St. Margaret Mary Alacoque was born at Verosvres (France) in 1647 and entered the Order of the Visitation at Paray-le-Monial in 1671. Jesus appeared to her in numerous visions, displaying to her His Sacred Heart, sometimes burning as a furnace, and sometimes torn and bleeding on account of the coldness and sins of men. In 1675 the great revelation was made to her that she, in union with Father de la Colombiére, S.J., was to be the chief instrument for instituting the Feast of the Sacred Heart and for spreading devotion to the Sacred Heart throughout the world. She died on October 17, 1690.
A partial indulgence is granted to those who recite this Act of Reparation to the Sacred Heart of Jesus (Enchridion of Indulgences #26).
Most sweet Jesus, whose overflowing charity for men is requited by so much forgetfulness, negligence and contempt, behold us prostrate before Thee, eager to repair by a special act of homage the cruel indifference and injuries to which Thy loving Heart is everywhere subject...
Each of the last two sessions of my ecclesiology class have centered on St. Augustine's account of evil in his great work, The City of God. The question is, does evil exist? The simple answer is no, although it is nonetheless real. What is evil? It is a privation of a due good. It is a lack of real being, not a being in itself. Debate raged over this definition of evil all throughout my years at Ave Maria College. The philosophers at AMC were mostly disciples of Dietrich von Hildebrand (whom I deeply admire and with whom I agree on many, many points) who disputed this definition of evil because he didn't think it did full justice to the experienced power of evil in the world, something which is not felt as a lack, but as a positive force. It is no coincidence that this school of thought arose in the twentieth century, marred as it was by some much evil and suffering. Without going into great detail here and now suffice it to say that this objection to the traditional definition of evil can only be based on a serious misunderstanding of its meaning. Moral evil, which we experience so profoundly, is precisely a privation of goodness in the will of a rational being. The will deprived of its proper goodness (which is to be ordered to God) is very real and very powerful. Perhaps a paper topic...
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
4 comments:
This debate over evil is heating up again here at Franciscan too. It's interesting, I guess, but it's really not just about evil, but about the nature of values and disvalues, and the different metaphysicses and axiologies between the Realist Phenomenologist view and the Thomist/Augustinian view. This larger issue is one that I've been struggling with a lot lately; I see a lot of merit in each view, but they are using different terms in different ways and the same terms in different ways, so it is hard to chart a course that acknowledges the legitimate insights of each. I would love to hear your insights on this larger subject of value/disvalue and the good. I hope that you are doing well. God bless.
I am not fluent in the language of values/disvalues so I'm afraid anything I try to say there will be ignorant and unhelpful. I agree that the core of the disagreement is different metaphysical understandings of the nature of the good and also, I think, of the nature of man.
I'd be happy to learn from you about the role of values in this discussion.
Christianity, more than any other religion, and Catholic Christianity, more than any other body within Christendom, respects and accomodates actual human experience. Since even our understanding of experience is defective due to the fall, this is a noteworthy accomplishment. I will not pretend to be as conversant with the philosophical argumentation as you are, but it does seem wise to recognize even the deprived (depraved) will as still a real will and an agent of real experience.
Absoluetly. The will deprived of its proper ordering to God is still very real and very powerful. We experience evil as a positive force in the world because the evil will is a positive force. The depraved will is not deprived of its power but of its goodness.
Objections to the traditional definition of evil as a privation of the true good based on the notion that this definition does not due justice to our experience of evil can only be based on a seriously flawed understanding of said definition.
Although there are, as Mark indicated, more metaphysical issues at stake in the debate between the Thomists and the Phenomenologists. The dispute over evil, it seems to me, tends really to be just the battlefield for different metaphysical understandings of the nature of the good (the real heart of the issue, I think).
Post a Comment