On November 3, 2014, the Faculty of Religious Studies (FRS) of the University of St. Joseph (USJ) celebrated its Faculty Day with a varied and colorful program organized by the Faculty’s Student Association. The Faculty Day is the day of the Faculty’s Patron, the missionary of missionaries St. Francis Xavier. At present, FRS has 50 students coming from different countries and cultures of Asia – Myanmar, Timor Leste, Vietnam, South Korea, Indonesia, Philippines and Macau -, plus one sister from Ethiopia as well. The Faculty of Religious Studies is headed by a new Dean, Prof. Arnold Monera, and a new Coordinator for the Department of Catholic Theology, Prof. Franz Gassner, SVD. Its roster of professors includes full, part-time and visiting professors.
The 2014 Faculty Day was indeed a historical event. The USJ’s Faculty of Religious Studies (until 2014 Faculty of Christian Studies) was established in the year 2007. In 2013, the Faculty Day started to be celebrated on December 3. This year the celebration took place at St. Lawrence Church and hall, Macau.
The program began at nine in the morning (9:00 am) with a welcoming song, the opening speech of the Dean and the introductory remarks of the President of the Students’ Association of the Faculty of Religious Studies, Bro. Paul Win Aung Myint. This introductory part of the program was followed by the concelebrated Eucharistic celebration at 9:30 AM. The Holy Mass was presided by Fr. Fausto Gomez, OP, and the homily was given by Fr. João Eleutério, both professors of the Faculty of Religious Studies. The melodious songs during the Mass were rendered by the students conducted by the Dean.
After the Eucharistic celebration, there was a short break with snacks. At 11 AM, the respected Jesuit Fr. Luis Sequeira gave an inspirational talk to the students and guests on the continuing relevance of St. Francis Xavier. Reflecting on the great Jesuit missionary, Fr. Sequeira underlined the fact that culture and history are part of our nature in the time of St. Francis Xavier and today. He asked himself: “Why was the saint – missionary in India, Japan China -, able to do so much? He did it because he was able to integrate, contemplation and creativity, knowledge and virtue.†He concluded: God had his plan for Francis of Xavier, and He has his plans for each one of us, too: “We are not here by chance or accident, but by God’s will.†Indeed, we all are called for a purpose, which is to spread the Gospel. Like St. Francis Xavier, we are to possess zeal, creativity and joy within the context of our own time and culture. Certainly, Fr. Sequeira gave students, professors and friends a wonderful inspirational talk.
After the inspirational talk, a simple and plentiful lunch followed. Then there was another short break to give a chance to all to see the beautiful cultural exhibits prepared by the students that highlighted the customs and culture of their respective country and ethnic group.
At 1:30 in the afternoon, the most awaited part of the program took place: the cultural presentation by students and professors. The two-hour variety show included students’ performances by country, some soloists’ numbers by professors, and different games. According to one of our dear professor, the multi-cultural presentations in songs and dances from different countries were superb, and the joy and smiles of the participants, something to behold.
Before closing our simple report, it is appropriate to point out the aims of the recently created FRS Students’ Association as presented by its first president. The purpose of the Student Association is to provide a warm place for the students and a venue to participate actively in the life of the Faculty, in particular the following: to organize the Faculty Convocation, the Faculty Day and some other related activities of the Faculty. By organizing these and other events, the students will come to know each other better, to promote a strong sense of belongingness, to work together and share their knowledge, talents and skills on their common journey of philosophical and theological studies. Moreover, the Students’ Association will represent the Faculty of Religious Studies in university affairs.
Finally, it is good to underline that he Faculty Day was a wonderful showcase of the students’ responsibility to cooperate with one another, to work together and thus show their unity, and above all, to witness their love of Christ. Perhaps, the best symbol of the Faculty Day was the smile of the students, of the professors and of the guests as well especially throughout the joyful cultural program. Indeed, how wonderful it is to live together as brothers and sisters in Christ! (FRS Students’ Association)
“How good, how delightful it is
to live as brothers and sisters
all together†(Ps 133:1).
On November 29, 2013, Pope Francis declared the year 2015 as the Church’s year dedicated to consecrated life. The Year of Consecrated Life opens in Rome on November 30, 2014, the First Sunday of Advent. In Macau, the Year begins the evening of November 29 with a Prayer-Vigil in the Cathedral.
The liturgical Prayer-Vigil will be presided by the Bishop of Macau, D. Joseph Lai, DD. It will start at seven-thirty in the evening (7:30 pm) with the Solemn First Vespers of the First Sunday of Advent, and include a Liturgy of the Word with two biblical readings followed by two short reflections and a meditative pause. Then Mary’s Song, the magnificat will be sung and a special Prayer of the Faithful shall be recited. The Hymn of the Year of Consecrated Life will crown the joyful inauguration of the Year of Consecrated Life in Macau. The different parts of the Vigil will be conducted alternately in Cantonese and English.
All religious women and men – over two hundred (200) – are cordially invited to attend and participate. The religious event is also open to lay faithful. A simple agape will follow the liturgical celebration.
