Thursday, July 15, 2010

Inadequacies


"reading without repentance,
knowledge without devotion,
research without the impulse of wonder,
prudence without the ability to surrender to joy,
action divorced from religion,
learning sundered from love,
intelligence without humility,
study unsustained by divine grace,
thought without the wisdom inspired of God."

St Bonaventure ...writing of our inadequacies, of when we try to act, to study, on our own strength. We need, first, God's Love, His Graces...and these, followed by use of our will and reason, help us.....and others. Ultimately, w
e can be transformed, change our habits and attitudes, only with divine assistance. Of course, we must help ourselves but we gain interior betterment only with divine assistance. We study, we research Truth ( it is important to know what the Church teaches; to know Sacred Scripture and Scared Tradition) but we study with Love..and this leads us to love more, leads us even more towards God, to contemplating Christ crucified.

"but in answer to the question as to whether theology was a practical or a theoretical science, St Bonaventure makes a triple distinction he therefore extends the alternative between the theoretical (the primacy of knowledge) and the practical (the primacy of practice), adding a third attitude which he calls "sapiential" and affirming that wisdom embraces both aspects.

And he continues: wisdom seeks contemplation (as the highest form of knowledge), and has as its intention "ut boni fiamus" that we become good, especially this: to become good .

He then adds: "faith is in the intellect, in such a way that it provokes affection. For example: the knowledge that Christ died "for us' does not remain knowledge but necessarily becomes affection, love.
.
POPE BENEDICT XVI GENERAL AUDIENCE
Saint Peter's Square Wednesday, 17 March 2010 Saint Bonaventure

1 comment:

Fr. Benedict M. said...

Propter quam triplicem visionem homo accepit oculum…scilicet carnis, rationis et contemplationis... (Breviloquium pIIc.12)