Discovering the Transcendent
Solemnity of Our Lady of Mount Carmel
Saturday, a week ago, a Colloquium organised by the Dawson Centre for Cultural Studies was held. It was the eighth such colloquium. We had some seventy people not only from Tasmania, but Queensland, NSW and Victoria in attendance. It was a very successful day with nine papers presented.
The topic was: “Wokery, a Wake-up call for the West”. It proved not a little provocative and the colloquium experienced being cancelled from its original venue.
I delivered a paper which was entitled, “The Way of Beauty”. I began my paper by commenting on the rapid cultural shift that is occurring before our eyes.
I believe that the foundational issue facing Western civilisation is a loss of faith in a transcendent God.
In the history of humanity, cultures and the moral structures that underpin them have found their stability in a reference point beyond themselves.
They have some form of transcendent foundation. Whether it be the pagan gods of Greece or Rome, or the “noble truths” proposed by Buddhism, or the articulation of Christian virtue inspired by Sacred Scripture, societies have fashioned moral imperatives based in some form of transcendent order.
The moral structures have, in their turn, defined the cultures and have been a point of social cohesion. However, Western societies, whose foundation has been based in Christianity, have now entered a stage of abandoning such a reference point.
Replacing the Christian worldview there is now an emphasis on individual moral perceptions alone. Having largely abandoned the Christian vision of human life, society now tends to be directed by popular social movements, which are based more in emotion than reason and evidence.
Such causes have become of paramount importance in our society and are so compelling to the social elites that they are forcibly imposed. They tend to shift and change as society becomes caught up with new issues.
Once God is removed from the life of individuals they lose a point of reference for their lives. Western civilisation has entered upon a serious crisis and unless there is a revitalisation of faith I fear our civilisation will collapse.
However, the light has not yet gone out. As many historians have commented, it was communities of prayer and Christian life – the monks – who kept the Christian faith alive during the dark ages.
I believe that the Church of our time will be able to survive the growing darkness because there are communities of prayer and Christian life that will preserve the faith in its purity and power.
In the first reading today we see Elijah, a holy man, a man of prayer, a man attentive to God, who is alone on the mountain. The mountain, of course, is Mount Carmel.
He is the first to discern that the crippling drought is about to be broken. It is the man, the solitary, dwelling on the mountain. It is the man focussed on God and God’s intention who is in tune with God, who recognises what God is doing.
In the Church we need the prophet who dwells on the mountain. Such is the role of Carmelite communities, here and in so many other locations across the world. Small communities, yes. Hidden communities, yes. But communities whose whole existence is centred on being attentive to God.
If I may return to last Saturday. Lest you may wonder why I spoke about beauty, allow me to briefly explain. I referred to the Catholic understanding of the three Transcendentals – Truth, Goodness and Beauty.
My thesis was that contemporary society has moved to a point where there is a rejection of truth as an objective reality.
Furthermore, it dismisses the pursuit of goodness as a goal for human life. But in beauty there remains possibilities.
I argued that when we encounter beauty we are drawn towards that which is beautiful but taken further towards the source of this beauty. We are taken beyond ourselves. This is what opens us up to the reality of the divine. Beauty simply is the radiance of the God.
I referenced Pope Benedict and the many times when he spoke of the attraction of beauty, especially the beauty of the liturgy.
He commented, “a sacred image can express much more than what can be said in words, and be an extremely effective and dynamic way of communicating the Gospel message.”
Listening to a Bach Cantata, or gazing at an icon, or walking through a medieval cathedral, we are transported to another place.
When we experience the great works of the Christian tradition that place is the place of faith. Somehow in this moment we are in touch with the divine.
A person coming to this convent, entering this chapel, listening to the chanting of the psalms, could find themselves drawn to discover the divine.
In the bleak world of today places of silence and prayer, of simple and yet reverent expression of the liturgical life of the Church, are places that can touch and convert the soul.
Simply being here, and being who you are as contemplatives, you are a source of grace for those jaded by the world and sensing that there has to be something more.
Being here on the mountain overlooking Launceston, you are a way in which people can discover the transcendent.
Archbishop Julian Porteous
Saturday, 15 July 2023