Silence and the Audibility of the Word: Contemplative Listening as a Fundamental Act of the New Evangelization. Part 2: Jesus Christ, the Eternal Listener

• Authors: Siegmund J. Marianne
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

In the second part of her arguing for contemplative listening as a fundamental act of the new evangelization, the author turns to the theological perspective of Jesus Christ as the eternal Listener and, thus, focuses upon his act of listening, which is the unique personal form of his eternal divinity. The author addresses the following issues. Granted that listening has to do with obedient readiness, how can one say it is in the eternalSon, who, being God, would seem to be naturally exempt from obedience? In order to answer this question, the author looks at the Balthasarian “enfleshment” of Thomas’ notion of the divine persons as subsistent relations. In brief, to say that the Son is the subsistent relation of sonship means that the Son receives himself from the Father. But this self-reception implies, the author argues, an obedient readiness. And, since the Son is Word, this obedient readiness translates into a “listening.” The Son is not only the eternal Word. He is also the eternal listener of the Word he is. Within the Godhead, each person is his relation (of “opposition”) to the others and there is no difference between the person and his action. For example, the Son is his relation of sonship to the Father. But, one might ask, how could one speak of the Son’s obedience? How does one avoid subordinationism? The key is to see how the Son’s possession of divinity is compatible with a reception of it. If the Father is the “source and origin of all divinity,” the Son does, in fact, receive his divinity from the Father while, at the same time, he is co-equal and co-eternal with the Father. That the Father generates the Son does not mean, as Arius asserted, that there was a time when the Son was not. Rather, the Son always possesses his divine sonship as being given fromthe Father, while the Father possesses divinity as being given away. Divinity is compatible with relationality in the mode of reception. In the Godhead, reception is perfection. There are a number of texts from Thomas that the author presents in favor of this argument. Having established that reception is perfection in the Godhead, the author develops how this receptivity encompasses obedience and listening. For, in his receiving, the Son performs an act that, by an intrinsic analogy, one may describe as the taking of the gift of the Father into himself. In this sense, the Son is obedient to the “sense” of the Father’s self-gift. But, in the case of the Son, he isthe gift. Not only that, he isthe gift as Word. This suggests, as the author argues, that the obedience that characterizes him as a divine person is something intrinsically analogous to listening. Here, then, we find the ultimate theological reason that we are listeners: we are listeners because we are created on the model of Christ, the eternal Listener.

Keywords

EN

Jesus Christ; listening; revelation; sonship; Trinity; God; metaphysics; Hans Urs von Balthasar; Thomas Aquinas; divine person; subsistent relation; human person; substance; obedience; the Word

• Publisher: International Étienne Gilson Society
• Journal: Studia Gilsoniana
• Year: 2018
• Volume: 7
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 119-137

Dates

published

2018-03-30

Contributors

author

Siegmund J. Marianne

• Holy Apostles College and Seminary, Cromwell, CT, USA

References

• Aquinas, Thomas. Summa Theologiae. Torino, Italy: Edizioni San Paolo, 1999.
• Aquinas, Thomas. Summa Theologiae, vol. 1. Translated by the Fathers of the English Dominican Province. 5 vols. Westminster, MD: Christian Classics, 1981.
• Catechismus Catholicae Ecclesiae. Citta del Vaticano: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1997.
• Gramatica, Aloisius, ed. Bibliorum Sacrorum. Iuxta Vulgatam Clementinam. Nova Editio. Citta del Vaticano: Typis Polyglottis Vaticanis, 1913.
• Guardini, Romano. Preparing Yourself for Mass. Manchester, NH: Sophia Institute Press, 1997.
• Ignatius of Antioch. “The Epistle to the Ephesians.” In Early Christian Writings: The Apostolic Fathers. Translated by Maxwell Staniforth. New York: Dorset Press, 1986, 72–84.
• Ignatius of Antioch. “The Epistle to the Magnesians.” In Early Christian Writings: The Apostolic Fathers. Translated by Maxwell Staniforth. New York: Dorset Press, 1986, 85–92.
• John Chrysostom. “Homilies on Ephesians, Homily 1: Ephesians 1:1–1:10.” In Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians and Homilies on the Epistle to the Ephesians of S. John Chrysostom, vol. 5. London, England: Oxford, 1840.
• John Paul II. Redemptoris Mater. Boston: Pauline Books and Media, 1995.
• Pius IX. Ineffabilis Deus. Apostolic Constitution Defining the Dogma of the Immaculate Conception. Boston: St. Paul Books and Media, 1995.
• Ratzinger, Joseph. “Concerning the Notion of Person in Theology.” Communio International Catholic Review 17, no. 3 (Fall 1990): 439–54.
• Siegmund, J. Marianne. “Silence and the Audibility of the Word: Contemplative Listening as a Fundamental Act of the New Evangelization. Part 1: An Anthropology of Listening.” Studia Gilsoniana 6, no. 4 (October–December 2017): 585–607.
• von Balthasar, Hans Urs. A Theology of History. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1994.
• von Balthasar, Hans Urs. Theo-logic II: Truth of God. Translated by Adrian J. Walker. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2004.

Identifiers

ISSN

2300–0066 (print)

ISSN

2577–0314 (online)

DOI

10.26385/SG.070106