The three objectives of the celebration of the Year of Consecrated Life are the following: first, to provide help to religious women and men at a time of crises in the Church and in the world; second, to “evangelize†the vocation, and third, to commemorate two key anniversaries related to the Second Vatican Council, namely, the 50th anniversary of the closing of Vatican II, and the 50th anniversary of publication of the conciliar Decree on the renewal of consecrated life Perfectae Caritatis.
Pope Francis announced that 2015 would be the Year of Consecrated Life, on September 29, 2013 at the end of an important meeting he had with the Union of Superiors General in Rome. In the unique conversation the Holy Father had with the 120 Superiors of male institutes the Pope said: “I am also a religious.†Your testimony is “a testimony of prophecy,†which coincides “with holiness.†The Pope continued: The religious men and women are called to live “religious brotherhood and sisterhood,†“to awaken the world,†to re-evaluate “the inculturation of their charism,†to practice “intercultural dialogue,†and to give importance to “the educational mission of schools and universities.†Moreover, Pope Francis underlined, a few times through the conversation, witnessing: “What I expect of you is to give witness,†with a witnessing which entails “generosity, detachment, sacrifice, self-forgetfulness in order to care for others.†Do not forget the poor, the Pope asked the Superiors General: “Some real time of contact with the poor is necessary.†Pope Francis closed the three-hour-conversation with the religious superiors with these words: “Thank you for what you do and for your spirit of faith and your service. Thank you for your witness and also for the humiliations through which you have had to pass.â€
The Year of Consecrated Life is a golden opportunity for all the religious men and women of different Orders, Congregations and Institutes to gratefully remember their past, be sorry for the “apostolic failures†in their respective congregation’s past and present, and joyfully hope in a promising future by being authentic witnesses of Christ in the present, that is, by “living the present passionately†– as people seduced by Christ.
The Year of Consecrated Life will close all over the world on February 2, 2016 with the celebration of the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord, which is also the yearly day of Consecrated Life. Through 2015, consecrated women and men will hold different activities – retreats, pilgrimages, lectures, prayers, exhibits, etc. – for a fruitful celebration and continuing renewal of consecrated life in the Church.
The program of activities of the Year of Consecrated Life in Macau is organized by the Associations of Religious Men and of Religious Women. Besides the opening, both Associations of consecrated persons will prepare and carry out through 2015 other appropriate programs, including some lectures on consecrated life, and especial celebrations around Christmas and Easter.
“How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of
the messenger announcing peace, of
the messenger of good news, who
proclaims salvation†(Is 52:7).
Ben John Bosco Lei Chi Hang is living in our Dominican Priory of St. Dominic. In a few days, he will go to Hong Kong to make with nine other pre-novices a spiritual retreat in preparation for his Novitiate in the Dominican Province of Our Lady of the Rosary at St. Albert’s Convent in Rosaryhill, Hong Kong. Before he leaves us, we interviewed him. Ben is a teacher at the Dominican-run St. Paul School. He will be the first inhabitant of Macau to enter the Dominicans.
Question: Please, Ben, kindly introduce yourself to our readers
Answer: My Chinese name is æŽå¿—æ† and was baptized with a Christian name John Bosco because I studied in a Salesian school for seven years but people usually called me Ben because I was using that name since elementary/primary school.  I was born in a traditionally normal Cantonese family in Macau in 1978 when it was still under Portugal.  I have two younger sisters. My father is retired. All my grandparents and mother have passed away. Nobody in my family is religious or Buddhist but my grandmother and father sometimes offered incenses to the ancestors, departed souls and the natural environment according to the civil tradition.  My grandparents and parents have no particular religious faith but just follow the Cantonese tradition to this or that during the festivals and special times. I’m the first and the only Christian in my family.
I studied engineering in high school and in university but after graduation, and due to the opportunities presented to me and personal interest, I started to work in the field of education in different institutions, mainly in schools, for more than ten years, and from kindergarten to university.
I have heard that you are a convert to the Catholic faith. Could you tell us how it happened?Â
I was baptized in March, 2005, in Macau. My sisters and I were all sent to the same Catholic kindergarten and primary school which is next to Saint Anthony Parish and managed by religious sisters. The school was near our home and therefore very convenient for us children: just five minutes walking from home. Another reason, perhaps, was the well-known reputation of Catholic schools in Macau after 1945.
The school campus is packed but still beautiful. There are a few big banyan trees and a well decorated cave for Our Lady of Fatima at the corner of the school playground. The pupils were organized to have some prayers before the statue of Our Lady every May and October. The religious sisters brought us to the parish church at least a few times a year to pray or to attend the Holy Eucharist even though most of the pupils were non-believers. The church is small but beautiful. It is one of the three old parish churches in the Macau Diocese. When I was a child, I had a strong feeling that Saint Anthony church is big, gorgeous and, of course, sacred.
