One of the most difficult things for a believer to do is to help a doubter. …we must…according to Paul's words, mourn with those who mourn, question with those who question, and doubt with those who doubt, for these will overcome their distrust of splendor only in this muted light.
–Hans Urs von Balthasar
Where I live (and maybe why)
21 responses to “Where I live (and maybe why)”
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I’m not sure I understand this. I’d like some further reflection by someone to get its full meaning.
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Mourning with those who mourn is no problem. Doubting with those who doubt is one I just haven’t the patience (or the empathy) for.
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I have been reading “Introduction to Christianity” by J. Ratzinger and he actually talks about that very thing.
AMDG -
He means you can´t just blast them with the splendour of revelation first off.
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I think that might be what the parish priests round here are trying – only it doesn’t really work as a principle for liturgy.
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(laughing, Paul)
I’ve just returned from a 36-hour trip and don’t have time to say more now, but, basically: what Francesca said. -
Von Balthasar is talking about how to converse with nonbelievers. The liturgy is not a form of conversation with non believers.
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Francesca, where will you be starting your Camino walk this year?
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Hello Craig I started from Leon and now I am in a town called Hospital de Orbigo
There´s lot of symbols I can´t find on the Spanish keyboard such as the dash, the question mark and the colon
Having a good time -
I was thinking of this remark by von B this morning when I met a young Korean woman who told me she had been brought up Catholic but had many doubts about the faith. I told her she could discuss them with me. She looked horrified and disappeared
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That seems telling, but I’m not sure exactly what it tells, one obvious possibility being that she likes the doubts. But is she on this pilgrimage?
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You still have a long way to walk before reaching Santiago! When I was there I started at Sarria (~100 miles in front of you); I would sure like to walk the whole Camino one day.
Mac, I don’t know if the woman Francesca mentioned is on the pilgrimage, but she might be: when I was there I noticed that a lot of people walk it without any particular religious intention. -
Yes, the woman is on the pilgrimage. I am now ahead of her, due to the fact that I have to get to Santiago by 12 June if I am going to catch the plane I booked. The camino has become fashionable in Korea. What was surprising was not that she has doubts but that she is Catholic at all
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I guess that didn’t surprise me because one of the three Koreans I can remember ever meeting was Catholic. Actually I suppose the other two could have been, but that was 35+ years ago and I didn’t know them very well, so if I knew their religion I might well have forgotten.
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All the Koreans I’ve ever known were Catholics, and when I was teaching at a junior seminary in Malawi we got sent free rosary beads from a foundation in Korea.
Wikipedia tells me that “over 10%” of the population of South Korea is Catholic – which is better than Britain.
A few years ago a Portuguese historian of missions gave a lecture in which he said “There’s no question whether China, Japan and Korea will all become Catholic. The only question is when.” Which surprised me a great deal at the time, but the idea has grown on me. -
I didn’t know until fairly recently that Korea, like Japan, was the scene of a pretty successful mission, with a lot of conversions, which was savagely repressed. I only know it because Magnficat, the devotional magazine, has a saint’s bio at the end of every day’s entry, and a number have been about Korean martyrs.
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It surprises me how many people seem to want to wallow in doubt. And even how many see it as positively to be sought after, as though being “a seeker” was somehow superior to being “a finder”. But my impatience with this sort of thing is what makes it so hard for me to “doubt with those who doubt”. It feels like agreeing that we don’t know which way is up, just to get on the good side of somebody who has no business not knowing which way is up.
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I said I would say more about this. But one thing I don’t mean is that permanent uncertainty is somehow admirable or desirable, the sentiment in the New-Age-y aphorism: “To travel hopefully is better than to arrive.” With the word “hopefully” in there, it’s really a counsel of despair, because it suggests that the hope is never to be fulfilled. Unless maybe you’re just hoping not to be waylaid and robbed…
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I think I share pretty fully Paul’s sentiments here. I find it hard to doubt with the doubters. But I will say that Belloc taught me to appreciate the genuine skeptic. I think, however, that a lot of people (not all, by any means) like their skepticism or doubts, b/c it saves them the trouble of waging war on their sins, for example. Maybe I’m just harsh. Although I do like any person who is genuinely open to Truth.
My mother and I are almost polar opposites. I’m like a 99.9% believer and she is like a 99.9% unbeliever – Maclin has said that he’s a 60/40 man. But the thing I love about my Mum is that firstly, she taught me all the basic doctrines of the Church from a young age (it was her forte at achool) and secondly, her unbelief does not seem to contain any rancour. I have never heard her say anything bad about the Church. And to the contrary, she has a lot of affection for the Church and for the nuns who taught her. She is an altogether puzzling kind of person, spiritually, but marvellous in many ways. I love her heaps (in case that wasn’t obvious). -
I ought to state explicitly that I have a certain empathy for people wherever they are on that belief/unbelief scale, but not if they use it as an excuse to be spiritually lazy.
Incidentally, being a 99.9% believer doesn’t mean I’ve always been even an “okay” Catholic. I think it’s possible to be a natural believer and yet a terrible sinner. That was true in my case formerly.
I wonder too whether the very vocal and obnoxious kind of Atheist is really a natural believer who just doesn’t want to be one. I mean Ditchkins and Co do seem to bang on an awful lot about someone they say they don’t believe in! -
Yes, one sometimes gets the feeling that they’re trying to dig their nails into a very slippery surface. Hitchens especially seems that way, Dawkins less so.
Your mother sounds like a fine person.
Yes, that 60/40 thing is part of what I was talking about. I’ll have to re-read that old post before writing anything else on the subject, as I may well have said it already. I suppose I could sum it by saying that faith is a constant struggle for me, and I’m very drawn to those who seem to need it badly, if not want it, but can’t bring themselves to open up that far.
I quite agree about spiritual laziness. And “I think it’s possible to be a natural believer and yet a terrible sinner.”–certainly!
Light On Dark Water 
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