No Eclipse

I have been speaking of the need to find another way. Another way in which the Christian Mystery can inform our desiccating culture. Another way, in which the Christian Mystery is not imposed on people.

But neither is the ECLIPSE of the Christian Mystery allowed to proceed headlong. And neither is a secularist, philosophical materialism imposed on us…

Now this other way begins to be seen. It begins to be seen - as I have suggested - in the papacy of John Paul the Great. And I think in the radiant thinking of Anonymous d'Outre Tomb, as well. And I feel it is also within sight in other ways - at least in fragments. And I want to tentatively explore these in the coming weeks.

But among all these matters is the need for a stance - a stance of true love for the Church and true willingness to give respect and credit, **wherever** respect and credit are due. (Whatever errors may also be present).

This stance is a major thing I have in mind, then with 'Hermetic Catholicism'. This stance involves a discriminating **listening** to many profound thinkers, who stand beyond the Church.

Into this category, I clearly place Rudolf Steiner. But this is not the same as endorsing his vision. Now from different quarters recently, I have heard a concern I think, that I appear to link Steiner too closely to orthodoxy.

Now this webblog HAS contained numerous caveats in this regard. As to the question for example, whether there was accord between Steiner and John Paul's remedy for the world, I said yes AND no.

But perhaps the 'no' needs to be stated more emphatically: there IS a very great deal in Steiner’s Christianity that IS in contradiction with the two thousand year collective spiritual effort of the Holy Church. Such that the question has been raised whether Steiner is Christian at all.

Now this is a question attended by enormity. It is complicated by the fact that Steiner spoke of the event on Calvary as such a momentous happening, that humanity would take untold ages to grasp its full significance. And it is clear that for him, Calvary's true nature is such a transcendent, multifaceted MYSTERY, that it, more than anything, cannot be contained in human concepts - but must be approached from many angles.

Steiner's vision is further complicated by the fact that numerous commentators have amplified it and I, for one, am not at all confident they have been able to follow him accurately.

Nonetheless, one of these commentators, Christopher Bamford, gives us something, which I take as nobly addressing the core of Steiner’s vision. A core, which I take as Christian, no matter how unorthodox Steiner might be in other respects:

“For Steiner … the incarnation of [Christ’s] Being (His birth, death, descent into the Earth, resurrection and ascension) is more than the redemptive turning point in humanity’s relationship to God.

Enormous though that is and hardly to be conceived of, the meaning of Christ’s passage through our human Earth is greater still, and marks a watershed not just in the life of human beings and the earth, but also in the life of the [entities of the archangelic hierarchies] and – dare one say it? – even in the Divine Life itself. …

Christ’s deed continues to transform human nature and the cosmos, as it were, turning these inside-out – so that for human beings today the once transcendent God is no longer beyond, but within a non-exteriorised divine-human interaction, more intimate than our jugular vein."

Now in his rich, thought-provoking comments to this webblog, Fred K observed that Jesuits 'engage the world even if many of them seem paralyzed to make any claim beside peace and justice.'

Now I am not an expert on Jesuitism by any means – but I recently read a book on Christology by a learned Jesuit, whose conclusion seemed to give little meaning to Calvary at all, beyond the pacifism of Jesus – i.e. that the Crucifixion's chief significance lay in the fact that Jesus had refused the path of violence.

Yes there is ‘peace' here and perhaps 'justice’ – but is there the Christian Mystery?

No, my friends, the Christian Mystery has been eclipsed in such thinking. Entirely eclipsed.

And whatever his errors may have been, this is precisely what Rudolf Steiner was concerned about: the Eclipse not only of the Mystery of Calvary, but the loss of Mystery everywhere in the face of more and more prosaic, flat and reductionist ‘answers’ ...

I am aware that many a traditional Catholic will question my listening to those outside the Church. I only hope that they will not question my devotion to this Holy Church, and see that whether I am right or whether I am wrong, I believe in all sincerity that this must form **part** of the way forward.

If my traditional friends remain troubled, I would ask that they listen to these words from that great English Catholic, GK Chesterton:

“I myself am working in defence of civilization side by side with men who call themselves Agnostic, Anglican, Methodist. I trust that in the end they will realize the name of the home they are defending. But they are already defending that home. They are … in the work for … defending the rights of man; and it happens, curiously enough, to be the work for Catholics in the service of the kingdom of God.”

If that bastion of orthodoxy, Chesterton can embrace the good in people everywhere working for Christ, I hope that my traditional friends may come to accept my listening to Hermeticists - Hermeticists who are often are closer to the Christian tradition than current 'Catholic' theology. Even if some (though not all) remain separated from the tradition and the Holy Church in other grievous ways as well.