There was in primary/elementary school one religious sister who gave me a good impression.  She taught us arts and craft when I was around grade four. She was very kind but asked the pupils to draw a self-portrait for assignment. I did a very bad job and had a very hard time to finish that painful task. This is one of the first memories about handcraft and visual arts. From that time on, I don’t like to draw and paint.
I also don’t know why I wanted to join catechism classes when I was around grade four. I think that was the first time that I wanted to know more about Jesus for unknown reasons, and the whole school did a good job as a sower of God to plant a seed in my heart even though I think the soil inside me was not that good.
There is no secondary school in that primary/elementary school so my sisters and I had to look for another school for further education. If my memory is correct, I applied and took the entrance examination by myself in three different schools. I passed the entrance tests of the three schools, and I chose Instituto Salesiano which is a vocational based grammar school even though many of my boy friends went to another Salesian school for boys. My mother wanted me to go to another Salesian boy school because this one is nearer our home than the Instituto, but she didn’t stop me. I picked Instituto Salesiano for another reason: it was said that the school ethos of Instituto Salesiano is better than the other two choices of mine.
During my time in Salesian School the foundation of my faith was fostered because of the frequent festive celebrations. Students in Salesian Schools are entitled to skip the compulsory self-study class if they join catechism. I’m not sure whether I went to the catechism because of the above reason or something else. Anyway, I was there. The class-time for catechism was a happy time because the Brother-teacher tried his best to teach us as if the class was a talk show. Now, he must be having a talk show in the Heaven for all the Angels and Saints.
After that I don’t know why I left the catechism class. By around 1994, I went back again. This time, the teacher assigned originally was a Salesian priest, the head teacher of Instituto Salesiano, but for some reason he was substituted by a very new music teacher that had just come back from Italy. He sang some meaningful original Cantonese songs with his guitar during the classes and catechism. I thought that was cool, and after that he taught me and a few other students in private to play the guitar in the Cathedral.
Later on, that teacher invited me to go to the youth activities of the Church, voluntary work for poor children with the Missionaries of Charity of Mother Teresa of Calcutta, and also summer Catholic camp in Hong Kong. I realized that he was a consecrated lay Catholic at that time and little by little we became very good friends until now. I was asked around the end of 1994 if I wished to receive baptism, but I rejected then because I told myself that “one day I’ll become a Roman Catholic, and now it’s not the time.â€
I went back to Macau to look for a paid job after the summer of 2001, before the university graduation. With the kind and sincere help of Father Peter Chung, I worked as a junior coordinator in the Macau Diocesan Pastoral Youth Centre where I had known the staff and some people there. I learned and witnessed a lot: on what and how things are being done in the Catholic way and in a humane way. I was touched, so I looked for opportunities to have catechism in Macau.  I took a long time to think whether I should receive baptism in 2005. I like to think a lot and for a long time before making big decisions, for I don’t want to do something that I don’t have confidence to perform well.
In short, I think God planed everything before my birth, and little by little, step by step led me to become a Catholic.
You have been living in our Studentate for a few months in preparation for your Novitiate in the Dominican Province of Our Lady of the Rosary. Explain to us the birth of your Dominican vocation
 A few years after my baptism, I thought of different possibilities about my vocation. I spent some time with different congregations and communities but couldn’t find a way that is suitable for me. On the other hand, I spent a lot of time discerning because I don’t like to make commitment until I can be sure that I can commit my life and take that responsibility to commit myself.
I knew very little about the Dominicans before working for Escola Sao Paulo which is a Diocesan school managed by the Order of Preachers. Little by little, the Dominican Fathers working in the school invited me to the Sunday Mass in Saint Dominic’s Priory and the Fathers told me about the community life of the Province of Our Lady of the Rosary, which is a special Province devoted to missionary work in the Far East for the Order and for the Universal Church. I was attracted by a community life which is full of sense of family while at the same time there is an equilibrium that respects the individual freedom of each friar to study and to preach in an active way. The common praying of the Liturgy of the Hours is another fascinating element which is also a part of community life. At the same time, my curiosity makes me want to know and understand more about different cultures and different people from all over the world. Therefore, I started to join and learn more about the Dominican Province of Our Lady of the Rosary.
You are well aware of the specifically missionary character of our Dominican Province of Our Lady of the Rosary. Do you think that it will be easy for you to be assigned by your superiors to different Asian or European countries?
This is a tough question. I think it is a bit casual if I tell you that it will be easy for me because no matter how there are challenges in dealing with and facing different people from different cultures and religions. My hats off to those martyrs and missionaries especially those in the Province of Our Lady of Rosary. They spent a lot of time learning a new language, adapting to a new climate, different kinds of food and drinks, to new cultures and new people that they may not have encountered before.
No matter how, I’m spiritually ready to be sent to different countries all over the world because it is the spirit and essence of this Province even though I’m not sure if I can really get along with my unknown future. I really wish that God can grant us sufficient grace and faith towards the coming challenges.
