Josef Seifert

Dear Rhett:
this is a very beautiful way to interpret my response.
Josef

Dear Rhett,

Thank you very much for your excellent question.
I do indeed think that this word of St. Paul “The good I will that I do not, the evil I will not, that I do.” (Rom. 7:19) is most closely related to the philosophy of freedom and to human experience.
Perhaps there are even a number of different truths about freedom included in this text:
1.  In your example of the husband it may be the case that he does not sufficiently deeply will not to be sarcastic and rude and does not recognize these relatively little sins of sarcastic or rude comments and therefore ought to meditate more on the love of kindness and respectfulness and reverence and on the evil of acting irreverently and rudely. For ethical knowledge is the beginning of acting morally well and on the other hand, the deeper our will to be good is, the less likely we will be to sin and to “do what we do not want to do” and the more likely we will be to do the good we will (in our depth).
2.  It could also be that the husband does very deeply recognize these values and will not to commit wrong acts, but that his will is not superactual enough and does not yet have firm and superactual roots and reign in his soul.  Then renewing this good will and attitude daily in some meditation and firm inner resolutions will help him to reach that level.
3.  Perhaps the indirect role of his free will, acting often well, will lead him gradually to reduce and to overcome these faults. In other words, by repenting each time he fails in this way and by speaking often reverently and lovingly, gradually he might overcome this fault more and more because each single good act has also some indirect effect on our future actions and affective movements and responses in our soul.
4.  Perhaps a more consistent use of his cooperative freedom (sanctioning each good movement of his heart and mind and disavowing his sarcasm and irreverence each time they happen, repenting them), while not immediately uprooting them, will gradually contribute to overcoming them more or less completely.
5.  Perhaps he has also to look for the roots of this sarcasm and rudeness (perhaps he has to work on having more self-less love, overcome some secret lack of trust in the love of his wife and in the love of God, reach a greater purity of heart, a greater readiness to forgive others who have wounded him, and will only then be able to overcome sarcasm and rudeness).
6.  Another truth of Saint Paul’s words is more theological than philosophical: that we cannot be perfect without a special divine grace because our nature is too wounded by original and personal sin to avoid each sin even though this is what we should do and will in our depth of heart.  Therefore we should always also pray to God that he helps us with his grace since our own free acts are too weak and our nature too fragile and as Catholics, use the gift of the sacrament of confession and penance).
Kind regards

Josef Seifert

Dear Bill,
thanks so much for these comments. I suppose putting a link to other threads would have to be done by the Jules or Katie van Schai..
Josef S

hank you. I am happy we agree on so many points and texts. HOPE TO MEET YOU SOON IN PERSON
Josef

THE GREATNESS OF TOB AND CHRISTOPHER WEST’S MISSION IN ITS SEVICE
Dear Lauretta,
Thank you for your kind reply. I agree with you fully on the very singular value of JPII’s theology of the body and I agree with you as well that it would be a pity if C. West were impeded to spread this wonderful contribution so necessary for our time. I believe that none of us intends this (certainly not I) and in my last reply to Frangelo I refer to a very splendid passage from West’s book and sent Father the link.
Far from wishing to keep C.West from exercising his mission I only hope that his apostolate will gain from a number of justified criticisms (I find most of those on the Personalist page not so harsh as you) and that he will only improve his great mission by taking into his speeches and writings any grain of truth he finds in these criticisms, without losing his enthusiasm for “translating” the often difficult thoughts of JPII for much wider audiences.
I find it wonderful that you got so much from it and so many other persons as well and I cooperate here in Chile with two groups of delightful and very young people who are enthusiastic disciples of the TOB, retranslated Love and Responsibility into Spanish and spread its message and that of TOB.
Kind regards and much success with your mission in getting this message across to many persons and with living it,

Josef

NAKEDNESS OR CLOTHES IN HEAVEN

Dear Fr Angelo,

thank you for your words. I had actually a passage of John Paul II in mind from a beautiful section of Christopher Wests book that you can find on this link:
http://books.google.cl/books?id=svA0m... Paul II AND Naked AND heaven AND clothed&f=falsehttp://books.google.cl/books?id=svA0moWkh30C&pg=PA249&lpg=PA249&dq=John+Paul+II+AND+Naked+AND+heaven+AND+clothed&source=bl&ots=eXqsvwganN&sig=ExD8ahvUoD4Jw0w7f9XSKqxTi4M&hl=es&ei=XvSVSv6PJtHglAfC-s2TDA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4#v=onepage&q=John Paul II AND Naked AND heaven AND clothed&f=false

In this book Christopher West, George Weigel - 2003 - Religion - 530 páginas C West quotes Saint Ignatius of Antiochia and Saint Paul and speaks of the Saints in heaven being “clothed in the light of God” which seems to be a beautiful thought, and Pope John Paul seems to say that their bodies will be seen purely in the light of God “as the glory of the human body before God”.

