Our totalitarian faith

A couple weeks back I spent six days on retreat in the Mojave Desert at Holy Resurrection Monastery, a wonderful Byzantine Rite community in Newberry Springs. This was during the great cold front that swept through California and ruined much of the state’s citrus crop. During most of my stay the daytime temperature rarely rose above freezing. As a result, I spent a more than usual amount of time reading in my room. Of the books cluttering my desk, one was on the thought of Fr. M.D. Chenu OP called Contemplation and Incarnation: The Theology of Marie-Dominique Chenu. One of the great projects of Fr. Chenu, and his younger confrere Fr. Yves Congar OP, was to give an account of the origin and nature of Modern secularism. One of the distinguishing marks of secularism is its attitude toward faith. While some very strident secularists see no place at all for religion and faith in contemporary society, most would tolerate it so long as it stays within certain well-established bounds. For instance, they would see religious faith as acceptable and benign so long as it concerned assent to certain religious articles that are privately held. They would see religious observance as safe and acceptable so long as it involved private religious ceremonies that intruded as little as possible into the public sphere. What these two thinkers, and particularly Fr. Congar, note is that Christianity cannot possibly exist within such bounds. Such restrictions go against the reality of the Christian faith- they go against what Congar calls faith’s totalitarian nature.

The word ‘totalitarian’ doesn’t have nice connotations, and speaking of Christianity as totalitarian may seem to justify secularist fears. When we think of totalitarianism, we think of a totalitarian state; that is, we think of a nation in which the State no longer serves human persons but visa versa; a nation in which the State manipulates and assumes all that is integral to human personhood. The point which Congar makes in calling Christianity totalitarian is that authentic Christian faith is a reality which touches upon the entire human person- but in doing so it completes and perfects, rather than destroys, the human person. Authentic faith does not merely end in assent to certain doctrines, but has, as its end, God himself. Obviously, such an encounter with the living God is going to effect a personal transformation, and not a transformation that limits its consequences to the private sphere. Among other things, some of the effects of an encounter with God through faith and the sacramental life of the Church are the infused virtues (CCC 1265), the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit (CCC 1831), the fruits of the Holy Spirit (CCC 1832), and the charisms (CCC 799-801, 2003).

According to Congar, given that we are persons enmeshed in society and bound up with the lives of others, our personal transformation through grace should naturally further the building of a Catholic culture. Not a ghettoized culture which gazes with suspicion on the world outside its shell, but a culture naturally formed by Christians just being who they are wherever they happen to be. There has been a lot of discussion at this blog and elsewhere about the number of Catholics who are devoted Christian disciples. Perhaps one way of gauging this is to look at our culture. Does are culture reflect the presence of 69 million people with have been re-created and transformed by faith and the sacraments? Does it reflect the presence of people who have been given virtues from on high and supernatural gifts bestowed on them for the sake of others? If not, why? Would most Catholics even agree they possessed such gifts?