her father, and went forth into the Gentile world. For its part, Judaism very nearly succumbed to a process of "Hellenization," that is, Jews were nearly completely subjugated to Greek rule and life; all but losing themselves in the process.

The early Christian church was largely of a Greek or Roman (Latin) character. As time progressed, the more unified Christian church split into what today is referred to as the Orthodox Church, Greek, and the Roman Catholic Church, Roman. However, long before all this happened, there were the Jews and their books, the Tanakh, guiding all their lives in a joyful and loving presence of Yaweh, G-d, our father.

The Jews, as "the people of the book," have been faithful to that book for more than 5,000 years now. What Christians refer to as the Bible, or the "Old Testament," Jews call the Tenakh (תנ״ך). It is divided into Torah (תּוֹרָה), Nev'im (נביאים), and Kethuvim (כְּתוּבִים). The Torah contains the five books of Moses; the Nev'im contains the writings of the Prophets, and the Kethuvim contains other writings also included within the Jewish Canon.

When we speak of this Jewish father, we read in the Tenakh stories that point to a bold, justice loving, creative, powerful, demanding, covenant making, passionate, tender presence. His love is a free love, a father regarding his creation, a shepherd tending his sheep, a devoted one sacrificing his only son. However, over time, for Christians, among the many, many stories of Yaweh that are contained within the book, writings in Kethuvim are the possibly the most challenging and engaging. To the early Christians, stories such as Lamentations, Job, Ruth, Ecclesiastes and Song of Solomon, or Shir Ha Shr'im stand out as examples of G-d's character and inspiration.

Some Christians, and some Christian communities, have lost touch with this ancestor. Their mind has turned to other sources beyond the Tenakh for inspiration, and the Church has split, time and time again. These communities have moved far from this very Jewish father.

In this approaching season of Easter and Pesach, or Passover, the reading of Shir Ha Shir'im (שיר השירים), the Song of Solomon, is traditional. Curiously it is one of two books in which the name of G-d is not mentioned. Song of Songs, Song of Solomon, two of its several names, is often seen quite simply as an intensely erotic love song or story, hence its name.
"The book reveals the warm and innocent satisfaction the ancient Hebrews drew from the physical and emotional relationship of a man and a woman. For the Jews, this relationship has been seen as Yaweh or G-d, the lover and his people, Israel, the Beloved. Christians have often likened the Song to G-d's love for the Church, his Beloved. The Judeo-Christian mystical tradition has viewed the Song a groom, and his passionate love for a bride," notes the Catholic Encylopedia by Peter Stravinskas.

Song Of Songs, Shir Ha-Shr'im
"Upon my couch at night
I sought the one I love--
I sought, but found him not.

I must seek the one I love.
I sought but found him not.
I met the watchmen
who patrol the town.
Have you seen the one I love?
Scarcely had I passed them
when I found the one I love.
I held him fast,
I would not let him go.

Do not wake or rouse
Love until it please!
Who is she that comes up from the desert
like columns of smoke

There is Solomon's couch
Encirlcled by 60 warriors
of the warriors of Israel
All of them trained in warfare.

King Solomon made him a planquin
of wood from Lebanon

Within it was decked with love
By the maidens of Jerusalem
Wearing the crown that his mother
gave him on his wedding day
On his day of bliss

Ah, you are fair, my darling,
Ah, you are fair.
Your eyes are like doves
Behind your veil.
Your lips are like crimson thread
Your mouth is lovely
your breasts are like two fawns
There is no blemish in you
From Lebanon come with me!

You have captured my heart,
my own, my bride.
You have captured my heart.
with one glance of your eyes,
with one coil of your necklace.
How sweet is your love,
My own, my bride!

My beloved took his hand off the latch
and my heart was stirred for him.
I rose to let in my beloved;
my hands dripped Myrrh
I opened the door for my Beloved,
but my beloved had turned and gone.
I was faint because of what he said.
I sought him, but found him not.
I called, but he did not answer.

