Season 1 Episode 7
This episode moves into the deeper realms of our spiritual journey to the Kingdom with St. Joan of Arc and St. Thérèse of Lisieux on the Trail of the Dogmatic Creed. This juncture along the Trail begs contemplation of three important questions. Our point of departure was the “divine glance.”
The first movement is that of grace through Divine Providence. In the language of Edith Stein, we refer to this as the “divine glance,” or an “unreflective certainty.” The Holy Spirit through the Immaculate Heart of Mary enlightens our consciousness in an instant. What we receive intuitively is “meaning”; however, the substance of this meaning is not self-evident. We recognize it only as “meaning.”
The divine glance, experienced as receiving “meaning without understanding,” can be likened to the Cloud of Unknowing; though, it is not clear to us that the two are different descriptions of the same phenomenon. Nevertheless, the Divine Glance presents three challenges we must address to advance a metaphysics of subjective devotion that is compatible with objective Aristotelian scholasticism in the Thomist tradition. These are: what does it mean that something is meaningful? What does the meaning we have received mean, i.e., what is it? What is the meaning of the meaning, i.e., why did we receive this meaning? The first is ontological in nature, the second is phenomenological, and the third is teleological.
To be continued in future podcasts!
Join me on my website, RoyaumeFrance.us where you will find a more comprehensive and systematic description of the phenomenological model.
I am also the co-host for the Heroic Hearts podcast devoted to a spiritual adventure with St. Joan of Arc and St. Thérèse of Lisieux. Come join us!
Finally, I have another podcast you might enjoy! Journey with us on the Trail of the Dogmatic Creed with St. Joan and St. Thérèse!
S1E7-Three questions begging contemplation in our devotion to St. Joan of Arc