I wish to rebegin this weblog with a few words about the heart, from a Catholic Christian Hermeticist, who was filled with sheer heart.
This then, is what Eliphas Levi, lover of Hermeticism, lover of the Church and lover of humanity, wrote in Paris in 1868:
“Up to one’s last breath, one may retain the simple joys of childhood, the poetic ecstasies of the young man, the enthusiasms of maturity.
Right to the end, one may intoxicate one’s spirit with flowers, with beauty and with smiles; one may ceaselessly recapture the past and always recover what has been lost. A real eternity can be found in the fine dream of life.
‘How can this be achieved?’ you will surely ask me. Read attentively and meditate on what I am going to tell you: It is necessary to forget oneself and live only for others …
When Jesus said: 'If anyone wishes to follow me, let him deny himself, take up his cross and come after me,' did he mean us to bury ourselves in some lonely spot?
He, who always lived among men, who took up little children and blessed them, who restored fallen women, despising neither their show of affection, nor their tears, who ate and drank with the outcasts of pharisaism [and] healed the sick …
How dared the author of a celebrated treatise, which recommended isolation and concentration on oneself, call such a book The Imitation of Christ?
To live in others, with others and for others is the secret of love …
To love is to live in those whom one loves.
It is to think their thoughts, fathom their desires, share their affections.
The more one loves, the more one’s own life is enlarged.
The man who loves is not alone and his existence is in many places at once … He talks baby talk and plays with children, joins in the enthusiasm of youth, holds a rational discussion with the middle aged and clasps the hand of the old.”
I confess, dear friends, that I do not yet know The Imitation of Christ. But how deeply do I relate to what this man of radiant heart says about Christianity.
Christianity is not a path of isolated, spiritual pursuit, but of bearing the burden of the Other, whether the Other is one’s neighbour, the social and political situation of humanity, or the ecological suffering of the environment we are raping.
And it is also about the sheer joy of being 'enlarged' through the wonder and the miracle of love.
New material in this weblog should begin in earnest by Thursday, at the latest. But first I will offer more about the nature of love, from the Christian Hermetic tradition. For these gems, I hope will serve as foundation stones for what will then follow...
1 comment:
Some might take issue with me calling Levi 'a lover of the Church'.
For Levi who suffered unusually in the Church, from his seminary days onward, was often prone to highly critical statements of certain aspects of the Church.
And there are also many, many deeply appreciative, deeply honouring statements regarding the Church - often strewn throughout the very same text.
I conclude that Levi loved the Church very deeply and given some of what he suffered, even heroically ...
Though not without some liberties in terms of punctuation and paragraphs, the quote is taken from:
The Great Secret or Occultism Unveiled, 182-183, Samuel Weiser, 2000
And I hope use of this brief extract of translation may be judged of fair use. If not I apologise and will remove it and supply my own translation.
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