If you meet my beloved, tell him
that I am faint with love.

I am my beloved's
And his desire is for me.
Come, my beloved,
Let us go into the open;
Let us see if the vine has flowered,
If the pomegranates are in bloom.
There I will give my love to you.

If only it could be as with a brother,
Then I could kiss you
when I met you in the street,
and no one would despise me.
I would let you drink of the spiced wine.

Let me be a seal upon your heart,
like the seal upon your hand.
for love is as fierce as death,
Passion as mighty as Shoel;
its darts are darts of fire,
a blazing flame.

Vast floods cannot quench love,
Nor rivers drown it.
If a man offered all his wealth for love,
He would be laughed to scorn.

O, you who linger in the garden,
A lover is listening;
Let me hear your voice.
Hurry, my beloved,
Swift as a gazelle or a young stag,
To the hills of spices!"
--Translation from Tanakh, the Holy Scriptures
The Jewish Translation Society,1985

Satan is an Angel

"Innocence is a mystery greater than evil." --James Hillman

There is a long tradition in human history of Satan, or an entity with similar characteristics called by another name. Tradition holds that Satan, also known as Lucifer, the Deceiver or the Devil, is indeed an angel; a very powerful angel who exerts great energies into the world. Some would like to suppose that angels are all goodness, that they are without their own will, that they only perform the will of the Creator, of gods. However this simply is not so.

Many presume this force which is exerted by the angel, Satan to be a negative one. Yet like Mara, the evil one of Buddhism, Satan is a much needed energy in the world. Why so? Because without the Evil One, the Buddha would not know his goodness, the good would be without a name. One cannot know by experience the way or the good without being tempted; one cannot exercise his free will or be whole and complete without an awareness of the world in its entirety. All things are present in the world at all times.

And angels have, and do indeed, tempt and corrupt. The Bible in 1Corinthians11 for example says, "a woman should have a sign of authority on her head, because of the angels." Revelations claims that the angel, Satan, must be "seized the dragon, the ancient serpent, which is the Devil or Satan, and tied up for a thousand years."

Also interestingly the name Lucifer means "Light Carrier." And in Judaism, the Devil is an angel who causes not only mischief, but disorder; he is an adversary. Tradition going back to Judaism unto the present declares the Devil to be:

"the Devil and the other demons were created by God, good in their nature, but they
by themselves have made themselves evil... Here it is clearly thought that the
Devil and the other demons are spiritual or angelic creatures created by God in
a state of innocence, and that they became evil by their own act. It is added
that man sinned by the suggestion of the Devil." --www.thenewadvent.org


Tradition further teaches that as angels, demons are:"the Devil, and the other demons are but a part of the angelic creation, and their natural powers do not differ from those of the angels who remained faithful. Like the other angels, they are pure spiritual beings without any body, and in their original state they are endowed with supernatural grace." The choosers of darkness for light, of evil for good, and while it would seem that [these choices] can only be accounted for by some ignorance, or inadvertence, or weakness, or the influence of some overmastering passion. But most of these explanations seem to be precluded by the powers and perfections of the angelic nature.

The weakness of the flesh, which accounts for such a mass of human wickedness, was altogether absent from the angels. There could be no place for carnal sin without the corpus delecti(the physical body). And even some sins that are purely spiritual or intellectual, seem to present an almost insuperable difficulty in the case of the angels."--www.thenewadvent.org

As well, it is false to suppose as already mentioned, that the Judeo-Christian tradition alone largely holds well developed views of devilry. In the world, as we experience it, there are many traditions, some already mentioned holding strong conceptions of an evil doer. From the teachings of the Bon to the Tao, to the Hindus multiple creatures of mal, the Muslims, indigenous spiritualities around the world, the Zoroastrians and many others. Why is it so? What is there to learn about life as it is--suchness by learning of an evil doer? What are our assumptions, our notions? Do we hold a belief that my faith isn't involved with that, that I am better or above such notions?

