The Secret Thread: Literature & Spiritual Life: "The Golden Grains of Truth"

Monday, April 30, 2007

"The Golden Grains of Truth"

Duke here, reporting in after a hectic week of work travel, followed by a weekend helping this blog's co-founder, Mutt, move into his new house... on behalf of everyone at the TST, I would like to congratulate Mutt on his provision of a magnificent new home for his family. I know Mutt is very happy and proud -- and he has every right to be, as he's worked damned hard to get there. It don't come free, and no one knows that better than he does... but it if you're blessed enough for it to come at all, it is indeed sweet in the tasting.

At any rate, to work: I have a passage I wanted to share with readers of this blog, mostly because of its relevance to the subject matter at hand... not so much about literature per se, but the pursuit of the true, the good and the beautiful in whatever form it can be found. This is from a fantastic book I am reading called The Spirit of Catholicism by Fr. Karl Adam, who was a German priest living and writing in the early part of the last century.

One of the things I love most about the Catholic faith is its insistence on a proper balance of both faith and reason in the life of the believer. Here, Fr. Adam expresses this aspect of Catholicism with both eloquence and wisdom. These are profound words revealing even more profound truths. I found them to be very inspiring, and thought others might too.

The catholicity of the Church is manifested not least in this, that she does not allow knowledge and faith to be separated and set in an unhealthy antagonism, but conjoins them in intimate harmony, making knowledge accessible to faith and faith accessible to knowledge. Her greatest minds, Origen, Augustine, Aquinas and Newman, made it their life's task to establish this synthesis of faith and knowledge. Nor do the theologians of our own day know of any more important task than that of making modern knowledge fruitful for the faith. Catholicism lays its hand on every branch of knowledge, seeking everywhere the golden grains of truth, that it may adorn its sanctuary with them...

...such is Catholicism: an affirmation of values along the whole line, a most comprehensive and noblest accessibility to all good, a union of nature with grace, of art with religion, of knowledge with faith, "so that God may be all in all."

Not a bad manifesto for a life that is truly Catholic (and catholic!), huh???

No comments:

Post a Comment

Duke Altum's Recommended Films

Monsters (2010) – As many have already said, calling Monsters a movie about an alien occupation of Earth seems to do this fascinating, original film a disservice. Certainly the fact that huge, bioluminescent squid-like extraterrestrials are running amok through the jungles of Central America is an important (and entertaining) element of the plot, but anyone coming into this one looking for non-stop, Aliens-style action or special effects eye candy a la the concurrent alien invasion flick Skyline is going to be sorely disappointed. Instead, what you have with Monsters is an intriguing and meditative hybrid of road movie, post-apocalyptic thriller and surprisingly believable human drama. Director Gareth Edwards wrote, edited and created special effects for the film on his own, which gave him the freedom to make exactly the kind of movie he wanted to make - that is, a love story that just happens to feature alien life forms ominously howling and lurking in the background (this approach, by the way, gives the film its pervasive suspense and intensity, as you are as in the dark as the characters are about when the next encounter with a pissed-off, tentacled alien might occur). The many scenes of unscripted, natural banter between the lead actors as they trek across the "infected zone" and get to know one another help you, crucially, to identify with them enough to care by the final act - which provides an unexpected, subtle twist that gives the entire story added poignancy and irony. I am sure that a great many viewers of this unusual film will come out feeling somewhere between perplexed and downright cheated, and Edwards does provide so little backstory about the aliens and what they might be up to that one may well wonder why they were in the movie at all (and, justifiably, why the film was ever called "Monsters"). But I found that their mysterious, vaguely menacing presence gave the entire story a kind of haunted and other-wordly atmosphere that reminded me a bit of the best bits of James Cameron's The Abyss. I guess you could say that early encounters with new life forms - like those with potential lovers - can be both exhilarating and weirdly disconcerting at the same time.