The Dominican Mind of St. John Paul II

 Of course, we know that St. John Paul was a Carmelite tertiary. From Dominicana:

Metaphysical realism elevated by faith enables the Christian to attain a wisdom that pierces through our complicated experience of sin and suffering in order to behold the saving power of God at work in all things. It was this realist Christian wisdom—even more than his great personal charisma and apostolic zeal—that so equipped John Paul both to warmly proclaim from the pulpit, “Do not be afraid! Open wide the doors to Christ,” and then to charitably specify in his magisterium what this opening-wide to Christ entails on the most contested moral questions of our age.

Pope Saint John Paul II was not a Dominican. But his enduring conviction that metaphysical realism is essential to the preaching of the Gospel places him squarely within the intellectual and spiritual tradition of the Dominican Order. Once asked about the most important word in the New Testament, John Paul immediately replied: “Truth.”

Only truth, in the end, is pastoral. Only truth saves. (Read more.)

The Church and the Arts

On his feast day, some powerful thoughts from St. John Paul II's 1999 "Letter to Artists":

Art must make perceptible, and as far as possible attractive, the world of the spirit, of the invisible, of God. It must therefore translate into meaningful terms that which is in itself ineffable. Art has a unique capacity to take one or other facet of the message and translate it into colours, shapes and sounds which nourish the intuition of those who look or listen. It does so without emptying the message itself of its transcendent value and its aura of mystery.

The Church has need especially of those who can do this on the literary and figurative level, using the endless possibilities of images and their symbolic force. Christ himself made extensive use of images in his preaching, fully in keeping with his willingness to become, in the Incarnation, the icon of the unseen God.

The Church also needs musicians. How many sacred works have been composed through the centuries by people deeply imbued with the sense of the mystery! The faith of countless believers has been nourished by melodies flowing from the hearts of other believers, either introduced into the liturgy or used as an aid to dignified worship. In song, faith is experienced as vibrant joy, love, and confident expectation of the saving intervention of God.

The Church needs architects, because she needs spaces to bring the Christian people together and celebrate the mysteries of salvation. After the terrible destruction of the last World War and the growth of great cities, a new generation of architects showed themselves adept at responding to the exigencies of Christian worship, confirming that the religious theme can still inspire architectural design in our own day. Not infrequently these architects have constructed churches which are both places of prayer and true works of art. (Read more.)

In the footsteps of St. John Paul II, Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI called artists the "custodians of beauty" in 2009:

Unfortunately, the present time is marked, not only by negative elements in the social and economic sphere, but also by a weakening of hope, by a certain lack of confidence in human relationships, which gives rise to increasing signs of resignation, aggression and despair. The world in which we live runs the risk of being altered beyond recognition because of unwise human actions which, instead of cultivating its beauty, unscrupulously exploit its resources for the advantage of a few and not infrequently disfigure the marvels of nature. What is capable of restoring enthusiasm and confidence, what can encourage the human spirit to rediscover its path, to raise its eyes to the horizon, to dream of a life worthy of its vocation -- if not beauty? Dear friends, as artists you know well that the experience of beauty, beauty that is authentic, not merely transient or artificial, is by no means a supplementary or secondary factor in our search for meaning and happiness; the experience of beauty does not remove us from reality, on the contrary, it leads to a direct encounter with the daily reality of our lives, liberating it from darkness, transfiguring it, making it radiant and beautiful.

Indeed, an essential function of genuine beauty, as emphasized by Plato, is that it gives man a healthy "shock", it draws him out of himself, wrenches him away from resignation and from being content with the humdrum -- it even makes him suffer, piercing him like a dart, but in so doing it "reawakens" him, opening afresh the eyes of his heart and mind, giving him wings, carrying him aloft. Dostoevsky's words that I am about to quote are bold and paradoxical, but they invite reflection. He says this: "Man can live without science, he can live without bread, but without beauty he could no longer live, because there would no longer be anything to do to the world. The whole secret is here, the whole of history is here." The painter Georges Braque echoes this sentiment: "Art is meant to disturb, science reassures." Beauty pulls us up short, but in so doing it reminds us of our final destiny, it sets us back on our path, fills us with new hope, gives us the courage to live to the full the unique gift of life. The quest for beauty that I am describing here is clearly not about escaping into the irrational or into mere aestheticism.