It seems to be a facet of human nature, of ego, of deficit, to not countenance the face of ill will, to suppose that angels are only for the desire and bidding of gods, or that they can do no evil. The everyday world tells us other-wise. Many transgress the precepts, fall short of the teachings of their acknowledged faith, or simply live in a lower, darker state, more than an animal and less than an arhat or a seeker of the Way. Like the angels, there is only a difference in the choosing. We often seek to substitute our own will and ego for that of the Creator, the unknowable One. And then we suffer. Innocence and evil, as Hillman writes, are indeed a mystery.

Reincarnation or Resurrection?

"I believe with complete faith, that there will be
"techiat hameitim" - revival of the dead, whenever it will be God's,
blessed be He, will to arise and do so. May His Name be blessed, and
may His remembrance arise, forever and ever."
--Thirteen Principles of Faith by Maimonides, Jewish mystic

God Is Near Us, by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, while primarily about the Christian practice of breaking bread in community, touches upon an important aspect of this practice, and the Christian teaching of the Resurrection of the Christ, completing the cycle of the Jewish Messiah, or saviour. In the "feast of the resurrection," Ratzinger writes first about the rebuke of Saint Paul upon his visit to the community at Corinth, and how it applies to modern man equally.

"When you assemble as a church, I hear that there are divisions among you; and I partly believe it, for there must be factions among you in order that those who are genuine among you may be recognized... do you despise the church of God and humiliate those who have nothing?

What shall I say to you? Shall I commend you in this? No, I will not. For, I received from the Lord what I also delivered [taught] you, that on the night he was betrayed, Jesus took bread, broke it [the Passover meal], and said, "this is my body which is for you.
Do this in remembrance of me."

Let a man examine himself, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For any one who eats and drinks without discerning the body,
eats and drinks judgment upon himself.

--Saint Paul to the Corinthians, the Bible
1Corinthians11:18-29

Saint Paul's rebuke applies to us, as the opposition of one another threatens to obscure the central mystery that is the Christ. Some nowadays argue that this ritual should not be elevated to a cultic practice as the Roman and Orthodox churches do, but rather it should be as the ordinary, the everyday, celebrated in the same way we live our lives.

This reshaping is then accused of puritanism, of calvinism, of poverty. Yet the event as described by Paul was a Passover meal; Jesus did not command his disciples to repeat the "last supper." Indeed, they could not; it was not possible. The meal was part of the annual festival of Pesach, Passover, a lunar festival with a specific date.
Jesus did not give a command to repeat this annual Jewish liturgy. So to enter into a blood relationship, in the taking of the bread and the wine, the disciples unite into a divine kinship with the Lord. By free will, they partake of his spirit in unity and wholeness.

This realization for the disciples was the result of the resurrection as both a historical and as an ultimate dimension of reality. The Christian account of the resurrection of Jesus, Ratzinger says, "offered the actual starting point for the Christian shaping of the legacy of Jesus. It was this that opened up the possibility of being present beyond the limitations of the earthly corporeal existence... The Resurrection took place on the first day of the week, the day the Jews held as the day on which the world began [time and creation]. For the disciples, this, Sun-day, became the day on which the new world
began. Its essential characteristic was now the celebration of the resurrection..."

Writing about the Resurrection, Protestant theologian, Karl Barth says in this book, The Resurrection of the Dead, that Paul rather, brings a "corrective" to the church at Corinth, scolding them; utterance and knowledge of spiritual gifts are to Paul manifestly no ends in themselves... no guarantee... that blameless, waits in the end." Appealing to the schismatics of Corinth, Paul also appeals to those who are among the cult of Apollo, to those whose belief lies not in the assurances of God, but in their own ideas of God. He exhorts them, you are not in the service of Paul, of Peter, of Apollo; on the contrary, everything is yours in Christ Jesus.