“They shall have no need of woven raiment,” says Ignatius of Antioch, “for they shall be clothed in eternal light.“14 John Paul II describes purity as “the glory of the human body before God….

On this topic Pope John Paul II has also written a beautiful line in the speech he gave when the renovation of the Sixtine Chapel was completed:

It seems that Michelangelo, in his own way, allowed himself to be guided by the evocative words of the Book of Genesis which, as regards the creation of the human being, male and female, reveals: “The man and his wife were both naked, yet they felt no shame” (Gn 2:25). The Sistine Chapel is precisely - if one may say so - the sanctuary of the theology of the human body. In witnessing to the beauty of man created by God as male and female, it also expresses in a certain way, the hope of a world transfigured, the world inaugurated by the Risen Christ, and even before by Christ on Mount Tabor. We know that the Transfiguration is one of the main sources of Eastern devotion; it is an eloquent book for mystics, just as for St Francis Christ crucified contemplated on the mountain of La Verna was an open book.
…
If we are dazzled as we contemplate the Last Judgement by its splendour and its terror, admiring on the one hand the glorified bodies and on the other those condemned to eternal damnation, we understand too that the whole composition is deeply penetrated by a unique light and by a single artistic logic: the light and the logic of faith that the Church proclaims, confessing: “We believe in one God… maker of heaven and earth, of all things seen and unseen”. On the basis of this logic in the context of the light that comes from God, the human body also keeps its splendour and its dignity. If it is removed from this dimension, it becomes in some way an object, which depreciates very easily, since only before the eyes of God can the human body remain naked and unclothed, and keep its splendour and its beauty intact.

I refer particularly to the last sentences of this text that I find very profound.

Josef

EASTER CANDLE, BAPTISMAL FONT AND NAKEDNESS

Dear Father Geiger, I find your last replies on the Easter candle and the baptismal font, as well on the limbo, very deep theologically, very charitable and very true.

Dear Lauretta, I do not want to add much to this reply of Father to your remarks but simply share them and you may consider them my own reply as well. Only some thoughts on a topic Father only briefly touches.

As to the nakedness and original innocence, we obviously no longer live in paradise and therefore modesty in clothing is part of the virtue of chastity. Your implication that it would be improper to represent Mary and Jesus with clothes on because they alone, more than Adam and Eve, were “naked without shame!” in virtue of their perfect innocence seems incorrect to me:
Never in the Gospel do we hear that Christ, Mary, the Apostles or the Prophets of old walked around naked. Christ even when he appears in his transfigured heavenly beauty on the mount Tabor, appears “in clothes whiter than snow,” and not naked. His nakedness in the passion and on the cross was part of the deep humiliation and passion he took upon himself for us.
Besides, while Christ was more than fully embodying the “original innocence” and redeemed beauty of the body, our mere beginning to understand the magnificent message of TOB, a part of which refers to a wonderful interpretation of sexuality and the spousal meaning of the body, does not put us back into the world of original innocence yet (even though the nakedness of the spouses in a deep and redeemed mutual spousal love may to some extent embody this seeing the body through the eyes of love that drives shame away, and restore original innocence - at least to the extent that body and soul again become a pure and wonderful gift the spouses make to each other.).
Still another point on shame: while shame and modesty have much to do with sin and our fallen nature, I do not think that feelings of shame in disclosing our nakedness are ONLY related to the danger that our bodies might be looked at with lustfulness and irreverence. I think there is also something in the intimacy of the human body and even more of the conjugal act that makes the public exposure of the marital act before the eyes of third persons, even a Saint, wrong and shameless.
As far as the idea that all Saints in heaven will be naked as our first parents were in paradise, I would say: If that be so and if we would be graced in heaven with the gift of seeing the blessed virgin and Jesus and all other Saints in the whole beauty of their bodies disclosed without any clothes, this would be completely different from a kind of “religious nudism” and “nudist religious art” that would rest on a misunderstanding of TOB. Presenting Mary and Jesus naked in our Churches on earth would not be an adequate interpretation of such a “heavenly nakedness” in paradise.
If there is such a heavenly “universal nakedness,” this will be radically different - not only because of the beauty and supernatural “spiritualization” of the risen bodies but also because we will see everything in the eyes of God and His infinite and perfect love.

