St. Bonaventure’s About
Meditating on God’s Most Blessed Trinity by using God’s Name ‘the Good’, St.
Clare’s The Testament, Don DeLillo’s excerpt, Waves and
Radiation, from his breakout 1985 work White Noise and
Homer’s The Iliad offer us a glimpse into the ultimate search for value and
meaning. In the first reading, St. Bonaventure attempts to clarify and
elucidate various aspects of God as a Trinity. The concept of the Trinity is a
rather complicated Christian teaching, and has been discussed for centuries. It
can often be a difficult concept to grasp for Christian and non-Christian
alike. The only real avenue to understand something existing as three yet one
is through analogy. For example, God exist as the lover, the loved and love
itself. God IS Love. God also LOVES, and IS LOVED, i.e., lover, loved and love.
This is essentially Bonaventure’s point concerning God as a Trinity (Note: this
article was written in response to various selected readings and assumes the
reader’s familiarity with said works).
However, human
experience may help clarify as well. In The Testament, St. Clare wrote about her time with St.
Francis of Assisi, noting that Francis pointed the way to Jesus. St. Francis modeled his
life and his actions after Jesus, and followers of Francis “strive always to
imitate by way of holy simplicity, humility, and poverty, as well as [maintain]
the nobility of our holy way of life, as we were taught by Christ and by our
most blessed Father Francis from the beginning of our conversion” (290).
Francis, then, modeled his life after Christ, who is Himself God the Son.
Through the process of
imitation (mimesis) in human experience, God gives us a way to understand how
He works and exists. God knew that mankind had (and has) a very difficult time
understanding how He can exist as three in one. Although God left hints of
Himself as three in one from the earliest account (Genesis1:26,
“Let us make man…”) as well as various other references,
God slowly revealed things about Himself over time, much like two lovers learn
about each other as they grow. So gradually, the Holy Spirit came to be
mentioned (Genesis 1:2), and then finally, God the Son took on
flesh and through experiencing what we do as Humans, God not only found Himself
more able to relate to us – but by humanizing Himself, we find ways to relate
to God. For Bonaventure and Clare, the search for meaning and value yielded
results in the person of Jesus Christ – it is through God that we find meaning
and value. Others, however, find meaning elsewhere.
When considering
DeLillo’s excerpt, the word “death” itself carries various positive and negative
connotations. The character of Jack Gladney possesses a certain fascination and
fear for death. The concept itself appears in various forms within the reading
– to “die,” to “kill,” to “murder,” among others. Gladney is a professor of
Hitler studies in which he studies the life and works of Adolph Hitler. The
mere mention of Hitler brings to mind the horrors of the Holocaust and brutal
death. Gladney is entirely preoccupied by the concept, but the idea becomes
much more solidified in later chapters when he seeks to alleviate his fear of
death by killing of another man, which does not work out. Gladney’s obsession
over death also leads him to wonder whether it will be his wife or himself who
will die first.
Perhaps the most
relevant question to this excerpt in regard to the search for meaning is: what is
the meaning of death? For some, death is just another path, one that we all
must take, as Gandalf notes in The Lord of the Rings. Yet “death”
is not the end – it is simply the entering of the soul into the next plane of
existence.When we consider
near-death experiences, supernatural encounters, paranormal activity and
various other religious and mystical teachings, we see that these experiences
and practices provide people with meaning in death. For these individuals, your
death is necessary for the transition of the soul that currently inhabits your
body. In this, the meaning of death is the ability to finally reach happiness
that we could never have had in this earthly form.