Too often, though, the beauty that is thrust upon us is illusory and deceitful, superficial and blinding, leaving the onlooker dazed; instead of bringing him out of himself and opening him up to horizons of true freedom as it draws him aloft, it imprisons him within himself and further enslaves him, depriving him of hope and joy. It is a seductive but hypocritical beauty that rekindles desire, the will to power, to possess, and to dominate others, it is a beauty which soon turns into its opposite, taking on the guise of indecency, transgression or gratuitous provocation. Authentic beauty, however, unlocks the yearning of the human heart, the profound desire to know, to love, to go towards the Other, to reach for the Beyond. If we acknowledge that beauty touches us intimately, that it wounds us, that it opens our eyes, then we rediscover the joy of seeing, of being able to grasp the profound meaning of our existence, the Mystery of which we are part; from this Mystery we can draw fullness, happiness, the passion to engage with it every day. In this regard, Pope John Paul II, in his Letter to Artists, quotes the following verse from a Polish poet, Cyprian Norwid: "Beauty is to enthuse us for work, and work is to raise us up" (no. 3). And later he adds: "In so far as it seeks the beautiful, fruit of an imagination which rises above the everyday, art is by its nature a kind of appeal to the mystery. Even when they explore the darkest depths of the soul or the most unsettling aspects of evil, the artist gives voice in a way to the universal desire for redemption" (no. 10). And in conclusion he states: "Beauty is a key to the mystery and a call to transcendence" (no. 16).

These ideas impel us to take a further step in our reflection. Beauty, whether that of the natural universe or that expressed in art, precisely because it opens up and broadens the horizons of human awareness, pointing us beyond ourselves, bringing us face to face with the abyss of Infinity, can become a path towards the transcendent, towards the ultimate Mystery, towards God. Art, in all its forms, at the point where it encounters the great questions of our existence, the fundamental themes that give life its meaning, can take on a religious quality, thereby turning into a path of profound inner reflection and spirituality. This close proximity, this harmony between the journey of faith and the artist's path is attested by countless artworks that are based upon the personalities, the stories, the symbols of that immense deposit of "figures" -- in the broad sense -- namely the Bible, the Sacred Scriptures. The great biblical narratives, themes, images and parables have inspired innumerable masterpieces in every sector of the arts, just as they have spoken to the hearts of believers in every generation through the works of craftsmanship and folk art, that are no less eloquent and evocative.

In this regard, one may speak of a via pulchritudinis, a path of beauty which is at the same time an artistic and aesthetic journey, a journey of faith, of theological enquiry. The theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar begins his great work entitled The Glory of the Lord -- a Theological Aesthetics with these telling observations: "Beauty is the word with which we shall begin. Beauty is the last word that the thinking intellect dares to speak, because it simply forms a halo, an untouchable crown around the double constellation of the true and the good and their inseparable relation to one another." He then adds: "Beauty is the disinterested one, without which the ancient world refused to understand itself, a word which both imperceptibly and yet unmistakably has bid farewell to our new world, a world of interests, leaving it to its own avarice and sadness. It is no longer loved or fostered even by religion." And he concludes: "We can be sure that whoever sneers at her name as if she were the ornament of a bourgeois past -- whether he admits it or not -- can no longer pray and soon will no longer be able to love." The way of beauty leads us, then, to grasp the Whole in the fragment, the Infinite in the finite, God in the history of humanity. Simone Weil wrote in this regard: "In all that awakens within us the pure and authentic sentiment of beauty, there, truly, is the presence of God. There is a kind of incarnation of God in the world, of which beauty is the sign. Beauty is the experimental proof that incarnation is possible. For this reason all art of the first order is, by its nature, religious." Hermann Hesse makes the point even more graphically: "Art means: revealing God in everything that exists." Echoing the words of Pope Paul VI, the Servant of God Pope John Paul II restated the Church's desire to renew dialogue and cooperation with artists: "In order to communicate the message entrusted to her by Christ, the Church needs art" (no. 12); but he immediately went on to ask: "Does art need the Church?" -- thereby inviting artists to rediscover a source of fresh and well-founded inspiration in religious experience, in Christian revelation and in the "great codex" that is the Bible. (Read more.)

