Introductory notes for readers of this thesis - Theses - Flinders ...

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eality to me, but can never still my heart’s craving for the reality itself, for truelife and true possession 23 .Rahner’s discussion of the narrow and bitter experience of ‘daily routine’ begins with ‘Ishould like to bring the routine of my daily life before You, O Lord, to discuss the long24days and tedious hours that are filled with everything else but You’ . Rahner lamentsthat finite, mortal existence is, for the most part, routine. He describes the human soul, inlight of this existential reality, asa road crowded by a dense and endless column of bedraggled refugees, a bombpockedhighway on which countless trivialities, much empty talk and pointlessactivity, idle curiosity and ludicrous pretensions of importance all roll forward in25a never-ending stream .Rahner concludes that even his sacred activities are tainted by ‘the corrosive dust of thisspirit of routine’26 .Rahner connects the trivial meaningless of ‘everyday routine’ with law, regulation andduty 27 : life is lived within the narrow confines of the expectations and demands of churchand society. Though we yearn for freedom and open spaces, we are confined by what hasto be done and the plethora of petty regulations that stream endlessly from both civil andreligious leaders.Rahner describes human existence in its base, natural form as cramped and enclosed: ‘thepoor prison of my little existence’ 28 , ‘our little huts’ 29 , ‘the cramped and confining prisonof my own finiteness’ 30 , ‘the restrictions of our smallness’ 31 , ‘the tiny dwelling of myfiniteness’ 32 , ‘the poor little wall…[of] my tiny life’s-acre’ 33 . He describes life as23 Ibid, 29.24 Ibid, 45.25 Ibid.26 Ibid, 47-48.27 Ibid, 35-44.28 Ibid, 4.29 Ibid, 26.30 Ibid, 8.31 Ibid, 14.32 Ibid, 15.33 Ibid, 16.61
a long highway filled by a column of…[marchers]. Every moment someonebreaks out of the line and goes off silently…to be swiftly enwrapped in thedarkness of the night stretching out on both sides of the road 34 .Rahner’s lament: the human condition is a series of repetitive activities and events thatonly ever lead so far, and never into complete satisfaction and fulfillment, endingabruptly and arbitrarily in death.Encounters with silence: the ‘upward glance of the soul’ 35 enables humans tohonestly view, accept and positively frame the ‘narrowness of finite existence’Rahner strips away religious and secular ‘spin’ and examines human temporal existencein its stark reality. Human lives are characterised by limited energy and resources and amultitude of competing demands and values. Human days are structured around arepetitive cycle of the mundane ‘secular’ and ‘sacred’ habits and duties: the plethora ofcivic and religious regulations dominates social patterns and relationships. Human bodieseventually collapse in physical exhaustion, and disappear into the unfathomable darknessof eternal silence.Despite Rahner’s bleak outlook, the Encounters meditations ultimately resonate withhope rather than despair. What is the catalyst that enables him to face the stark reality ofhis own experience of temporal life and find ultimate hope and value in human existence?In the opening meditations, Rahner suggests that, if he could accept finite existence as the‘beginning and end of my whole life’, he couldbegin to recognize my finiteness and accept it as my sole destiny, because I hadpreviously so often stared out into the vast reaches of limitless space, to thosehazy horizons where Your Endless Life is just beginning 36 .Rahner’s philosophical concept of the ‘infinite horizon’ argues that human beings acceptthe finite nature of their existence only when they realise that, in and through every34 Ibid, 53.35 ‘Upward glance of the soul,’ a phrase I have borrowed from the text of another of Rahner’s books, andwhich I believe is implied in the Encounters text. See Happiness through prayer, (Dublin: Clonmore &Reynolds, 1958).36 Ibid, 6.62
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‘A Spirituality of silence’An i
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Chapter 4: The human experience of
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Summary of thesis:This thesis offer
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The particular angle from which thi
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somewhat superseded by more recent
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Rahner: I have nothing against that
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One brief but notable spiritual inf
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dialectic between these two, has le
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odies of knowledge, history and alt
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Page 21 and 22: High School Week, Rahner began his
Page 23 and 24: Earlier in this chapter, Rahner’s
Page 25 and 26: These anecdotes testify that Rahner
Page 27 and 28: As you see, at the top of the carto
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Page 33 and 34: Introduced by Cardinal König to a
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Page 37 and 38: We see from Rahner’s pastoral con
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Page 41 and 42: Over a period of days and weeks, th
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Page 45 and 46: Modras has pointed out that Ignatiu
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Page 51 and 52: Rahner’s often-quoted comment tha
Page 53 and 54: The master of the Exercises in no w
Page 55 and 56: Endean argues that Rahner is interp
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Page 65 and 66: which the spiritual pilgrim finds t
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Page 97 and 98: The most obvious criticism of Rahne
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the immanent life of God’ 120 . T
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Investigations much like the biblic
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abandonment to the eternal life in
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Theology of mystery as dynamic chal
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ecause the phonetic sound of the wo
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alone that enables individuals to f
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Chapter 5: Word and sacrament—exp
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The centrality of scripture, and it
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What makes the words of scripture d
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silence. He felt that the movement
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with humanity—his ‘economic’
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Having discerned their revelatory c
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fulfilment in following the absolut
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Rahner’s transcendental perspecti
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toward which it points. God’s wor
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sacramental: a sign in which God’
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In light of the implications of Rah
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who, like mystics, experience such
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The juxtaposition of two articles
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These two interpretations of Rahner
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Rahner advocates that all believers
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The sacrament of the wordIn reflect
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‘theological aesthetics’. With
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Many things in life act as signs th
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Rahner’s dual commitment to recei
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living human being, and each indivi
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The church is sacramental in the se
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spiritual rhythms that trace direct
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the missionary tasks of the Church;
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unhelpful assumptions that diminish
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expressions of mystagogical 142 ini
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Does this lead Rahner into compromi
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) ) an ongoing contemporary influen
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Hosek shifts the soteriological foc
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Is this vision of silent spirituali
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Being in silence as a way of creati
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word of life and hope within them.
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Level 1:PremoralStage 2:Instrumenta
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These new monastics see the local c
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eliefs that have been tried and tes
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of mature theological reflection co
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ecognised in his Christological ass
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inability or unwillingness of the e
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Kanyini—an Australian Aboriginal
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The film Kanyini demonstrates the c
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estless and always in a hurry to ge
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considered the sole and ultimate au
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We define spirituality as a conscio
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supportive conversation with expres
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A glance at table 4 75 (above), Hug
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In the worldview of contemporary Au
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It certainly seems somewhat disinge
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A good starting point for examining
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Christian contemplative-prayer trad
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Of course, a small number of the vi
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For better or for worse, and despit
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energy, intellect, prayer, love and
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Rahner, K. Karl Rahner - Prayers an
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Kelly, G.B. (ed.). Karl Rahner - th
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Van Vorst, B. ‘Kung and Rahner: d
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Harden, J.A. ‘Ignatian Spirituali
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Tyson, P. ‘Contemporary Australia
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