Further, there is no evidence of a “heavenly nakedness” in Holy Scripture, where the uncountable multitudes of Saints in heaven are described by the Prophets and Apocalypse as wearing white robes or beautifully colored robes and jewels, Mary is describes as being clothed with the sun, etc.
Even the angels in paradise are described by the Bible as “wearing clothes.” Look at this astonishingly beautiful description of the original beauty of Lucifer in Paradise from Ezechiel and the moving exhortation of God to us that we ought to lament the fall of such a great angel (which shows how God loves forever the beautiful angel Lucifer as he created and intended him)
“Son of man, take up a lamentation for the king of Tyre, and say to him, ‘Thus says the Lord GOD-.  “You were the seal of perfection, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty.  You were in Eden, the garden of God; every precious stone was your covering: The sardius, topaz, and diamond, beryl, onyx, and jasper, sapphire, turquoise, and emerald with gold.  The workmanship of your timbrets and pipes was prepared for you on the day you were created.  You were the anointed cherub who covers; I established you; you were on the holy mountain of God; you walked back and forth in the midst of fiery stones.  You were perfect in your ways from the day you were created, till iniquity was found in you.  By the abundance of your trading you became filled with violence within, and you sinned; therefore I cast you as a profane thing out of the mountain of God; and I destroyed you, 0 covering cherub, from the midst of the fiery stones Your heart was lifted up because of your beauty; you corrupted your wisdom for the sake of your splendor; I cast you to the ground, I laid you before kings, that they might gaze at you….. (Ezekiel 28:12-17)
Compare also Isaiah 14.
I found a beautiful passage on this mystery of the white clothes and being clothed by the sun in Pope John Paul II. At any rate, neither will the clothes if they continue in heaven hide from us the whole beauty of the risen bodies nor will the eventual appearing of the risen bodies without clothes in any ways be lacking in modesty. Thus I propose we venerate this heavenly Jerusalem as a great mystery, letting ourselves be surprised by the joys of heaven which no eye has seen, no ear heard and which has not entered yet into any human heart. In any case, heaven will be perfectly pure and not prudish but perfectly and exuberantly beautiful.

ON THE DIFFERENT MEANINGS AND KINDS OF SHAME
Dear Father Geiger,
I find this a very fine and balanced statement and agree with every point you say and can only hope that C West with his good intentions will come to see this. By the way both Max Scheler and Wojtyla have written very deep things about the meaning of sexual shame and intimacy and have distinguished it sharply from prudishness that we discussed amply before.
Legitimate sexual shame and least of all reverence and purity should be confused with prudery.
Wheras Wojtyìa stresses especially the aspect of shame as protecting the body from irreverent and impure, depersonalizing looks and attitudes, I find a very helpful point in this context the distinction Hildebrand makes in his In Defense of Purity, 7th ed. Purity. The Mystery of Christian Sexuality (Steubenville, Ohio: The Franciscan University Press, 1989) and elsewhere between shame of something ugly or evil and the shame of something beautiful but so intimate that it belongs to the personal mystery of persons. This is the authentic sense of positive sexual shame which does hide from others those mysteries of love and of the body which only spousal love ought to see or unveil because of its beauty and depth and intimacy. Also in the religious life there are feelings, thoughts or experiences of Saints so sublime that they did not wish to expose them to everybody.
I believe that it is this kind of shame in its highest form which is at stake in the context of not only genuine sexual but religious shame in front of the intimacy of Christ’s or Mary’s bodies and the deeper reason for the clothing on crucifixes or on Mary.
This shame is noble and just as opposite to prudishness (which regards the beauty of the body ugly) as it is to the shame we will and ought to feel when we are seen to perform impure acts or watch porno movies or to act in bad immoral and dishonest ways.
And we should feel also shame over our and even over other person’s shamelessness. Also this shame of ugly and impure acts is not a sign of prudery but of purity and of recognizing the intimate and mysterious aspects of sexuality.
And also for this reason I find any comparisons between Hefner and TOB so painful because the absence of the good shame of the beauty and mystery of sex as well as of the shame that is adequate to our own or the impurity depicted in Playboy is nothing good simply because opposed to prudery nor is it one step towards the TOB but it is its antithesis. And this demeaning of the body and shamelessness ought to be an object of a good shame that is a value response to this impurity and desecration of sex.
Still different is the nakedness that neither is the gift of spousal love nor meant to evoke impurity and glorify it as Playboy, but the nakedness of humiliating a person by tearing his clothes off and exposing him or her to abuse or derision.
The nakedness of Christ in the passion is precisely such a humiliation because it violated any authentic sexual shame and reverence. And for this very reason it is part of his passion caused by acts of cruel and impure men!
While we should preserve some of the truth of this humiliation in the religious imagery, and do not have to show, as some crucifixion scenes in the byzantine tradition, Christ fully clothed in a king’s ornate, we ought never to perpetrate in our art or thought the same kind of shamelessness and humiliation which the torturers of Christ have committed against our Lord and we should experience this unsuited nakedness of Christ not as something we should all do or like but as a cause of his suffering.
This comes out well in the movie THE PASSION and much more so in Clemens Brentano’s wonderfully worded script of Katharina Emmerich’s visions of Christ’s passion where this nakedness of Jesus and his exposure to the disrespectful and impure looks of the soldiers and their derision and impurity is described as one of the most shuddering aspects of his passion.

