Western Christianity and Meditation

Like other religions, Christianity has its own tradition of meditation, the practice of contemplation, that has evolved over two millennia. This tradition has a core celebration and a core problem. The core celebration is that by grace we are all one in the ineffable mystery of God in Christ. The core problem is that we live most of our lives in ignorance of this. The practice of contemplation aims to heal this ignorance and the inner noise it generates by training the mind to abide in silence. The silent mind is a loving mind that sees through the illusion of separation from God. This chapter examines the teachings of five key authors or traditions from the fourth to fourteenth century so as to learn how to bring the mind home to itself, a self hidden in the mystery of God in Christ (Col 3:3).

Jubilate: a conversation about Prayer Book revision and the language of our prayer

These essays were presented at the Jubilate conference at Christ Church Cathedral in the Diocese of Southern Ohio on 2 November 2019. Meyers urges the expansion of images and metaphors used to speak of the mystery of God in liturgy while not abandoning classical masculine language for God. Expanding our language is essential, she argues, both to speak the truth about God and to uphold the dignity of every human being. Sonderegger contends that masculine language for God is a settled matter in the church and in liturgy, and that this is compatible with a particular vision of Christian feminism, one centered on the material conditions of living women.

The Problems of Notions in Eschatology

The present article deals with the use and understanding of eschatological terminology. The concepts used and the starting point of the consideration affect its orientation and the distribution of aspects. If we take the “final events” asa starting point, we obtain an anthropological picture of man’s fate and his destiny to eternity. When starting with the mystery of God and His plan, one must pay attention to the Person of Christ the Coming One and this makes eschatology a treatise on the Triune God that completes His work.This study also draws attention to the semantic nuances of some notions relating to eternal life, such as novelty, kingdom, Father’s house, heaven, glory or eternal happiness. These and other expressions contain a wealth of meaning rooted in Revelation and the Church’s tradition. Their thoughtful and conscious use serves the purpose of a deep and creative and at the same time precise reflection.

1998 Belief, openness and religious commitment

Canon Professor Maurice Wiles (1923–2005) wrote this article in retirement. At the outset of his career he was an Evangelical (as his review of Barth, also reproduced in this centenary issue, indicates), but by the 1970s he had moved to, and continued in, a distinctly more liberal direction. A gradual realization of the ‘complexity of the issues involved’ in theology (and, not least, within the Bible) spurred this move, as this article suggests. His aim finally is to search for ‘an intellectual and moral basis for sharing conscientiously and wholeheartedly in the rich spiritual tradition of Christian worship, belief and practice, without blinding oneself to its faults’. As a young man Wiles was recruited to work on code breaking at Bletchley Park during the war. In maturity he held the Regius Chair of Divinity at Oxford from 1970 until 1991. He also chaired the Church of England doctrine commission that produced the liberal report Christian Believing (1976) and contributed to the controversial book The Myth of God Incarnate the following year. Among his own books were The Making of Christian Doctrine (1967), The Remaking of Christian Doctrine (1974), Faith and the Mystery of God (1982) and, using his patristic skills, his late study of Arianism, Archetypal Heresy (1996). Editor.

Theologia perennis. O poznaniu teologicznym

Faith, which, by its very nature, wants to know the One it loves, results in theology – a love-inspired rational reflection on its own content. Hence, it is the guarantee and the motive for the permanence of theology as a cognitive eff ort, humbly and courageously reaching the Mystery of God Himself, who is the first to be known as the truth to the one who seeks for love and to subject what they see to the judgement of reason. In confrontation with the contemporary concept of epistemology, which considers only mathematical and natural cognition to be scientifically practised, theology convinces about the limits of reason and the methodologically necessary role of living, ecclesiastical faith. Such instrumentarium ensures a unique synthesis of objectivity and subjectivity in the cognitive process – the knowledge of the truth about reality demands personal involvement. Theology, which in fact values human reason, allowing it to reach out to the reality of the highest rank – God Himself – appears to be a great opportunity for today’s mankind, plagued by spiritual and intellectual confusion.

Servant and steward of the mystery: Colossians 1:26–27; 2:2; 4:3

Paul’s role as servant-steward of the mystery of God was to reveal the object of that mystery, which was Christ. God’s mystery was that Christ’s life, death, and resurrection reshaped and transformed a person’s understanding of history and the future. The mystery also meant the inclusion of gentiles into the community of faith, the suffering of Paul when the proclamation of the mystery was made known, and the presence of Christ in believers, even now.

Terminologia i metaforyka przestrzeni w liturgii

Terminology and metaphors of space in liturgy The goal of the following study is to present the vocabulary denoting space and their meaning in the Mystery of Christ and the Church as applied in liturgy. The investiga-tion is based on the liturgical texts, mainly the euchologies of the Missal of Paul VI and the Marian Missal. First several basic terms indicating God’s dwelling were an-alysed, which evince the fact of God’s intention and actual coming to individuals and making them His home and temple. Another point was to establish and specify certain factors contributing to creating the holy space of God’s and human encounter. Two kinds of such were distinguished: pneumatological and initiational. Both prove, that becoming God’s dwelling is a process of assuming an adequate attitude of heart and requiring the intervention of the Holy Spirit. The last section of the article was dedicated to some selected, most popular theological and existentional equivalents of liturgical space, such as: faith, liturgy, Word of God, silence, which are of great importance in establishing and maintaining the Mystery of God and man happening in temporality. It is worth noticing that all analysed words and phrases confirm the fact that, this is God, who is inclined to dwell in human beings and that through the Mystery of Incarnation He has inhabited human nature, and sustains His presence through Christ in the Holy Spirit in liturgy, mainly in the Eucharist. The unique at-tribute of Christianity lies in this incarnational aspect of God’s location, sacramental spatiality. Mary, Mother of God was the first, who experienced this grace, and re-mains the impeccable model for every single being called for being God’s dwelling. Therefore the majority of the studied material was taken from the Marian euchologies. Terminology of space in liturgy is entirely metaphorical, and eventually refers to God and to a human being, as announced by the Johannine idioms of communion in the Fourth Gospel.