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| Christ the Holy Silence |
CHRIST THE HOLY SILENCE
About
the icon of Christ the Holy Silence:
—Jean Finan, “Icon of the Holy Silence,” Remember Your Baptism, February 21, 2012
Related
question: What is the gender of the Holy Spirit, sometimes referred to in the
Bible as the Spirit of God?
“Linguistically,
it is clear that masculine theistic terminology dominates the Scriptures.
Throughout both testaments, references to God use masculine pronouns. Specific
names for God (e.g., Yahweh, Elohim, Adonai, Kurios, Theos, etc.) are all in
the masculine gender. God is never given a feminine name, or referred to using
feminine pronouns. The Holy Spirit is referred to in the masculine throughout
the New Testament, although the word for ‘spirit’ by itself (pneuma) is
actually gender-neutral. The Hebrew word for "spirit" (ruach) is
feminine in Genesis 1:2.
“...If
gender is an attribute of the body, then a spirit does not have gender. God, in
His essence, has no gender.”
—“Is the Holy Spirit a ‘He,’ ‘She,’ or ‘It,’ male, female, or neuter?” Got Questions
Note:
I disagree with the above statement: yes, God, pure spirit, has no gender. But
the Incarnate God, Jesus Christ, who has a human essence, has a gender, male.
From
the same above source:
“Gender
identifications of God in the Bible are not unanimous. Many people think that
the Bible presents God in exclusively male terms, but this is not the case. God
is said to give birth in the book of Job and portrays Himself as a mother in
Isaiah. Jesus described the Father as being like a woman in search of a lost
coin in Luke 15 (and Himself as a ‘mother hen’ in Matthew 23:37). In Genesis
1:26-27 God said, ‘Let us make humankind in our image, after our likeness,’ and
then ‘God created humankind in his own image, in the image of God he created
them, male and female he created them.’ Thus, the image of God was male and
female – not simply one or the other. This is further confirmed in Genesis 5:2,
which can be literally translated as ‘He created them male and female; when
they were created, he blessed them and named them Adam.’ The Hebrew term ‘adam’
means ‘man’ – the context showing whether it means ‘man’ (as opposed to woman)
or ‘mankind’ (in the collective sense). Therefore, to whatever degree humanity
is made in the image of God, gender is not an issue.”
Angels,
who are pure spirits, are as a rule designated in the Bible, male. There is an
exception in the Book of Zechariah, where two angels are designated female. See:
—Whitley Hopler, “Are All Angels Male or Female?” Learn Religions, October 19, 2018
In
the Book of Wisdom, Sophia is female and the way she is described, Sophia is
the Holy Spirit. For example, Sophia is “the breath of the power of God”
(Wisdom 7:25). Consider the following discussion:
—Joyce Rupp, “Who is Sophia in the Bible?” U.S. Catholic, January 4, 2016
On
the other hand, the church of Hagia Sophia in Constantinople is associated with
the Wisdom of Christ and is therefore a male Hagia Sophia.
Strictly
speaking, angelic spirits, or the divine Spirit for that matter, are genderless.
In
the final analysis, God, who is pure spirit, is neither male nor female, with
the exception of the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, the Son of God,
Jesus Christ, the Word of God, the Word made flesh—he is male.
“God
is pure spirit in which there is no place for the difference between the sexes.”
(Catechism of the Catholic Church, 370)
“The
unique and altogether singular event of the Incarnation of the Son of God does
not mean that Jesus Christ is part God and part man, nor does it imply that he
is the result of a confused mixture of the divine and the human. He became
truly man while remaining truly God. Jesus Christ is true God and true man.” (Catechism
of the Catholic Church, 464)
THOMAS MERTON AND SOPHIA
ReplyDeleteWhile having breakfast with my friend Trappist Br. Patrick Hart -- who was Merton’s secretary -- at the Abbey of Gethsemani in Kentucky recently I asked him about the book.
He didn’t miss a beat. “The best book ever written about Thomas Merton,” Hart said.
The book? Sophia: The Hidden Christ of Thomas Merton by Christopher Pramuk.
An assistant professor of theology at Xavier University in Cincinnati, Pramuk has broken new ground with this scholarly masterpiece. The book explores Merton’s life and writings through his discovery of Holy Wisdom as a path -- in a time of “unspeakable violence” -- into the mystery of God, and thus the mystery of being human.
