Taylor and Transfiguration
I first posted on Charles Taylor’s massive A Secular Age some months back. A project I’m working on has led me to re-read Taylor’s book, especially his crucial final chapter, “Conversions,” where he indicates possible paths beyond the “unquiet frontiers of modernity.”
A key figure in the chapter is the French poet who re-converted to his boyhood Catholic faith, Charles Peguy. Taylor writes regarding Peguy:
the point here is to underline the carnal, the notion that the spiritual is always incarnate, and that in chains which cut across time. It reflects how, for Peguy, his Christian faith is animated by his profound rejection of modern excarnation. That is, as it were, the path by which he rejoins the faith of the Incarnation.
And the crucial concept here is communion, the “joining of hands,” in other words, the communion of saints to which we are all connected.
What emerges as central for Peguy (and for his interpreter, Taylor), what counters modernity’s fall into “excarnation,” is the communion of saints, a joining of hands across the centuries: a central feature of “the faith of the Incarnation.”
Where I would push Taylor further is to reflect on the roots of the pathology he terms “excarnation,” among whose symptoms is “the exaltation of disengaged reason,” and (I would add) the exaltation of the imperial disengaged self.
One name that does not appear in Taylor’s encyclopedic index is that of Ernest Becker. Becker’s extraordinary book, The Denial of Death, shows the roots of our perennial fall into excarnation in our denial and flight from death. And the perennial temptation, from the days of Cain and Abel, is to inflict violence on the one perceived to embody the threat of death, whether physical or spiritual, whether man or God: the crucified incarnate one.
Taylor sums up what he perceives to be the challenge facing believers in a secular age as the need “to recover a sense of what the Incarnation can mean.”
Allow me to suggest a further precision to that. The challenge facing us is to recover a sense of what the Transfiguration of Jesus can mean. Here past, present, and future meet, the communion of saints in which we are all connected is embodied. And, importantly, life is affirmed, not by death’s denial, but by its acceptance and transformation. As Luke’s account of the Transfiguration reminds us: bathed in transfigured light, they spoke of his exodus which was to take place in Jerusalem.
Blessed feast!
Thank you so much for this wonderful comment on Charles Taylor’s A Secular Age. I must confess that I put my copy aside after 50 or so pages. I’ve returned to it – at least, to that wonderful chapter – Conversions – because of your message. That chapter makes the entire work worthwhile even if I don’t return to the rest of it!
I’m impressed with Joseph Kalwinski for getting through the first 50 pages, so I am in awe of Fr. Imbelli.
Mr. Nickol,
you are overly kind. It’s like the Atlantic off Long Island in June: first you’re stunned, but after you plunge in, it’s exhilarating. Only be careful of the rip tides.
“What emerges as central for Peguy (and for his interpreter, Taylor), what counters modernity’s fall into “excarnation,” is the communion of saints, a joining of hands across the centuries”
Why isn’t this a Christian take on the Jewish notion of the People of God, or simply of the Jewish people? Jews have a very strong sense of communion with those who have come before them in faith; in fact, their relation to those who have come before is one of greatest motivations of faith.
The Jewish God is already very immanent, so no fear of excarnation here, but also transcendent. Sometimes I wonder if the incarnation risks a domestication of transcendence.
Fr. Imbelli, The book to which you refer sounds very interesting. However, our priest’s take on the feast was very “down to Earth” as it described a man being called to death, and each time he wanted to take a handful of Earth with him. When he arrived at the gates, he was turned away because he would not let go of the earth. Finally when he was too feeble to clutch the soil, he was admitted to heaven and, of course, it exceeded his expectations! A very poignant story of letting go….
Fr. Imbelli, thanks for bringing up Taylor again. If i am not mistaken, Taylor also calls for some theological recognition of the “holiness of everyday life.” Everyday life is obviously part of incarnation. Regrettably, at least as far as I know, theology has little to say about work, especially the kiind of work that so many people do today. For brevity, let me call it urbanized work. It includes things like automobile repair, janitorial work, department store clerks etc. It also includes things like casino workers, beauticians, etc. Really to talk about this urban work it won’t be enough to talk only about the worker’s motives. Through our jobs and the work we do we contribute to society’s functioning, well or badly.