I have heard you are a good teacher and love teaching. Â
I love teaching and spending time with young people because I was touched by the missionaries and priests when I was in high school and catechism classes after university. Young people and children are like a clean sheet of paper on which we can offer them a better foundation about values and hope. I spent more than 12 years in formal and informal education in the different institutions, including schools, the university, a prison and the Church. It is one of the ways to preach the truth and values.
I don’t think I’m a good teacher because I have my own weaknesses and laziness but I am really grateful that during these years of teaching, there are many people to give me words of wisdom, encouragement and support especially during the time of hardship. Many people gave me love and caring concern. I learnt a lot from the others. Of course, Jesus Christ is always the only perfect model for educators and teachers. I’m still learning from the Good Teacher.
I understand you love sports. Do you think you will be able to use your athletic skills in the Novitiate in Hong Kong and later on in the studentate in Macau?
 It is surprising that I’m a good athlete. I remember that I was very weak when I was a child. Until now, I’m not strong but I love sports including running, basketball, swimming, cycling, hiking, sport climbing, rowing, orienteering and football under the encouragement of my mother. During these seven years working in administrative positions, there is lack of time and motivation for me to do exercises and as a result I accumulated more fat. It will be a right time for me to lose my fat in Hong Kong.
Talking about my athletic skills, I think I will not be of much use for the Order. However, like many forms of arts and music, sport is one of the universal languages that can break through barriers and nurture fraternity under a fair and funny playing environment. For example, we can organize ball games, hiking and cycling with the young people in this region. Isn’t it the same literal spirit of the Olympic Games?
You have being living with us at St. Dominic’s Priory, Macau, for a few months. How do you find the Dominican life you have come to know here? What is easier and what is harder, and what is more enjoyable – for you – in this new life?
Let me talk about the hard part that is obedience and regular time table. I used to do anything I want according to my schedule as a professional in Macau. I earn my living so I can spend in a luxury way of life. However, religious life requires obedience and regularity. It’s not very easy. Because every time I need to do something outside the community time table and the way of the community life, I have to get approval from the superior or master. At first, it’s a bit annoying for me; but little by little, I am learning the good side of the regular life, which can make me healthier spiritually and physically.
Besides the above, I learned to treasure more the free time I have every day to study while I enjoy a lot the community time every night especially on Saturdays. Last but not least, I love to recite and sing the Divine Office and Mass with the brothers, too.
How would you invite other men to follow the path of Saint Dominic you wish to follow?
 The first thing I have to do is to imitate the good examples of Jesus and Saint Dominic because I believe a good deed wins more than a thousand words. On the other hand, inviting people to join our daily Mass, Sunday Mass or any other related activities are possible ways to invite others to the Dominican way of life.
June 22, 2014, you go to Hong Kong for your Spiritual Retreat with the other postulants in preparation for your vestition with the Dominican habit which will take place in July 4, 2014 at St. Albert Convent in Rosaryhill, Hong Kong. What are your feelings and expectations?
I’m a little excited, nervous and anxious. I’m excited because I can have the opportunity to wear the habit which is a kind of recognition of joining the Dominic family which gives me a sense of belonging. I’m nervous and anxious about the unknown future and obstacles ahead of me because I don’t know what the future will be and I love to have a plan, which I had during these years of working on administrative positions in the university and schools.
In the meantime, I’m a bit stressful because people have different positive and/or negative expectations on me even though cognitively, I know that I am what I am. However, I sincerely wish God can be with me and all Dominican brothers can help me to pass every single day in the future. I really need your prayers for my future and vocation as I pray for you and the others.
Thank you very much, Ben. Congratulations. Good luck and may Our Lady of the Rosary accompany you and St. Dominic guide you! May you come back with us one year later for your philosophical and theological studies and formation! God bless you and your future co-novices. (FGB)
St. Dominic’s Priory,
Macau, June 2014)
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(On March 7, 2014, the Dominican Center of Institutional Studies, or St. Dominic’s Center of Studies, celebrated solemnly the Feast of St. Thomas Aquinas at St. Paul’s School, Macau. The morning celebration consisted of three parts: lecture, Mass and fraternal agape. More than one hundred people attended the memorable event. The highlight of the celebration was the public lecture given by theologian Felicisimo Martinez, OP, who is currently teaching at the University of Saint Joseph. Hereafter, we print the excellent text of the conference)
 Saint Thomas begins any discussion with one question, even the discussion about the existence of God. Answers without questions are absolutely useless.
- 1.    Questions about truth, meaning and faith.
Truth has become a real question, because for many people truth has been associated with dogmatism, fundamentalism, violence, intolerance…Therefore they refuse even to talk or to listen to talk about truth. But, what would be life if there is no truth at all? In the last moments of Jesus the question about truth is dramatically present: What is truth? This question continues been present today, but in a real practical way. Where is truth? Who are on its side?
The adequate relationship with truth is not appropriation, but questioning, searching, looking for, approaching… Only God is the owner, the Lord of the Truth; we are mere servants. God told to a rabbi: “Look, here on one of my hands I have the truth, on the other one I have the instinct of the truth, please, which is your choice?†The rabbi answered: “Lord, give me the instinct of the truth, because the whole truth is your own propertyâ€. We, human beings, have to learn how to live, not with full security or total certitude, but with many questions and uncertainties. That means that we have to learn a culture of trust and confidence.