It is he, who upon the cross, declares his freedom.
Yet Barth, expounds at length about the "foolishness" on man, of their failings and weaknesses, about how they do not meet the Lord, nor share a great likeness to the Creator. Look, Barth posits, "Are not the position and counter-position in the resurrection visible here?" Barth says Christians are called as witnesses to the event, rather than participants in an ultimate reality as other Christ believers have represented, because if it is true that with the resurrection, appeared the Church, then the ends of history have commenced; if the gospel of a risen Christ is rejected, then there is rebellion against God; judgment and perishing come to rule, then faith falls back on itself.

God's wrath in the mind of some is the result. In short, Barth views the resurrection as a literal event, not historical, and not a vision or a dream. He says that man is not capable of knowing God through his own senses, because man is too puny to perceive such an exhalted being, except by the great and grand revelation of the god himself. The resurrection, in Barth's mind, is one such instance. And we are called as witnesses to believe.

Moving into traditional views held by other faiths groups, Mohammedanism
is one which holds sway for the Resurrection. Muslim teaching about the subject is discussed in the book, Resurrection Judgment and the Hereafter, by Sayyid Mujtaba Musavi Lari. He writes, " After enjoying a brief time of life giving rays of the spirit, the body finds that its role is at an end. The compound nature of the body allowed it to house the spirit only for a limited time... The spirit being ultimately free of the body, eternal and ultimate, it is therefore the spirit alone which appears on the plain of resurrection..."

However, today this teaching is less favored among Muslim thought, writes Lari. There is however he writes of an enduring belief in the idea that "resurrection represents a complete and comprehensive return to bodily life, for nothing that pertains to man can ever be fully destroyed. Thus man resumes his life in the next world... his life unfolding on a more elevated realm than this world."

And finally, in the east, the tradition of reincarnation holds sway. While some have made the argument that resurrection came into the west from Jewish contact with ancient Persian (modern day Iran) ideas, whose citizens held strongly developed beliefs in reincarnation, its introduction to the Christian, via the Jewish world altered this notion.The modern notion of resurrection was born.

Yahweh, Our Father

"I sought the one I love" --Tanakh, Shir Ha-Shirim


Reflecting on the often forgotten or overlooked patrimony of the Christian, the father of whom is Yaweh, el, adonai, G-d, among other names, we in the modern world sometimes feel a disconnect from this vital source of our being. As Catholic and Orthodox Christians, to a varying and lesser degree, Protestant Christians, our heritage of joy, creativity and love owes itself to this very Jewish of fathers: Yaweh, G-d of the Tanakh, or "Old Testament."

Remembering our father ancestor is vital in understanding the whole of the Christian mind. Jesus was a Rabbi, a teacher of the Jewish people. He lived a Jewish life in a Jewish world. The earliest Christians who came to follow him, thought of themselves as very Jewish; they had seen and found the way to G-d's salvation in the Christ. Yet others, Jew and Gentile alike, in their Greek and Roman world, were unconvinced.

Over a period of time, Christian-Jews found themselves persecuted and misunderstood by many; excluded from many Temples, and engaging in new religious devotions, these Christians moved away from their Jewish center. By the first centuries in the Common Era (also referred to as A.D., after death) Christianity emerged from the home of her father, and went forth into the Gentile world. For its part, Judaism very nearly succombed to a process of "Hellenization," that is, Jews were nearly completely subjugated to Greek rule and life; all but losing themselves in the process.

The early Christian church was largely of a Greek or Roman (Latin) character. As time progressed, the more unified Christian church split into what today is referred to as the Orthodox Church, Greek, and the Roman Catholic Church, Roman. However, long before all this happened, there were the Jews and their books, the Tanakh, guiding all their lives in a joyful and loving presence of Yaweh, G-d, our father.

