Sense of Awe and Sanctity in our Daily Life with Intellectual Honesty

(Photo courtesy: Jean Marc Arkelian)

Sense of Holiness and Dharma

Talking about the sense of holiness in the modern world, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, the Jesuit priest and scientist (Paleontologist - part of the team that discovered the Piking man) says…“What we are all more or less lacking at this moment is a new definition of holiness.” The word holiness seems to be out of our ordinary vocabulary today in this fast-moving world. Sense of wonder and awe are seeing their demise in our messy world. The amount of dirt that the politicians throw at each other, bringing the public discourse to such a low suggests that we have lost a sense of thinking and feeling beings. We also see that religions are becoming just showpieces as Swamis and gurus are lost in the ideologies of politicians than the real DHARMA the religion teaches us to adhere to. We are reducing everything to mere facts and meanings unfortunately in an absurd way.

Too much noise

During the Holy Week, I spent my time doing my annual retreat in the quiet surrounding of Dhynashrama, the Mount St Joseph campus. I wanted some quiet time from the busy life in the city. One of the self-enhancing techniques that you try to do is to have a deeper awareness of yourself and the things that are going on around you. In fact, to bring your mind and matter to quietness, you need to get into seclusion and try to embody the awareness of divine within you and around you.

There is too much noise, unfortunately not the good one which could be life-giving around us. Too much is going on in our families, between couples, among siblings and relatives, and even our consecrated religious communities are not far from the world phenomena of boredom, bias, and bigotry. Too much jealousy and bad talk are destroying us. Therefore one must become aware of what is going on in one's own world of ideas and dealings. If one is not aware of then one is certain to fall into the pit of tension, angst, and even to depression. Because the world around us seems to be happy with our struggles.

Finiteness of the human person

Even though I was in the retreat, I was supposed to bring my senses closer to God, my feelings closer to myself and look at them with the gaze of that Trinity that would be seeing the world. However, I am in the world, and I cannot but think and see and use my senses to see and feel what is going on around me. One of the most beautiful experiences that I have had was of the Holy Week services in our churches, which are rich in symbolism and people do appreciate those times in a special way even those who are not regular to Church activities during the whole year.

They are religious sentiments that get resurrected during the Holy Week and they make it a point to attend the services. Truly, a sign of how much we need God in the face of finiteness and limitedness of our bodies, health, wealth and power. Before the immensity of God, we are lost because the Son of God himself had to succumb to the Father’s will and had to give up his life on the Cross. The ultimate sacrifice of God-Man our Saviour Jesus Christ is simply an astonishing event that has startled the world in its entire history.

Faith and practice

I was astonished to see a large number of faithful attending the liturgical services in our parish church. Moreover, people were taking part with so much devotion at the Way of the Cross is truly remarkable. As the way of the cross passed through the various points of our lush green Jesuit campus, ending up at the entrance of the church made everyone happy having taken part in such a horrendous and arduous journey of our Lord Jesus 2000 years ago. I had a number of questions that kept on coming into my mind: What is that draws people to the Holy Week services into our churches? I also realized another reality of so-called latecomers to the services. Christen religion believes in certain kinds of discipline and devotion, structures, and styles. Probably for a good number of people going to church is just an obligation and a thing that seems to be pricking their minds saying staying back home on the day of obligation is not the right thing to do.

Faith and Intellect

In the words of St Anselm (c. 1033 – 1109), an 11th-century theologian and philosopher, our practice of religion must be "faith seeking understanding" (Latin: fides quaerens intellectum). Probably, we have lost sense of this notion very often as we think seldom on the question of our faith and what it means to us deeply. St. Anselm describes the process of how a person's faith and beliefs can be deepened and refined through intellectual exploration and inquiry. In essence, the phrase expresses the idea that faith and reason are not mutually exclusive, but rather complementary. According to St. Anselm, faith provides a starting point for understanding the nature of God and our relationship with Him, but this understanding can be deepened and refined through intellectual exploration and inquiry.

Dogma yes, tradition yes but not following blindly 

In other words, "faith seeking understanding" implies that faith is not blind acceptance of dogma or tradition, but an active engagement with the questions and mysteries of our existence. It involves a willingness to explore, question, and challenge one's beliefs in order to arrive at a more profound understanding of God, the world, and our place in it. This approach to religion emphasizes the importance of critical thinking, intellectual honesty, and openness to new ideas, while also recognizing the central role that faith plays in our lives. Ultimately, the goal of "faith seeking understanding" is not just to acquire knowledge, but to deepen our relationship with God and to live a more meaningful and fulfilling life.

- Olvin Veigas, SJ

April 26, 2023