We enjoy today an enormous scientific and technological progress. We know every day more and more, and at the same time we become more aware of our ignorance. But day after day we feel more insecure regarding the question of truth. “Today’s man is the man of “perhapsâ€â€. In this situation we observe the continuous growing of fundamentalisms, dogmatisms, relativisms… Many people refuse to believe in the ideal of the truth but at the same time they think they are in the right position.
There is today a crisis of confidence; there is a general suspicion, mistrust towards anybody and towards everything. While we speak once and again about transparency, a kind of culture or un-culture of mistrust and diffidence is widespread in any area of our society.  We do not trust the politicians, the economists, the mass media, even the scientists… We do not believe that they tell the whole truth… We have more and more information, but we do not know whom to believe. Truth is not more associated to the dignity of a person. Some persons pretend to be honest and honorable without been truthful. Here the real problem is not the objective, but the subjective dimension of truth: truthfulness, living in the truth.
A dangerous enemy of truth today is what is called “politically correctâ€. It has become a kind of a dictatorship, compelling us to a certain auto-censorship in all areas of our life. But freedom is the first condition for a person to tell the truth and to live in the truth. “Truth is truth, says Saint Thomas, not because it is spoken by many people, but because it reflects things as they areâ€.
Enemy of truth today is also certain pragmatism. In front of dramatic situations of injustice and enormous suffering, those who are responsible for those situations do not want the real truth to be known; on the other side what the victims really want is practical solutions to their dramatic problems. Deeds, not only words! What really the Commissions of the Truth are investigating in many countries are not only words, and many times atrocious deeds.
Enemy of truth is many times the history of the same truth, the use and abuse of the truth, which has widespread blood, crime and death all through history of mankind. And so truth remained associated with intolerance and violence.
And, according to Saint Thomas, another enemy of truth is mental laziness, because searching for truth demands a lot of effort, of ascetic effort, of renunciation. And that we do not like too much.
In modern society the interest for the esthetic is growing every day more and more, as the interest for ethical problems is also growing, sometimes due to a real convictions sometimes due to some urgent needs. There is no that much interest regarding the question of truth. Some people are aware of the devastating results of falsehood as a way of life, as a companion of injustice… But today most of the people think that lying is absolutely meaningless and has not transcendence at all. Even more, they do not associate truth or lie with morals. When we speak about war or genocide we are very much worried about injustice, violence, human rights…, but we do not care too much about the enormous amount of falsehood used to covered up and justify war, injustice, genocide, etc…
But, truth is absolutely essential in order to live together, to establish harmonious relationships among persons, to live humanely… As a matter of fact, Saint Paul states firmly that the first thing that injustice has to do is precisely to stifle the truth (Rm 1, 18). Probably this is the most powerful test of the relevance of the truth. Falsehood is the radical evil. The Gospel of John goes as far as to present the Devil as the only father of falsehood (“He is not rooted in the truth; there is no truth in him. When he tells a lie he is speaking his own language, for he is liar and father of lies†(Jn 8, 44). Jankelevitch puts the falsehood as an essential element of the radical evil in the Holocaust.
The question of truth embraces at the same time the area of meaning and the area of faith.
Truth includes basically three levels or strata.
a. The first level is the transparent reality or the reality itself without any mask or disguise or cover up. The truth is the reality itself, things as they are, the objectivity of reality. Ellacuria used to call this “to be honest to reality, to call things by their nameâ€. Let us observe and let us listen to scientific conclusions. In this fist level of the truth we have to pay attention to the facts: the facts as they are. Here the different sciences have a relevant word to tell, but we should be aware that also a scientific conclusion is an interpretation –a hermeneutic exercise- of reality, not a dogmatic conclusion.  Sciences do not tell us everything about reality, not even the most important or transcendental conclusions about reality. But, at least, thanks to the scientific conclusions we can know every day more and better this wonderful world and this wonderful human nature. As a matter of fact, lying consist of concealing – for different purposes- that part of reality that we already know. Lie is not equal to error or misunderstanding; lie is to hide or to cover up something on purpose.
b. The second level of truth is related to the sense or meaning of reality. Here the exercise of hermeneutics is more needed and more complicated, especially today, because the management of meaning has become a private task of the individuals, not a public mission of the traditional institutions, let us say religions, churches, educations centers, family… E. Schillebeeckx established a closed relationship between truth and meaning. From the perspective of meaning things are not mere means, tools, objects…; they become final purpose, real values, and symbols inviting us to a transcendental experience. In this area of meaning the pluralism is spreading everyday more and more in our culture, and the chance of consensus is lessening every day more and more. The meaning of human being, of freedom, of happiness… is so different even for different people in the same culture! Searching for truth and meaning today demand a lot of humility and dialogue. (Saint Thomas compares this task of searching for the truth with the hunting sport, all participants coming together like a team to catch the animal). This dialogue about meaning is absolutely needed today since the lack of meaning leads a person towards a kind of vital emptiness, existential disorientation, even to suicide. (This is the main point in the whole work of Viktor Frankl. The central statement of his doctrinal system is this: The real drama in human life is not the lack of pleasure, but the lack of meaning). These questions about meaning are closely related to the deepest questions of human being: the meaning and destine of our life, the problem of suffering and, what is to expect beyond death?… Are these not practical questions? Ignoring them is to put ourselves at our back, as Saint Augustin says in his Confessions. “Then, you, my Lord, took me from my back, where I had put myself in order not to see me, and you threw me against my eyesâ€. This level of truth demands from us a real exercise of the contemplative dimension of our life.