Homer’s The
Iliad has captured imagination since its composition. There are
several prominent themes in the Homeric works – most prominently, that of
hospitality (Greek xenia) as well as the concept of honor. Value
and meaning are here seen through a scene between two mortal enemies. Book 24
is the final book of The Iliad, and it is worth noting that Homer
ends it simply with a heart-to-heart between Priam, king of Troy and Achilles
the demi-god. Prior to this conversation, Achilles is well-known for being
selfish, prideful, quick to anger and extremely impulsive. Before this Achilles
does not think of others, yet thinking on the death of Patroclus in Book 24,
“he burst into tears” (313). Achilles returns the desecrated body of Hector to
Priam, and Achilles shows honor to his enemy. Even in the face of the horrors
of war, there is tenderness, there is compassion and there is honor. Now, in
Greco-Roman times there was a guest-host relationship in which you would serve
the guest. When a guest came to your house you would offer wine, good food, and
sometimes gifts to him or her, and they would show you kindness in return and
sometimes offer their own gifts.
Although the Greek concept of xenia (hospitality) is more heavily featured in the sequel, The Odyssey, where Odysseus and his men visit numerous locations, it is still seen in this work. In antiquity, there was a guest-host relationship that was to be expected when you travelled. In this relationship, if a guest came to your house you would generally offer wine, good food, and sometimes gifts to him or her, and they would show you kindness in return and sometimes offer their own gifts. The Norsemen also had a similar concept of hospitality as displayed in the Prose Edda and Poetic Edda. . In The Iliad, however, there is not much room for hospitality as the main narrative concerns the war being waged between the Greeks and the Trojans. During his lifetime, Hector prince of Troy “never failed to offer precious gifts... [especially] of wine and the aroma of burnt meat” (315). Also, when Priam comes to Achilles, he offers him food and rest before Priam eventually makes his way back to Troy. In an act of kindness, compassion, hospitality and honor, Achilles has Greece declare a halt to battle while the Trojan people mourn their prince and honor Hector.
The concepts of honor, compassion and hospitality are noticeably seen throughout the epic. For the ancient Greeks of Homer’s time, meaning and value in life was seen through these lenses. The afterlife was not something they longed for, because Hades (and the lower level, Tartarus) was a shadowy existence, a dim echo of their former lives. Very few were able to enter into the Elysium Fields (the Greek view of heaven), and Hades was the norm. As such, the Greeks sought value and meaning in this present state of life – and so, they believed in hospitality, in compassion but above all, in honoring yourself and others. You could not enter into a war without carrying honor with you, although you could leave out hospitality and kindness. Honor is the highest virtue in the Greek ethic, and we the virtues of honor, hospitality and kindness even in the Christian ethic. St. Paul declares that the three core theological virtues are faith, hope and love. People living in the 1st century at the time of Jesus were taught to be hospitable to guests as well as kind and compassionate.
It is at this point which we will reiterate the idea that as humans
we will always search for value and meaning in life. C.S. Lewis once said, “If I
have a desire for something which nothing in this world can satisfy, it
therefore means I was created for another world.” King Solomon, as recorded in
the book of Ecclesiastes, tried to solve this very dilemma. Solomon tried to
fulfill his search for meaning and value with women – he had one thousand wives, but it
did not make him happy. He tried vineyards, intellectual and academic pursuits,
entertainment – and none of this made him happy; none of his attempts for
meaning and value actually provided him with such. Solomon concluded that
everything “under the sun” does not give us meaning. Instead, he notes, God has
placed eternity in the human heart – hence the burning, insatiable desire that
nothing in this world can satisfy. Therefore, we can conclude with Solomon, as Christians in
our search for meaning and value we find that although nothing “under the sun”
truly satisfies, it is what lies beyond the sun: God the Creator who provides
us with meaning and value.
Works Cited
Bonaventure. (2013).
about meditating on god’s most blessed trinity by using god’s name ‘the good’.
In The Intellectual Journey (3rd ed., pp.
276-278). Acton, MA: XanEdu.
DeLillo, Don. (2013).
waves and radiation. In The Intellectual Journey (3rd ed.,
pp. 292-308). Acton, MA: XanEdu.
Homer. (2013). the
iliad. In The Intellectual Journey (3rd ed.,
pp. 313-332). Acton, MA: XanEdu.
St. Clare of Assisi.
(2013). the testament. In The Intellectual Journey (3rd ed.,
pp.288-291). Acton, MA: XanEdu.
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