one more assignment

My understanding of Religion as integral relationship in Christ.
For Fr Cyriac Kanichai CMI
By Desmond M Coutinho
As Nicholas Cusa suggested to his parishioners in Brixen where he was appointed Bishop in the quattrocento, my relationship with Christ is mediated by Word. The difference he argued between integral relationship in Christ and integral relationship in Buddha or Brahman is the difference in the integration into Philosophy mediated directly by Plato or Aristotle and indirect mediation via students of their Scuolae. But even if I were to develop a Time Machine and travel back half a millenium and shook the hand of Nicholas spoke with him and shared his table I could take away only my version of him. What he can pass on is the desire to philosophize and challenges to philosophize more authentically.
I took a sensual attraction to the explanation of Maya which avoids even panentheism and retains creaturely independence through its conincidentia oppositorum of Sad and Asad. It’s corrollory is Aquinas’ differentation between earthly inviduation and freely communing personhood of the New Earth. Thus the unreality of Maya depends on the invincible illusion of individuality that my distinctness is maintained only through remaining separate and self-contained. The reality of Maya is the grace knowledge that distinction is enhanced when I love the Lord my God with all my heart with all my mind and with all my strength, i.e. personhood in full communion occurs loving knowing and willing intercommunication with God who is All in All.

But I cannot affirm authentically any religion that does not give honour to St Therese’s chocolate eclair. Most commentators dismiss her deathbed request as something older hagiographies would have failed to remember. I stand accused of a basic error in the formation of a theologizing mind. Concessitur. The sinful joy in the senses takes pleasure in their enjoyment and a second pleasure in the knowledge that my enemy does not. A purer joy takes secondary pleasure in sharing a chocolate éclair with the one whom my soul loves. But as Cusa suggests Humanity is her Intellect and her Intellect is her fundamental organ of sensuality. Homo est suus intellectus, ubi contractio sensualis quodamodo in intellectuali natura suppositatur, intellectuali natura existente quoddam divinum separatum abstractum esse, sensuali vero remanente temporali et corruptibili secundum suam naturam. De docta ignorantia III 4 (ch 1 p 132).

My deviancy from Cusa in my own Christic integral religion is to plea for the Temporal and Corruptible nature of creation to be raised to eternal and incorruptible enjoyment. For just as the personhood offered by Christ enhances the distinctness of individuality by breaking down the barriers between life love and knowledge outwith destroying any of our distinctiveness. I now ask God on behalf of Creation for a similar transformation of the World so that the sensual pleasure instead of being defined as things that I can deprive others of, or share with others, becomes the pleasure of all by right, by their existence. What prevents our enjoyment of heaven now would be the inability of our Intellectus to process that kind of pleasure, it might instead perceive it as pain or faint or die.

Just as Christ hominizes the World. Being the God-Man he takes all into himself to unite all with the Father and with each other. The corrollory of this act is that God is hominized in Christ. To worship God is to worship Humanity. To worship Humanity is to worship God. We no longer live in a world where heresy is a charge determined by dates. The meaning of this Christology is not to denigrate God but to reintegrate a love honour and worship for God’s creation.

The idolatry of the Eucharist prefigures anidolatry of Creation. God’s having is God’s being. And this is his ultimate gift, his ultimate self-sacrifice. This is God’s love requiring our loving acceptance. If he takes it back it is not a true gift. If he gives up his solitary individuality, Indivisus in se autem divisum a quolibet alio, then he truly becomes a person capabale of integrating with Creation. Do not be afraid, My Lord God, for you will not lose your distinctness. We however Your Creation will know the ultimate non-bargaining folly of unconditional Love.

Traditional theology takes God’s creation, maintenance and disolution of the World as functional only. Once it has been achieved God reverts to Deus Complicans, inexpressable. Cusa felt Intellect is limited by the concrete, hence even the Conincidentia Oppositorum is the Wall of Paradise beyond which God resides in utter simplicity. My view is even if the true pleasures of the senses derive from anticipation romance imagination and altruistic love from empathy solidarity, and that deferral and hastening of pleasurable acts are like cookery or dancing, their fons et culmen lie in the Flesh. I will not live in a virtual world. Such a view of God by seeking to enhance and liberate has imprisoned him in a Hell of mere existence outwith true life. In such a heavenly paradise one can enjoy only the idea of a chocolate éclair, although there is no need to fax the ideas to your friends, because we all share each others joys hopes and dreams, there is now no chocolate éclair to share, only it’s unforgettable memory.

Sod that for a game of soldiers.

The other requirement for my integrated religion must force action where Christians can stand by listless. I saw a Lambadi girl hobbling in pain on one foot. The priest in charge of the Mission theologized that it would be unethical immoral and some other negative construct to provide medical aid for her. Religion integrated in Christ must provide visceral anger to the Caste system that poisons the minds and hearts of all whom it has contaminated. Of course it is irritating for any foreigner to come to a strange land and offer to sort our their problems if they have not already done so for their problems at home.

But a Religion that stands by supine and listless while those of lower castes or non-castes suffer is not even a genuine Faith. As fascinating as Vedic knowledge is, as a matter of integral religion I would sacrifice it for the intellectually impoverished theologies of Tribals and Dalits. This is where Religious integration calls me in my new home. I do not believe this is an arrogance of the West come in neo-colonial clothes to add finishing touches to the innate perfection of the Sanatana Dharma. This is Love furious that you mock one with giant's wings and cannot walk and then provide me with lectures on Xtian morality. (By you I mean no one in particular).

To answer the question my understanding lies in the sharing of chocolate eclairs, the wearing of blue powder on my forehead, and dressing in black as a colour of celebration until You come again in Glory, my sun-burnt Jew, my Lover, and my God.