c. The third level of truth places us at a theological level. It considers the salvific dimension of reality, the deepest capacity of reality accessible only to faith. The Vatican Council II invited to respect the autonomy of mundane reality. But this autonomy is compatible with this salvific dimension of the same mundane reality. In this salvific horizon mundane reality becomes creature and has a vocation, a destiny, finality. This salvific projection has been revealed all along the history and specially in the personal history of Jesus of Nazareth, the new man and the origin of the New Creation. For the believers God is the truth and the truth is the world of God. Out of the truth God can´t be, can´t exist. Out of the truth, what appears is inhumanity. These statements are not easily accepted in the secular culture, which is closed in it, blocked to any Transcendence. Faith has become a question more than a solution for many people.
In all these three levels it is very important to distinguish error and lie, ignorance and lie. Error and ignorance have no ethic connotations. They are not mortal enemies of truth; they are simply the absence of truth. Meanwhile lie has ethic connotations. It is a mortal enemy of truth, it is radically immoral. Jon Sobrino put the problem in these terms: “The main purpose of human being is not to pass from ignorance to knowledge, but from lie to truthâ€. And Don Miguel de Unamuno states: “Death is lie, truth is life, and if truth leads us to die, it is better to die for truth than to live lying, to live dyingâ€.
2. Attitudes to approach truth, meaning and faith.
In this second moment of my talk I´ll present some attitudes which can facilitate our approach to truth, meaning and faith. Let us be clear from the very beginning: these attitudes facilitate, show the way, and indicate the direction…, they are not absolute guarantee. There are people already with these attitudes and notwithstanding they say they are not sure about truth, meaning and faith. By talking about these attitudes all I want to say is that it is easier to approach truth, meaning and faith in these conditions than in the contraries.
Many and different are the attitudes to facilitate our approach to truth, meaning and faith. It is important to be clever, wise, profound, honest, humble, open-minded, simple, confident, and ready to listen to the Word… But no one can be so much talented, with so many virtues at the same time. I´ll present only the attitudes I consider more relevant for our purpose. For the rest our task will be to pray so that strong faith will be given to us or that our faith does not become weak.
a. Cultivating a culture of confidence and trust.
First of all, faith is an anthropological phenomenon. Only in a second moment it becomes a religious phenomenon. First of all faith is a necessary condition to make it possible a real human relationships between human beings. Faith is a condition to make possible for people to live together in a just, harmonious and gratifying way.
Human being is anthropologically speaking a believer, and, many times, very much credulous. Most of the knowledge we have, we learned by believing other people, by trusting them. Many of our securities and certainties are based more on faith than on scientific knowledge or personal experience. Modern man and woman is much more credulous than he or she believes. Not only in the area of religion or para-religious phenomena, but also in scientific matters. If people eliminate from their mind all the archives they have learned trusting other people, their remaining ideas would be very few. Most of the ideas we assure to be true and certain is due not to an objective evidence, but to the fact that the mechanic, the doctor, de scientific, the philosopher, the theologian… assure us to be true and certain. Objective evidence is not abundant for most of people.
Faith is related not only with knowledge. It has another dimension even more specific and transcendental: the personal dimension. Faith is a way of relationship among persons. This relationship goes beyond mere knowledge; it embraces the totality of communication, communion among people. Here to say “I believe in you†means “I believe what you are telling meâ€. But it means especially “I trust youâ€, beyond any objective evidence. Without any objective evidence, this confidence gets highest degree of firmness and security. “I believe in youâ€, “I trust youâ€: these are expressions approaching us to the culture of confidence and trust.
The culture of confidence and trust has two main dimensions.
First of all, this culture has a personal dimension. “I believe in you†means “I trust youâ€. That means a close personal relationship of full confidence, a kind of personal encounter, a certain relationship of love, of communion, of personal communication. This personal encounter is possible because one person manifests his or her oneself, his or her personal identity… and the other person responds with an attitude of faith, of confidence, of trust. Both of them offer themselves generously, to make the encounter possible. Both, personal auto-revelation and personal confidence have their last motivation in love. That is why K. Barth said in one of his books: “only love is worthy of faithâ€.
