The Heart of the Matter

Black Mountain

Black Mountain is the English for Montenegro, a tiny republic of the former Yugoslavia, situated on the Adriatic Sea between Croatia and Albania.  It was the greatest surprise in my cruise of the Mediterranean.  It's beauty is so extraordinary that I can say that I have never seen so much exceptional beauty in one place.   

As we cruised into the fjord and headed to the walled medieval city of Kotor I kept saying aloud, "Stunning!  Stunning!"

The name Black Mountain comes from the appearance of the color of the mountainous surroundings of the most southern fjord in that part of the world.  Kotor is a place I must return to.  Put it on your "must do" list.

Click this link for a taste of the beauty: "http://www.youtube.com/v/ejBS18Y5tk0&hl=en" 

What a treat!

This evening I attended a talk at the university given by someone I went to college with nearly 40 years ago.  George Weigel has become a hero to some and a target for others.  He is a Senior Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington D.C.  He has authored 19 books, including a biography of Pope John Paul II, "A Witness to Hope", and most recently "Faith, Reason and the War against Jihadism."

The title of his talk tonight was "In God's Name: Religion and World Politics in the 21st Century."  George says it like it is.  He pulls no punches and says the truth in a way that either warms the cockles of the conservative heart or enrages those who are stuck in a time warp of kowtowing to political correctness. 

In his talk he explains how the much torpedoed talk of Pope Benedict XVI at Regensburg University (9/12/06) was exactly what the world needs to hear: the key issue of our time is that either being rational will win the day, or being irrational will undermine the very fabric of social order in our world.  If his book is half as good as his talk, then we'd all be in for a treat; no, more than a treat, we'd be in for a systematic understanding of what is going on in the central intellectual battle of our time. 

A help to understand Mother Teresa's long dark night

In thinking about Mother Teresa's long dark night, it may surprise some that a saint would feel the absence of God.  However, once one has tasted the immediacy of the divine, then that union, which a human being cannot endure and still live, feels lost in a dark night until that union is finally achieved in heaven.  That darkness emphasizes that holiness is not a feeling, but an endurance in what is good and true even without the support of the emotion of closeness to God.  If "being good" were rewarded constantly by "feeling good" then what endurance, indeed what achievement, would there be in that?  The emphasis in the growth in holiness is total reliance on God, even when the emotions do not sustain that growth in holiness.  What's called for is "naked faith", faith unsupported by anything, but only by faith in God.  The 21st century French philosopher, Simone Weil, may have some wisdom to learn from:

"The man who has known pure joy, if only for a moment... is the only man for whom affliction is something devastating... But, after all, for him it is no punishment; it is God holding his hand and pressing rather hard. For, if he remains constant, what he will discover buried deep under the sound of his own lamentations is the pearl of the silence of God."

-- Simone Weil, Gravity and Grace