"We will be able to face the full need for justice, all the needs of our 'I', without giving in and reducing them to the images that can come from the mass media, if, like he [Benedict XVI], we are supported by a fullness, if we are sustained by the presence of Christ" (22-23, italics mine).In the initial translation, the italicized phrase above is: suspended over a fullness. What grabs me about the rough translation is that it's precisely the inverse of Jonathan Edwards's image which he develops in his sermon, "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God." The incapacity of human beings to achieve justice is the same, the fragility of human plans is the same, and even the concern that man not be consumed by nothingness is similar. But for Jonathan Edwards, below man's feet are a yawning chasm of nothingness. And with Fr. Carrón and Fr. Giussani, Christ stands beyond the appearance of things. For Edwards, the world is finally insubstantial, but according to Giussani the substance of things is Christ.
Sunday, June 20, 2010
Suspended Over a Fullness
For a while, I've been fascinated by a certain phrase in translations from Fr. Julián Carrón: suspended over a fullness. In the 2010 Exercises of Communion and Liberation, this was the initial translation, but the hard copy provides a corrected translation. Below is the corrected translation:
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2 comments:
I find this a fascinating distinction. "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" has always been one of my favourite sermons, perhaps there should be a Catholic counter-tract "Finite beings upheld by the Infinite Being" albeit with a catchier title.
I really like the sermon also. It realistically outlines the consequences of sin, man's incapacity, and dependence on God. My main objection until now was the analogy of God being like a child dangling a spider over a fire. But now I see that it assumes God's absence from the world, and God saves us by tearing us out of the world.
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