Reading DEUS CARITAS EST (Part 1)

What is an encyclical? Technically it means a "circular letter". As a convert eager to get my hands on anything and everything I could for reading material, I often would notice authors quoting encyclicals or referring to them. The whole thing sounded very complicated, scholarly and far above my mental capabilities. Then one day I decided to throw caution to the wind and read one myself. I have to say I discovered that they are very readable. I'll admit I'm a bookworm to begin with. I love to read and I'm not afraid of a challenge. I know where the dictionary is if I can't hang with the big boys. Looking up a few words and taking a little extra time to sift through something doesn't make me feel any less of a woman. I wish, however, that many more Catholics were willing to read things they feel are too "academic" for them. People don't believe me when I tell them the first Catholic book I ever read was the Catechism. Again--highly readable.

To me the idea of the Pope writing a circular letter is pretty cool. It reminds me of all those forwarded messages we get from friends and family only THIS one you don't want to delete as junk mail. Think of it as the Pope's first email or blog to his fold. A Dad sending out some encouragement to his kids.

While I don't claim to be a theological expert giving you his treatise on this encyclical, I do come to you as a mom who feels pretty well versed about the topic the Pope chose for his first "circular letter"--love. More importantly I want to encourage other moms in particular to begin reading things like encyclicals and other writings pertaining to our faith even if they feel too "hard" for someone without formal theological training.

Maybe it's because I'm a librarian's daughter, but somewhere along the way I developed an interest in taking on the reading of challenging material. My mom, the librarian, taught me to finetune my research skills. I quickly learned from her that if you have a dictionary and a pencil you can come to a pretty decent understanding of just about anything you read. Oh it may time some considerable time, especially if you have no background in the subject matter BUT if you're willing to take the time you will find that you can not only tackle the challenging material but you can also have fun with it. I guess that's another one of the reasons why I homeschool. I always felt that I learned more when I took an active role in my education. I certainly gained my highschool diploma, my bachelor's degree and my graduate degree the traditional way but I feel I've learned the most from the subjects I've taught myself. There are books written on every subject. As long as you've got the time and the drive you can build a pretty good foundation in just about any subject matter you're interested in. As Catholics, can there ever be a more worthwhile subject matter to tackle? If that's not enough to convince you then consider the fact that spiritual reading is a daily discipline in the life of the religious. Even the catechism mentions that in order to help ourselves perform the act of faith we need to build our faith and one means of doing that is reading about our faith. You shouldn't wait until you feel empty inside to start building your faith. Do it now so when the dark times come (and they will) you have plenty of fuel for the long winter.

Here's an example of how I attack an encyclical. Pull it up if you want and read along to see that, while it may take you awhile, even the smallest flower can take on the task.....

http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/encyclicals/documents/hf_ben-xvi_enc_20051225_deus-caritas-est_en.html....

So here we go....let's dive in to DEUS CARITAS EST

1. We've got an introduction with the Pope quoting scripture from what we often call the Love book or 1 John. We are told that the first part of this letter will be to just think about the idea of love and what it means followed by the second part which will speak more about the "ecclesial exercise" . Ecclesial means relating to the Church while "exercise" in this instance would mean the act of employing or putting into play. So what we have here apparently is a letter about the meaning of love and then how we, as the Church, are to put this into action.

I've got my dictionary.com minimized in another window, do you? Don't be afraid to use it. Make it your new best friend.

Part 1: The Unity of Love in Creation and in Salvation History

2. Right away we are told that in talking about love we must first define it and in order to do that we cannot "prescind" or withdraw one's attention from what society defines love as meaning. Prescinds--now that's a word I'd never heard before. I looked it up and now I know what it means. See? That's how it works....you don't know the meaning of something you just look it up. It takes longer to read that way but you gain meaning and that is ,after all, the goal. Who wants to take the time to read something and only half understand it? That's no different than going to a foreign country where you only know portions of the language. So we're talking now about the semantics (meaning) of the word love. You can love your child and you can love a milkshake. Do they really mean the same thing? Probably not. You'd give up your right arm for your child but would you give the same up for a milkshake? Ok well if you're a chocoholic maybe....the point is love can mean many different things and it can be on different levels. So the question we are asked is whether we are talking about one thing or many things when we talk about love.

Now here we are barely into the introduction and I've been reading already for 15 minutes. I read for awhile and I look up definitions--then I paraphrase what I just read into my own words to make sure I understand it.

3/4. What is the difference between Eros and Agape? We are told that Eros means the kind of love between a man and a woman. You may even be reminded of the word erotic which is a derivative of the word eros. On the other hand if you're a mom like me with 4 kids and diapers up to your eyeballs then you may have forgotten the word erotic is actually a part of the English language! At any rate we are told that the Greek Old Testament (heretofore referred as OT) contains the word eros only twice while the New Testament (NT) never uses it at all. Why are we told that? I don't know but there must be a reason!!! Is it a bit of interesting trivia or is he going someplace with it. Chances are it's more than trivia.

