Kwasniewski: Cor ad cor loquitur

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Dr. Peter Kwasniewski writes:

When John Henry Newman chose for his Cardinal’s motto Cor ad cor loquitur,“heart speaks to heart,” he was capturing in a phrase the most essential reality and medium of true religion: it is, before all else, a personal relationship in which everything is at stake. It is a total gift of oneself to the Lover of mankind. It is a question of friendship, not of doctrinal propositions, moral rules, liturgical customs, and so on.

The one who loves accepts everything else – all of the propositions, rules, customs – without complaint, indeed with an infectious joy, because they are the expressions, tokens, and reminders of the one we love. We cannot dismiss or disdain these things without offending the beloved.

The crisis of theology today, and, more broadly, the crisis in the Church, is due at root to the prevailing absence of the spirit of the “holy fools,” the “fools for Christ,” who are ready to throw everything else away if only they can cling to the Lord. The holy foolishness of being in love with our crucified Savior is the very opposite of the worldliness that has infected the Church. What we need today are holy fools, not crafty bureaucrats, media-savvy apologists, or unquestioning automatons. The divine Son lying as a babe in the trough of farm animals: this is the “foolish” way God introduces Himself when He comes among us, with a wisdom far greater than that of the philosophers of this age.

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ST AUGUSTINE

The truth is like a lion; you don’t have to defend it. Let it loose; it will defend itself.

From EVENSONG 24 JAN : The Hymn

Rest now, my heaven-born mind and will; Rest, all ye thoughts and deeds of ill; May faith its watch unwearied keep, And cool the dreaming warmth of sleep.

MARCUS AURELIUS

There is but one thing of real value - to cultivate truth and justice, and to live without anger in the midst of lying and unjust men.

MARK TWAIN

If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything.

ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER

All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.