Second, the culture of confidence has also an intellectual dimension. Just because my master is for me worthy of confidence, he becomes a fountain of knowledge, of illumination. His moral authority is for me guarantee of truth in all what he says. To trust him means also to trust his word, to trust what he says, without fear to be induced to error. And so faith is not contrary to knowledge; it is a real possibility of knowledge, but in other way, in other key, from other perspective. To let oneself be informed, to be taught, instructed and trained, to be illuminated, to be revealed… is a real exercise of faith and confidence. Saint Thomas calls this the virtue of “docibilitasâ€. “Faith makes man not blind, but helps him to see more and further…â€
Modern culture is enemy of the argument of authority and tradition. To say knowledge means to say “critical reasonâ€, “critical knowledgeâ€, “empirical knowledgeâ€â€¦ Tradition and authority are underestimated or, at least, are suspicious as fountains of knowledge. In order to reach the adulthood, modern culture demands from human being to be liberated from tradition, authority and faith.
Of course, objective evidence is the supreme degree of natural knowledge. But we should not forget an elemental fact of human history: our first learning is by faith or based on others authority; let us say parents, teachers, adult persons, professors… In most of the matters we do not know by ourselves; simply we believe what the specialists tell us, we trust them. Without faith, trust and confidence… there is no way of learning, of progress in knowledge.
Unfortunately a culture of mistrust is spreading today. Shaking hands is not more enough to close a contract. We need the signature of the parts, the lawyer, registrar… Every contract must be with signature and seal in order to be valuable. This culture of mistrust or disbelieve has spread towards persons and institutions.
It is necessary to retrieve the culture of trust and confidence in order to place us in the way towards truth, meaning and faith. Religious faith is essentially an experience of confidence and trust in other person, in the Other with capital letter. When a person lacks confidence she closes herself within herself and so such person becomes blocked to faith.
b. Cultivating the culture of heart.-
The questions of truth, meaning and faith… must be often translated from the stage of mind to the stage of heart, from the level of ideas to the level of vital experiences. This is not a mere invitation to emotivism or sentimentalism, but a claim for an integral consideration of human being.
Modern critical reason meant a relevant progress towards the adulthood of mankind. No doubt. Much dogmatism, both religious and secular, was destroyed. But critical reason itself became in some way an idol, became a kind of god, a dogma, and closed the door toward truth, meaning and faith. These three values inhabit not on only in our critical reason but also in the habits of heart. We can approach them through intuition, emotion, ethical sense, esthetic feeling… We should not place critical reason against the habits of heart; it is question, not of splitting but rather of putting together, of harmonizing different ways of approaching truth, meaning and faith.
Let us take theology as an example. In the Scholastic the rational exercise, the demonstration, the justification, the scientific argument… prevailed so much, that there was no place for experience of faith. Faith itself was mainly defined as the mere acceptance of certain truths previously defined by the magisterium.
No objection to this worthy intent of theology to present religious faith as something reasonable. The reasonable dimension and the existential dimension of faith should not be divorced. Neither a cold rationalism nor a sterile fideism is convenient to religious experience. We are bound to purify constantly our concept of God, of the incarnation, of resurrection, of salvation…
The believer is committed to understand and to formulate in some way what he believes. But in this exercise he should never forget that the central point of faith is the experience of confidence in God, of trusting him, and this is a habit of heart. A mere theoretic acceptance of the dogmas can leave human heart absolutely indifferent and can leave a person absolutely distant from God, not having any incidence at all in his or her life. Such a theoretic acceptance of the dogmas can be existentially empty of truth and meaning.
Many problems of faith, truth and meaning become more and more dramatic inasmuch they become trapped in the rationalistic area, far away from any existential and heartily dimension. In the three areas of truth, meaning and faith we often move between the cold rationalism and the irrationality of fideism. Fideism sticks to the truth, the meaning, the faith without reason, and even against reason. The rationalism considers that truth, meaning and faith are simply question of arguments. That can produce great intellectual success and satisfaction, but probably will leave a frozen soul and a personal history absolutely unchanged, and without any valuable challenge.
The Bible associates truth, meaning and faith with the nucleus of the person, that what the Semitic culture calls “heartâ€. In that center come together and from there flow the most transcendental experiences of human life: trust and disbelief, communion and loneliness, openness to other and isolation, courage and fear… In that center are rooted the attitudes which shape and form the whole life of a person, those which make it possible to trust other people, to offer confidently one´s life, to have the guarantee of been in the right way even when we lack rational securities…
c. Cultivating the contemplative dimension in life.
All we want to underline here is that the contemplative dimension facilitates the approach to truth, meaning and faith much more than a dispersed, banal, diverted and dissipated life. Pascal was a special master in this question. He considered the contemplative dimension of life a special condition to approach truth, meaning and faith, more than a life absolutely diverted and alien to the great questions about the mystery of this cosmos, and the meaning and destiny of human existence.