Merton scholar Larry Cunningham says the book is “far and away the most sophisticated theological study ever done on the writings of Thomas Merton.”
…Over the course of his monastic life, Merton discovered Sophia -- the Wisdom of God as Christ. It helped Merton turn toward the world beyond the monastery and led him toward Sophia/Christ.
St. John named Christ as the Logos (masculine), the Word; St. Paul named Christ as Sophia (feminine), Holy Wisdom. Pramuk proposes that we too -- individually and as a church -- can reclaim the divine feminine, Sophia, the Wisdom of God. And like Merton, we can be transformed anew into Christ and be able to help one another to fullness of life, hope and peace.
…“The primary aim of this book is to draw out the features of Merton’s mature Christology, especially its fruition in his view of Christ as Wisdom of God, the unknown and unseen Sophia, in whom the cosmos is created and sustained,” Pramuk writes.
…“What we must really do,” Merton told his brother monks at Gethsemani toward the end of his life, “is live our theology.” Pramuk concludes: “To the degree we desire to live in peace with others and in sustainable harmony with ‘Mother Earth,’ we, too, will have to ‘live our theology,’ and all such living begins with prayer.”
Thomas Merton called Sophia “the great stabilizer for peace,” which means for me, the wisdom and way of nonviolence. He taught that “living with wisdom” is a life of peace, a life in Christ.
I’ve been amazed by the book and have been studying it all summer. While much of it sails over me, I’m excited and heartened by this new understanding of Merton’s awakening to Sophia -- the hidden Christ, the Wisdom of God, who permeates all of life, who liberates us into the fullness of life. I hope that -- like Thomas Merton -- we too can awake to Sophia and discover anew the Wisdom of God within us and among us for the transformation and healing of our lives, our broken church, and the warring world.
https://www.ncronline.org/blogs/road-peace/living-our-theology-mertons-feminine-image-god
—John Dear, “Living our theology with Merton’s feminine image of God,” National Catholic Reporter (October 5, 2010)
At a time of carnage in Ukraine, the revival of the threat of nuclear apocalypse, and the reincarnation of Adolph Hitler in his mirror image, Vladimir Putin, it is timely indeed to enter into the spirit of Sophia, the feminine aspect of the Godhead.
As Thomas Merton grew in theological and spiritual understanding, he rediscovered, so to speak, Sophia, the way of wisdom and peace.
Gonzalinho
THOMAS MERTON’S UNDERSTANDING OF GOD
DeleteThomas Merton was a Trappist monk who lived from 1915 to 1968. He became famous as an author of spiritual books, at least thirty-nine of them. These books can be grouped by subject matter into three rather pronounced stages of concentration. The ones published between 1948 and 1960 deal for the most part with ascetical practices useful for escaping the snares of the materialist world. Those published between 1960 and 1965 are taken up with social concern, while the ones that came out between 1965 and 1968 give evidence of a marked interest in oriental mysticism. Merton’s treatment of God in these writings can be subsumed under four headings. These headings form sets of two: immanent-transcendent and cataphatic-apophatic. The first set describes the way humanity experiences God. The second set deal with the way this experience is expressed. This dissertation will attempt to demonstrate that Merton concentrates on the transcendence of God in his first, or flight from the world, stage of writing, availing often of apophatic (negative) terminology. It will try to show that immanence is emphasized in Merton’s second, or social concern, stage, taking form predominantly in cataphatic language. In the third stage, according to this dissertation, Merton integrates God’s immanence with his transcendence, employing both apophatic and cataphatic modes of expression. This third stage is marked by a certain oriental-influenced universalist outlook. The point of categorizing Merton’s understanding of God is to highlight possible developments in any of the four categories. The present investigation uncovered such development in only one category: immanence. Merton’s understanding of transcendence went virtually unchanged from the beginning of his writing to the end, and his use of apophatism and cataphatism varied only in frequency. But, his notion of immanence showed a pronounced progression from personal to societal to universal in the three stages of his writing. It is thus the contention of this dissertation that two factors make Merton’s writing significant for contemporary theology: the development in his understanding of God’s immanence, and his integration of transcendence and immanence (expressed apophatically and cataphatically) in a universalist outlook conditioned by oriental religious insight.
