During a walk through the city of Den Bosch - ancient and orthodox Catholic - I thought about the sacred in everyday life. A word of warning: I'm not qualified to think thoughts like this. I lack formal philosophical and theological training. I'm an amateur in all things metaphysical.
But I need to meet the sacred in my everyday life. I think it is very correct to meet Mary and Jesus during a city walk. However you think about Mary - as the Mother of Christ - as the Crowned Queen of the Cosmos - or as the reinvention of the Goddess Venus - it is good to meet and greet this mysterious Woman. It feels unfair that this meeting is easier in the Catholic South than in the Protestant North.
I can totally understand the idea of Eucharistic Prayer. Like the poster in the cathedral says: "Christ is really there, He is waiting for you." It is not necessary to understand - nor accept - orthodox Catholic theology to recognize the need for symbols of the Sacred. Signifiers that cannot be deciphered by logical thought. Signifiers that can be experienced but not understood. That must be approached with reverence and respect.
The Protestants banned most symbolism from daily life and what was left was later excommunicated by Science and Commerce. But we are just primitive metaphor processing machines and sometimes we just need to charge our magical batteries.
Somewhere - high up on the walls of the cathedral - stands an Angel with a mobile phone. He has his own telephone number. You can call the Angel and he can send you a message.
Should Angels be so predictable? Shouldn't they surprise you while being unrecognized? Shouldn't they watch over you while staying invisible and inaudible? Can we touch the Sacred through a mobile phone?
If we can meet Mary and Jesus on our daily walk, why not phone an Angel?
When Heidegger was asked at the end of his life by Max Mueller [1] why he stopped at churches and chapels to take holy-water and kneel before the altar, he seems to have answered: Where there has been so much praying, the divine is near in a very special way.
This is where I got the Heidegger quote from:
ReplyDeletehttp://mail.an-archos.com/pipermail/heidegger_an-archos.com/1997-April/002924.html
SHE IS IN A HOLY ETERNAL SPACE INVOKING TABOO = SACRED
ReplyDeleteSIRCLE SECULAR AREA TAGGED AND TAINTED IN TIME = PROFANE
THEY GO TOGETHER IN A SEPARATE W/HOLE
Funny. You mention symbolism getting excommunicated by commerce within protestantism, and next show a picture of commerce within catholicism (at a rate of 0.80 Euro/min) killing the same symbolism.
ReplyDeleteSpeaking about a den of thieves... (too hard to resist this one)
The men showed Jesus a silver coin ...
ReplyDeleteThe parish of Den Bosch is a den of extremely orthodox catholics. For example: it's here they decided to censor the - seemingly too liberal - songs of Huub Oosterhuis from the catholic songbook.
What is needed are thieves. We must steal the worthwhile and precious building blocks of the catholic tradition from the hands of the orthodox conspiracy. And give it new life in a more modern, deconstructed, not-closed, practice.