Quote of the Day (Flannery O'Connor, on Storytellers and the ‘Redemptive Act’)

“There is something in us, as storytellers and as listeners to stories, that demands the redemptive act, that demands that what falls at least be offered the chance to be restored. The reader of today looks for this motion, and rightly so, but what he has forgotten is the cost of it. His sense of evil is diluted or lacking altogether, and so he has forgotten the price of restoration. When he reads a novel, he wants either his sense tormented or his spirits raised. He wants to be transported, instantly, either to mock damnation or a mock innocence.”—Southern novelist and short-story writer Flannery O'Connor (1925-1964), Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose, edited by Sally Fitzgerald (1969)

Quote of the Day (St. Bonaventure, on Christ as ‘The Way and the Door’)

“Christ is both the way and the door. Christ is the staircase and the vehicle, like the ‘throne of mercy over the Ark of the Covenant,’ and ‘the mystery hidden from the ages.’ A man should turn his full attention to this throne of mercy, and should gaze at him hanging on the cross, full of faith, hope, and charity, devoted, full of wonder and joy, marked by gratitude, and open to praise and jubilation. Then such a man will make with Christ a ‘pasch,’ that is, a passing-over. Through the branches of the cross he will pass over the Red Sea, leaving Egypt and entering the desert. There he will taste the hidden manna, and rest with Christ in the sepulcher, as if he were dead to things outside. He will experience, as much as is possible for one who is still living, what was promised to the thief who hung beside Christ: ‘Today you will be with me in paradise.’”
—St. Bonaventure (1225-1274), Journey of the Mind to God

(Painting of St. Bonaventure, 1650, by Francisco de Zurbaran.)

 

Quote of the Day (St. Paul to the Corinthians, on the ‘Foolish Things of the World’)

“Brothers and sisters, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him. It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption. Therefore, as it is written: ‘Let the one who boasts boast in the Lord.’”--1 Corinthians 1: 26-31 (New International Version)

(The image of St. Paul accompanying this post was painted by El Greco.)

Quote of the Day (Annie Dillard, on Redemption)

“Only redemption—restoration, tikkun—can return the sparks of light to their source in the primeval soul; only redemption can restore God’s exiled presence to his being in eternity. Only redemption can reunite an exiled soul with its root. The holy person, however, can hasten redemption and help mend heaven and earth.”—Annie Dillard, For the Time Being (2000)