 

More on St. John Paul's life, HERE.

Maintaining Peace of Heart

 
From Catholic Exchange:

"Do not lose your inner peace for anything whatsoever, even if your whole world seems upset.” St. Francis de Sales’ words encompass the core of the spiritual life because they urge us to always remain not only in a state of grace, but also to constantly keep our hearts patiently awaiting God’s word. We must maintain inner peace if we want to advance in the love of God. 

This peace does not arise from participating in the so-called “meditation,” which is quite popular in today’s society. These and other practices search for peace from the self or from the world. But that true inner peace which the world cannot give comes from God alone (cf. Jn 14:27). With this peace we do not permit evil thoughts to assail us. We are like soldiers ready to hear the Lord’s command and do it. 

We lose this inner peace if we commit mortal sin; we must go contritely to confession before regaining it. However, we can lose this peace while remaining in a state of grace when we ruminate on our sins, particularly when attempting to discern whether or not we consented mortally to some sin. But if we try to examine our conscience when its waters are muddied, we will never gain clarity. Rather, in these moments, we ought to simply stop thinking about sin, divert our attention away from ourselves, and turn to God. Our Lord commanded us to do exactly this through Servant of God Dolindo Ruotolo, when He revealed the Surrender Novena to him. If we confidently turn our attention away from sin and ourselves and toward God, the devil has no way of infiltrating our reasoning and emotions. By maintaining an inner docility to the Holy Spirit, we allow Him to guide us to do His will.

In the case of those battling with scrupulosity, or those who otherwise lack sincere trust in God, acquiring and maintaining this inner peace can be far more difficult. If we examine our consciences when we think we have at least some clarity and we think we have committed no mortal sin, then we can trust that we have not committed any. These temptations, though, as well as temptations to despair, can keep afflicting us day after day. But this should not trouble us in the least. In fact, the Lord enables those whom He wants to bring to deeper communion with Him to experience these trials, so that they will attach themselves to Him alone. “The Lord scourges those who draw near to him, in order to admonish them” (Jdt 8:27).

For all of us, then, but especially for the scrupulous, we lose our inner peace when we are attached to something other than God. In some cases, these attachments are easily identifiable: food, sexual pleasure, money, praise. But in other instances, they can be subtler. For example, the scrupulous person may be obsessed with having clarity about his soul’s state so that he can feel spiritually confident. However, even this desire is an attachment to something other than God, and therefore can cause us to lose inner peace. Maintaining true peace, then, goes hand in hand with detaching ourselves from everyone and everything earthly, to the point that we do not rely on anyone but the Lord. 

In moments of severe temptation, no matter how frequent or for how long they occur, we often try to give ourselves peace of mind and heart – something we cannot do. For this inner peace which we seek “surpasses all understanding,” and thus is solely God-given (Phil 4:6). Hence we should not strive to attain it by ourselves, especially in moments of temptation, when our emotions and even our reason may be compromised. Rather, we should resist these temptations the best we can, surrender our struggles to the Lord and Our Lady, Queen of Peace, and then move on. If the devil cannot induce us to sin directly, he will try to get us to fall by anxiety over having some temptation, then by having anxiety over having had anxiety about the temptation, and so on. We cannot break this vicious cycle on our own. That requires a genuine surrender of our will to God’s, and a wholehearted trust in His mercy. (Read more.)

St. Faustina's Prayer to the Mother of Mercy

Prayer of St. Faustina to Our Lady

O Mary, my Mother and my Lady, I offer you my soul, my body, my life and my death and all that will come after it. I place everything in your hands, O my Mother, cover my soul with your virginal mantle and grant me the grace of purity of heart, soul and body. Defend me with your power against all enemies and especially against those who hide their malice behind the mask of virtue. Fortify my soul that pain may not break it. Mother of grace, teach me to live by God’s power. O Mary, a terrible sword has pierced your holy soul. Except for God, no one knows of your suffering. Your soul does not break, it is brave, because it is with Jesus. Sweet Mother, unite my soul to Jesus, because it is only then that I will be able to endure all trials and tribulations and only in union with Jesus will my little sacrifices be pleasing to God. Sweetest Mother, continue to teach me about the interior life. May the sword of suffering never break me. O pure Virgin, pour courage into my heart and guard it. Amen.