Dear Lauretta,

I am glad to see how active you are in this discussion and fully agree with you that the conjugal act and spousal love are present in the Song of Songs and countless other Biblical passages including Christ’s parable of the heavenly wedding feast and also in the Church Father’s calling the Cross Christ’s Wedding bed with the Church. I believe that I stated this clearly enough in my text and that you could not draw the conclusion that we disagreed on this issue.
I equally agree with Pope John Paul II and Hildebrand that the Song of Songs is not a purely analogous spiritual symbolic work and is not only in the Bible for the deep spiritual analogies that can be drawn from it such as Saint John of the Cross does in his magnificent poems and spiritual explanations he gives to his similar spiritual love songs, but that these biblical texts are also a revelation of the god-given magnificent beauty and depth of spousal love including the sexual meaning of the body in the conjugal act that is called to express, fulfill and consummate this love.
I have written myself on this and find the TOB one of the greatest achievements in marriage theology and Hildebrand’s philosophy of spousal love and sexuality one of the immortal contributions to this topic in the last century.
But this spousal meaning of the body and its presentation in the Bible is precisely wholly different from a “phallic symbol”; it is a presentation of spousal LOVE which gives sexuality its true meaning and makes it a profound image of the heavenly wedding feast. Therefore it is the opposite to any isolation of the phallus from the person or a kind of glorification of sex per se, which, if divorced from love, loses all its beauty and becomes part of sins of lustfulness that are, as all kinds of pornography and sexual crimes, one of the most saddening sins through which God is offended and the deepest opposite to the true spousal meaning of the body.  I recommend you to read on the three entirely different “faces” of sexuality Dietrich von Hildebrand: In Defense of Purity, 7th ed.: Purity. The Mystery of Christian Sexuality (Steubenville, Ohio: The Franciscan University Press, 1989).
Our deep agreement on the beauty of spousal love and sexuality in its context does not alter, however, the four reasons (which I do not want to repeat here because you do not discuss them) – besides Fr Angelo’s (fifth) argument from the tradition – why I find it inappropriate to call the Easter Candle a phallic symbol.
As to the Sixtine chapel, I find it one of the greatest masterworks and regard it, like Pope John Paul II, as a sort of theology of the body in painting.
As far as images of the cross are concerned, on which Christ is completely naked, one would have to see them to judge their character better and certainly Michelangelo’s sculpture of the completely naked body is very impressive. By the way, the theme of the naked and humiliated suffering body of Christ is certainly neither sex let alone a “phallic symbol” but the mystery wonderfully described in Katharina Emmerich’s Passion of Christ and visions of the passion of Christ’s allowing the most shameful and shameless humiliation of his body as part of his deepest passion. Also the Maria lactans is no vagina symbol and I do not plan to remove the statues or Sixtine Chapel if I become Pope.
For the rest, however, I believe that the mystery of Christ’s body is such that the tradition of medieval and later paintings to cover part of his body are more discrete and appropriate as an expression of the unique reverence we owe to Christ’s body as God-Man and that in this and Mary’s and also other Saints’ case the presentation of their completely naked bodies would in some way at least greatly risk a loss of the unique awe and special feelings of modesty and shame we owe to the mystery of their most holy bodies. Moreover, it is in general a law of art that the presentation of the naked human body should in some ways present a “generalized” human body and that therefore portraits which depict the individual as such, for example of the naked Napoleon, are embarrassing and shameless rather than beautiful, as Dietrich von Hildebrand explains very well in his Aesthetics and already Adolf von Hildebrand, his father and famous sculptor, explained in his Problem of Form.
As to the Maria lactans paintings I do not find them disturbing except if their artistic quality or spirit radiates instead of the marveling at the mystery of “the blessed breasts that fed our Lord” and in general the beauty of the female breasts and the beauty of their feeding a baby a spirit of shamelessness or grossness that is so widespread today.