We are told that New Testament writers use the word agape for love instead of eros. If you look up the definition of agape it is defined as love as revealed in Jesus, seen as spiritual and selfless and a model for humanity. It also says that it is not sexual in nature. Of course if you looked up the word in dictionary.com the first definition was "mouth wide open". If you got that definition then remember to use your pronunciation key. You got aGAPE as in "my one year old baby just ate the dog food".

We are also told about the word philia (the love of friendship). If you look THAT word up you're not going to get the definition we are going for. You get things like hemophilia and other philia's....In this case you may have to google the word a few times before you can come up with something that will help you. At any rate the encyclical gives us the definition already so we're good!

Here we begin to get into a discussion about how very interesting it is that the New Testament writers utterly avoided using the term eros. They instead began to redefine the word love by using agape and philia instead for its meaning.

We are told that..." According to Friedrich Nietzsche, Christianity had poisoned eros, which for its part, while not completely succumbing, gradually degenerated into vice"...

Now what does that sentence mean. For the most part I get what he's saying but I'm not totally sure. Let me put it into my own words by substituting some of the big words for something that makes more sense to me. Here's my version of that sentence

.....According to Nietzsche, Christianity had killed sexual love. Sexual love did not die but it did go downhill becoming something considered to be totally immoral......

Ok I know that didn't sound as eloquent as the way Papa Benedict put it but I think I get what he meant a little better now.

So we are told that Nietzsche believed that the Church's rules and regs about love and sex turned something God created into something twisted. At the same time if you'll notice we are given the first footnote which looks like this [1] and refers us to Cf. Jenseits von Gut und Böse, IV, 168. Now I know this is a reference of some kind but just what it is referring to I have no idea. Let me google it and see what it's all about....(pause for a minute)

Ok I'm back! I can't find much in English but it looks like this is a reference to Nietzsche's writings. Maybe someone will come along and read this blog (is anyone out there?) and fill us in on what this means in English. I have to say I'm pretty proud that right now I'm actually talking about Nietzsche. I've written his name so many times in the last few minutes I'm almost doing it without have to backspace and correct the mistypes! Up until now I'd heard of him but never knew much about him. I figured that was for the philosophers of the world. Yet here I am discussing him with all of you. Not bad for a stay at home mom whose conversations tend to be with those right around the age of 2.

The next paragraph or so goes on to discuss how the term eros in the pre-Christian era had already been twisted by those who considered it a power unto itself. There were fertility cults for example and prostitution in temples. Christianity then "declared war" on this interpretation of it. Believing sexual love was as powerful as God himself was wrong and that is why the New Testament writers needed to be careful in the words they chose to define love.

5. We are told now there is a relationship between love and God because love promises us eternity. In order to get to eternity though we must not merely give in to some impulse. ..."Purification and growth in maturity are called for; and these also pass through the path of renunciation" In my words this means "We need to get clean and grow up! In order to do this we've got to give it all over to God. Renounce it, get rid of all the dirt and the junk. We've got to let Him clean us out and make us new." Those are my words though. They're not eloquent but they make sense to me!

Next we are told that eros is a challenge. It is a challenge we must take on body and soul. We can't let our flesh win out because that's how we get "Girls gone wild!" We can't totally reject the flesh because that does not acknowledge that God gave us our bodies and that indeed we are human beings with desires. The Pope writes ..."The epicure Gassendi used to offer Descartes the humorous greeting: “O Soul!” And Descartes would reply: “O Flesh!”.".....I have to admit I don't have the faintest clue what the word epicure means. Take a 5 minute break while I go back to the dictionary....

Well now isn't this fun!!! An epicure is someone with refined taste especially in food and wine. In that case perhaps I should give myself a new title. Holly Rose, Epicure Extoardinaire.... We've also got a new footnote sending us to track down the writing of Descartes. I know enough to recall that Descartes is a philosopher and I am assuming that Gassendi was someone who had really good taste in food and wine. I guess the two must have discussions about the spirit vs. the flesh. Although I'm sure I could follow the rabbit trail to learn more about these two I don't feel it's crucial to my understanding of the Pope's encyclical to do that so I"m going to be happy to leave it a mystery for now...

I'm also going to leave the rest of this Encyclical a mystery for the time being. I think I've done a great job dissecting it thus far. I've learned some new words and I've definitely got a good idea of what I'm reading about. I've even learned a lot about the word "Love" that I didn't know before.

While I probably bored the daylights out of whoever may have stumbled across this blog accidentally my intention was merely to show how even a mommy in PJ's whose reading normally consists of Dr. Seuss and Goodnight Moon can indeed take on an Encyclical and use it as a faith builder.

After all, he's our Papa!! If he's got something to say then I'm going to read it!