The Jews, as "the people of the book," have been faithful to that book for more than 5,000 years now. What Christians refer to as the Bible, or the "Old Testament," Jews call the Tenakh (תנ״ך). It is divided into Torah (תּוֹרָה), Nev'im (נביאים), and Kethuvim (כְּתוּבִים). The Torah contains the five books of Moses; the Nev'im contains the writings of the Prophets, and the Kethuvim contains other writngs also included within the Jewish Canon.

When we speak of this Jewish father, we read in the Tenakh stories that point to a bold, justice loving, creative, powerful, demanding, covenant making, passionate, tender presence. His love is a free love, a father regarding his creation, a shepherd tending his sheep, a devoted one sacrificing his only son. However, over time, for Christians, among the many, many stories of Yaweh that are contained within the book, writings in Kethuvim are the possibly the most challenging and engaging. To the early Christians, stories such as Lamentations, Job, Ruth, Ecclesiastes and Song of Solomon, or Shir Ha Shr'im stand out as examples of
G-d's character and inspiration.

Some Christians, and some Christian communities, have lost touch with this ancestor. Their mind has turned to other sources beyond the Tenakh for inspiration, and the Church has split, time and time again. These communities have moved far from this very Jewish father.

In this approaching season of Easter and Pesach, or Passover, the reading of Shir Ha Shir'im (שיר השירים), the Song of Solomon, is traditional. Curiously it is one of two books in which the name of G-d is not mentioned. Song of Songs, Song of Solomon, two of its several names, is often seen quite simply as an intensely erotic love song or story, hence its name.
"The book reveals the warm and innocent satisfaction the ancient Hebrews drew from the physical and emotional relationship of a man and a woman. For the Jews, this relationship has been seen as Yaweh or G-d, the lover and his people, Israel, the Beloved. Christians have often likened the Song to G-d's love for the Church, his Beloved. The Judeo-Christian mystical tradition has viewed the Song a groom, and his passionate love for a bride," notes the Catholic Encylopedia by Peter Stravinskas.

"Upon my couch at night
I sought the one I love--
I sought, but found him not.

I must seek the one I love.
I sought but found him not.
I met the watchmen
who patrol the town.
Have you seen the one I love?
Scarcely had I passed them
when I found the one I love.
I held him fast,
I would not let him go.

Do not wake or rouse
Love until it please!
Who is she that comes up from the desert
like columns of smoke

There is Solomon's couch
Encirlcled by 60 warriors
of the warriors of Israel
All of them trained in warfare.

King Solomon made him a planquin
of wood from Lebanon

Within it was decked with love
By the maidens of Jerusalem
Wearing the crown that his mother
gave him on his wedding day
On his day of bliss

Ah, you are fair, my darling,
Ah, you are fair.
Your eyes are like doves
Behind your veil.
Your lips are like crimson thread
Your mouth is lovely
your breasts are like two fawns
There is no blemish in you
From Lebanon come with me!

You have captured my heart,
my own, my bride.
You have captured my heart.
with one glance of your eyes,
with one coil of your necklace.
How sweet is your love,
My own, my bride!

My beloved took his hand off the latch
and my heart was stirred for him.
I rose to let in my beloved;
my hands dripped Myrrh
I opened the door for my Beloved,
but my beloved had turned and gone.
I was faint because of what he said.
I sought him, but found him not.
I called, but he did not answer.

If you meet my beloved, tell him
that I am faint with love.

I am my beloved's
And his desire is for me.
Come, my beloved,
Let us go into the open;
Let us see if the vine has flowered,
If the pomegranates are in bloom.
There I will give my love to you.

If only it could be as with a brother,
Then I could kiss you
when I met you in the street,
and no one would despise me.
I would let you drink of the spiced wine.

Let me be a seal upon your heart,
like the seal upon your hand.
for love is as fierce as death,
Passion as mighty as Shoel;
its darts are darts of fire,
a blazing flame.

Vast floods cannot quench love,
Nor rivers drown it.
If a man offered all his wealth for love,
He would be laughed to scorn.