Recommended Citation
QUINN, MARK ANTHONY, “THOMAS MERTON’S UNDERSTANDING OF GOD” (1982). Dissertations (1962 - 2010) Access via Proquest Digital Dissertations. AAI8307070. https://epublications.marquette.edu/dissertations/AAI8307070
Thomas Merton advanced in his understanding of God in the three phases and four categories herein described.
Gonzalinho
IS THE CHURCH MALE OR FEMALE?
ReplyDeleteAt a Nov. 30 meeting of the International Theological Commission, a group of theologian-advisors to the Vatican’s doctrinal office that has included women since 2004, Pope Francis spoke off the cuff, lamenting that only five of the 30-plus theologians on the commission were women.
“The church is woman,” the pope said, “and if we cannot understand what a woman is, what is the theology of women, we will never understand the church. One of the great sins we have witnessed is ‘masculinizing’ the church.”
He continued: “This is the job I ask of you, please: Demasculinize the church.”
https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2023/12/07/pope-francis-demasculizing-church-women-246661
—Colleen Dulle, “Pope Francis wants to ‘demasculinize’ the church: What does that mean for women—and men?” America, December 7, 2023
I suspect that many don’t realize how significant this remark of the pope is. Historically, the Church is a man.
The Church was a political body that beginning with Constantine was joined to Empire and itself even became a temporal monarchy. It has been governed in an authoritarian manner, the ethos of which is historically predominantly male. It’s almost laughable to claim that the Church is female. You’d have to be blind and deluded—it’s not unheard of in the institution—to do so.
begin
200 CE: Under the leadership of Irenaeus, bishop of Lyon, the basic structure of the Catholic church was in place. A system of governance of regional branches under absolute direction from Rome was established. The basic [tenets] of Catholicism were formalized, involving the absolute rule of faith.
313 CE: Roman emperor Constantine legalized Christianity, and in 330 moved the Roman capital to Constantinople, leaving the Christian church to be the central authority in Rome.
325 CE: The First Council of Nicaea converged by Roman Emperor Constantine I. The Council attempted to structure church leadership around a model similar to that of the Roman system, and also formalized key articles of faith.
end
https://www.learnreligions.com/roman-catholic-church-history-700528
—Mary Fairchild, “A Concise History of the Roman Catholic Church,” Learn Religions, updated on June 25, 2019
“Originally the term diocese (Gr. dioikesis) signified management of a household, thence administration or government in general. This term was soon used in Roman law to designate the territory dependent for its administration upon a city (civitas). What in Latin was called ager, or territorium, namely a district subject to a city, was habitually known in the Roman East as a diœcesis. But as the Christian bishop generally resided in a civitas, the territory administered by him, being usually conterminous with the juridical territory of the city, came to be known ecclesiastically by its usual civil term, diocese. …The original term for local groups of the faithful subject to a bishop was ekklesia (church), and at a later date, paroikia, i.e. the neighbourhood (Lat. porœcia, parochia). The Apostolic Canons (xiv, xv), and the Council of Nicæa in 325 (can. xvi) applied this latter term to the territory subject to a bishop. This term was retained in the East, where the Council of Constantinople (381) reserved the word diocese for the territory subject to a patriarch (can. ii). In the West also parochia was long used to designate an episcopal see.”
https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/05001a.htm
—Alphonse Van Hove, “Diocese,” The Catholic Encyclopedia, 1909
Ecclesiology today is a far cry from the time Boniface VIII taught as dogma in Unam Sanctam (1302) that a practically absolute obedience to the pope is necessary for salvation. The Church is the People of God, an organic whole consisting of complementary parts, clergy, religious, and laity—a conception Vatican II taught and that is foreign to medieval Christendom.
Gonzalinho
Historically, the Church as an institution mirrors and takes on the attributes of the political regime of the day.
DeleteGonzalinho
I’d say the Church is not literally a woman. The Church has feminine and masculine attributes, depending on the context.
DeleteGonzalinho
One very interesting theological argument is that it was Adam who had a covenant with God and violated it. Eve did not have the same covenant. As Adam’s helpmate, she participates in Adam’s original covenant, which takes place before Eve is created. That is why the Savior who undoes the consequences of Adam’s first sin is male, not female. Gender—theological gender—matters in the theological order.
ReplyDeleteSee link below.
https://www.gotquestions.org/Covenant-of-Works.html
—“What Is the Covenant of Works?” Got Questions
Gonzalinho