If work is not primarily a punishment for sin (cf. Genesis), but is instead a contribution to fulfilling God’s creative purposes, does all legal work do so? Are any legal jobs (e.g., bookies) not genuine contributions?
Today there’s lots of talk about lay ecclesial ministers and about the importance of the jobs they do. See, e.g., the article by Bishop Cupich in a recent issue of “America.” He says that their ministerial work builds up the Church “from within.” He says nothing about the restt of us laymen. Does that mean that our work builds up the Church only “from without” (wherever this “without”might be)?
Until there is some serious theological reflection on the work that is characteristic of today’s “Everyday life’ won’t the full meaning of incarnation be left in the dark?
I’m happy that you are pushing for a deeper appreciation of the meaning of the Incarnation.
If a picture is worth a thousand words, here are 4,000 from me.
Two Eastern ikons of the Transfiguration here:
http://www.stjosephmelkitecatholicchurch.org/album5/index.album/biaugust-6-the-transfiguration?i=4&s=1
http://holytransfigurationorthodoxchurch.com/ikon/UserImages/trans.jpg.php
Two Western representations, by Raphael and a very intriguing one by David Gerard, respectively:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Transfiguration_Raphael.jpg
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Gerard_David.Transfiguration_of_Christ02.jpg
Amazing how you can see the same story in all four, but the imagery and in each gives you quite a different feel for what’s going on. Print them out and set them up side by side. I guarantee hours of contemplation.
One pedestrial observation (I’m no art historian) to get you started: Notice how Raphael’s white robes are floating up, as is Christ, as if to prefigure the Ascension. And how Christ’s robes and the oval behind him in St. Joseph’s Church ikon seems to radiate outward, as if to embrace heaven and earth.
Jean,
Thank you for taking the time to make the icons/images available.
I think the Eastern church has a stronger sense of the theological importance of images, but the West is perhaps beginning to follow suit, or to recover its lost heritage.
I also think Pope Benedict has shown the way on this in including images in the Compendium of the Catechism. I hope to follow suit in the sabbatical project I’m working on.
Bernard,
I agree with your points regarding the need for a spirituality of the everyday. I think in the 60s some found in the writings of Teilhard de Chardin pointers that were helpful. I would be interested in hearing what resources others find suggestive. I have always been taken by the injunction in Colossians: “Whatever you do, in word or work, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.”
Bernard, in our old Episcopal parish, the priest used to ask us to bring implements we used in our work before the altar for a blessing on the Sunday before Labor Day. I always brought up my class list and red pen, my husband brought his carpenter’s tool belt, a retired lady brought her knitting needles, a lawyer brought a volume from the Michigan compiled legal codes, etc. etc.
The sermon was always a variation on the same theme–challenging us to find God and to be God to others in the daily grind. Seeing all those things up there before us struck me as an illustration of how dependent we are on each other’s work.
Viz images, Magnificat always has a nice art article at the end of every issue that fits one of the monthly observances. (Also sorry for the typo above; “pedestrial” should be “pedestrian.” I don’t think “pedestrial” is a word, though maybe it should be, i.e., n. one who walks upon the earth with mortal feet, at least temporarily …)
“I would be interested in hearing what resources others find suggestive. ”
Although I’m not a full-fledged member of her cultus, I know that many people find the spirituality of St. Therese, the “little way”, as an organizing principle for approaching everyday work.
As an adult, I’ve found myself gravitating to good old workaday St. Joseph, upright and honorable, whose ordinary life was punctuated with extraordinary situations and managed to meet them with courage and grace.
Jean,
I’ll buy “pedestrial,” especially with your exegesis.
Jim,
“Good old workaday St. Joseph.” If memory serves Paul Baumann wrote a fine essay on the “upright and honorable” man some years back. Perhaps someone has the reference?