O, you who linger in the garden,
A lover is listening;
Let me hear your voice.
Hurry, my beloved,
Swift as a gazelle or a young stag,
To the hills of spices!"

--Translation from Tanakh, the Holy Scriptures
The Jewish Translation Society,1985

The Person and Love

There is much thought given to "love." Much is written about it both in secular and spiritual works. Some will say that love may be described in a variety of forms such as spiritual, amity, familial, romantic, altruistic and more. And perhaps surprisingly, not all religious traditions give primary emphasis on it, partly due to the prevailing cultural practices of that place. For example, in places where marriage is clearly seen as a contract and a promise between not only the proposed couple, but their families as well, love may be desirable, but it is not necessary. The agreements and contracts of the parties take precedent at least initially.
In an increasingly interconnected world through technology, more and more cultures are coming into contact with other values, ideas and norms. Thus today much pondering occurs over love as a result of the most widely distributed religion worldwide, that of Christianity.

Christ exhorted his disciples to "love one another; the highest commandment is that you love one another. The rest is all commentary." However as in previous discussion, there is, we will see, one love, one world all contained within. In our efforts to describe and learn about this experience, we may become caught by these truths as merely notions or ideas. T.N. Hanh, a Buddhist monk and writer has declared that the "Buddha and Jesus are brothers." Moreover, Christian philosopher and theologian, Karol Wojtyla, writes, "the richness of the reality denoted by the word love, is a complex reality with many aspects."

"Take as our starting point, the fact that love is always a mutual relationship between persons. This relationship in turn is based on particular attitudes to the good, adopted by each of them individually and by both jointly... These elements are found in any love: there is in every love attraction and goodwill, desire, sympathy and friendship."

"The love of a man and a woman is a mutual relationship between persons, and possesses a personal character." This love begins in attraction, their liking for one another. To attract means to be more than less regarded as 'a good.' Attraction is the result of the view of one to another as a good; its result is the natural force of human nature, raised to the personal level."

Liking a person is very closely connected with knowledge. The base of attraction is an impression, a disposition to regard the other as a value; it is the developed commitment to think of that person as a certain good. Such commitment can only be enacted by the will. 'I want,' is implicit in 'I like.' Thus the will is committed by attraction, and attraction commits the will. This may be difficult to grasp intellectually; however through interpenetration or interbeing, there permits this to be so.

"Every person is indescribably complex, and so to speak, an uneven good," writes Wojtyla. "Man and woman alike are by nature bodily and spiritual beings; they are such a being, seen by one another; in this way, each attracts the other. All the potential goods or values that a given person may respond to derive from the object of the attraction. Each, then, attracts the other. For example, in y's attraction to x the value most strongly in evidence is one which y finds in x, and to which y reacts most strongly."

Also the fact that y is particularly sensitive to it, particularly quick to perceive and respond to it. The mind, the thinking process, plays a part in attraction, combined together with the emotions, a potent guide emerges in the mix as an important feature, strikingly evident in attraction. "But this fact creates a certain internal difficulty in the sexual lives of persons. This difficulty is inherent in the relationship of experience to truth." Feelings often arise spontaneously. Where feelings are functioning naturally, they are unconcerned about truth. This is lust. Truth for a man is a task of both his experience and his reason. This is why in any attraction, especially one of a sexual nature, the question of the truth about the person towards whom attraction is felt for, is so important.

Often people "generally believe that love can largely be reduced to a question of genuineness of feelings; although this is impossible to completely deny, we must still insist, if we are concerned about the quality of the attraction and the love of which it is part, that the truth about the person who is its object, must play a part at least as important as the truth of the sentiment.'

"These two truths, properly integrated, give to an attraction [wholeness], the elements of a genuinely good, and genuinely cultivated love. Thus the object of attraction is seen whole, as a good, as a thing of beauty. A human being is beautiful and may be revealed as beautiful to another human being." Love is a commitment to the good of each other.