All along history many philosophers searching for wisdom and many mystics searching for God experience came to the same conclusion: “Noli foras ire, in interiore enim hábitat veritas†(Do not go outside, within you inhabit the truth). Saint Augustin, with his wonderful capacity of interiorization, was very much aware of that and made an excellent formulation: “Oh my Lord, I was looking for you outside, and you were insideâ€. And that is why he could find neither God nor the truth. In his Confession he describes this error in a magisterial metaphor: “Then, you, my Lord, took me from my back, where I had put myself so that I could not see me, and threw me against my eyesâ€. ¡Wonderful!
Contrary to live in the depth is dispersion, banality, di-version in the sense of Pacal. This diversion consists of being always distracted by any noise and external rumor, but mainly by any intellectual or affective interference, by mere banal curiosities… It consists of being indifferent to the main and transcendental questions of human life. Where we come from? Where we go? Why there is so much suffering and injustice? Why death and what after death? Is there any reason for hope after death?…
But there is not only contemplative dimension towards the interiority of the subject; there is contemplative dimension towards outside, the cosmos, things, events, history… This contemplative dimension allows us to contemplate objects and events, not as mere tools or facts, but as signs, as symbols, full of meaning and significance. And so we proceed from mere scientific knowledge to a true wisdom. Wisdom, sapientia, sapere…means to enjoy the flavor of reality and history.
When we reach this level of the truth and contemplation we are placing ourselves on the way of faith. This contemplative dimension does not move us away from the world and history. Neither we can nor should we escape from this world and history in order to be awarded with the gift of faith. But we have to be in the world with mystical and contemplative eyes. Contemplation is the way of looking at reality from the depth; it is the exercise which allows us to go down to the depth of reality and to the profundity of the historical events and to transcend the mere appearances, so that we can catch the whole meaning and plenitude of things and events. Only this contemplative vision can reveal the real possibilities of human history, the whole truth and meaning of human existence.
d. Openness to experience of Transcendence.
We should begin here making reference to the experience of being a mere creature. But it seems to me that this language belongs to a religious creed: “we believe in one God creator of heaven and earthâ€. This creed helps us to conceive ourselves as creatures, and invites us to recognize and accept the sovereignty of the Creator, to accept our finitude, our limitation and to adopt an attitude of recognition and veneration.
People alien to any religious experience, do not think of any creatural relationship; they only think in terms of finitude and limitation. Some of them live this finitude peacefully and with no pain at all. Many people live this finitude like a real drama of human being, bound to swing in tension between this finitude and the desire for the Infinite. This desire is an open door to the ultimate truth, meaning and faith.
The experience of finitude can open our path towards the experience of transcendence. But the experience of transcendence has two fundamental versions: the mystical one related to the experience of the Infinite, the Absolute, the absolute Transcendental Being; and the ethic one related to the experience of the Other, opening us to other subjects.
The mystical version of transcendence is not private or exclusive of Christian religion; it is shared with all religious traditions. Even more, this mystical experience has also not religious versions, secular versions. Every day more agnostic and not religious persons claim the right to have their own spirituality, their mystical experience, their secular experience of Transcendence. They have their time for prayer, meditation, contemplation…
This mystical experience of transcendence is based on the experience of finitude, on the consciousness of limitation, on the desire for the Absolute. Modern culture is a culture of autonomy without limits, without frontiers. The subject has become a God for him or herself. It reminds of the first temptation in the Bible: “God knows that as soon as you eat it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like gods knowing both good and evil†(Gn 3, 5). On the contrary the experience of finitude allows the subject to overcome any isolation in itself, any temptation of being like God, of closing any horizon for the future. The awareness of finitude opens new dimensions to human beings. We do not know all we are capable to. We need to become aware of our finitude in order to be open to the experience of Transcendence. This experience helps us to maintain open the door so that our human vocation can be expanded beyond our natural capabilities. This is the real target of our infinite desire of knowledge, of our desire of going into the core of the mystery of reality, of our desire of love in plenitude. ¡May the Absolute come to our encounter! This openness to the transcendence is an important approach to truth, meaning and faith.
Other version of the openness to Transcendence has an ethic character. It is related to our openness to other subjects, to our relationship with other persons. This version is specially needed today in the post-modern culture, when a radical individualism is widespread, producing much of isolation and loneliness in many people. We are invited to go outside of ourselves, not for dispersion or di-version, but to encounter the other, to experience communion and plenitude. Just the other makes it possible for us to know ourselves, to become responsible and moral subjects, to be really humans. The other, specially, the wounded person allows us to discover our condition as moral subjects, as responsible subjects. It reminds us of the second great question in the Bible: “Cain, ¿where is your brother Abel?†(Gn 4, 9). Here is another way of approaching truth, meaning and faith.
The mystical experience of Transcendence leads us into the depth of reality and eventually allows us to Felicisimo MartÃnez, O.P.encounter a kind of absolute Presence wrapping all our life. On their side the ethic experience of Transcendence leads us towards the face of our neighbor and eventually allows us to understand our life as an exercise of dialogue, of trust, of faith and encounter with other people. Both experiences place us in the way and can facilitate our approach to truth, meaning and faith.
Felicisimo Martinez, O.P
Macau, March 7, 2014
