Book Review: IN THE FIRE OF THE BURNING BUSH (Rupnik)

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Title:

In the Fire of the Burning Bush by Marko Ican Rupnik


Back Cover Bio:

"Marko Ivan Rupnik is a Jesuit priest who works as a director of the Centro Aletti in Rome and teaches at the Pontifical Oriental Institute, the Pontifical Gregorian Institute, and Saint Anselm Liturgical Institute. Both as a visual artist and as a theologian, he is also a consultant for the Pontifical Council for Culture."

Something Important to Know About the Book:

Rupnik uses a lot of high-falutin' words and terms, but the reader doesn't have to be a rocket scientist to understand the overall sense--when I didn't "get" something, I just kept on reading, and eventually, it became clear in context (I am an inveterate skimmer, far too impatient to work with a dictionary).

Structure:

The book consists of two previously published essays, "The Spiritual Life" and "Spiritual Fatherhood."

First Section:

"The Spiritual Life"

The purpose of this section is to present a fully Trinitarian and eschatological way of life "with a synthesis that can consitute a foundation from which to reflect upon the theological and anthropological categories." Drawing nourishingly from patristic and Orthodox sources such as St. Theophan the Recluse, St. John Climacus, Berdiaev, Solo'vev, Lossky, Staniloae, and others, as well as Catholic sources, Rupnik seeks "to remove encrustations, and to shed light on the real essence of Christian spirituality." Thus, he spends a lot of time "unpacking" with what true spirituality is "not"--it is not scientistic, monistic, pantheistic, dualistic, gnostic, moralistic, voluntaristic, legalistic, etc. He speaks of "pendulum reactions" that occur as a result of unbalanced spiritualities: "...[W]here an ascetic, rigorous, legalistic Catholicism was most present, after a brief period of explosion and liberation from the yoke, there follows decades of rebellion against any authhority and a break with every link to the past. The same happened in Protestant countries. Once the stronghold of the puritanical and moralistic conception of faith, they are now subject to the most ruthless liberalism and ethical subjectivism." Though he believes that contemporary psychology is not without value, he characterizes its most extreme and self-limiting forms as being nothing more than "a formal retouching of gnosticism."

Some Significant Passages:

"The identification of the spiritual with the mind, or with the non-material and ethereal, is in every case a trap. If the spiritual were the intellectual dimension--that is, the sphere of thought and ideas--to become more spiritual would then mean having ever more 'elevated' thoughts until one becomes a perfect idealist. In the same way, if the spiritual were... will-driven..., one would slip into voluntarism. If the spiritual were feelings, one would risk identifying the spiritual with the sentimental...If they were such, spiritual practices would not be anything other than mental exercises. Prayer would then be identified with mere mentation, understood as a capacity for mental concentration, a mental emptying. The 'boom' in ascetic mental practices, of prayer forms that have Eastern and not necessarily religious bases [i.e., Transcendental Meditation], is one of the fruits of such a misunderstanding. The ambiguity that the attaining of a mythic 'spiritual' state proposes, through a constant commitment of the will aided by a technique, often has a utilitarian scope: the conquest of the 'good life.'...The spiritual life becomes simply a tranquilizer. The more well-being it gives, the better it 'works.'"

"In books on spirituality, which fill the shelves of bookstores today,...it is rare...to find one that speaks of a real opening to a transcendence that incorporates everything, every aspect of life. It seems that the spiritual terminology of 'relationship,' of 'personal dimension,' of 'the God who has a face' is almost unknown...If the spiritual were not inseparably linked to the Divine Persons, the spiritual life could not be inseparably linked to human persons. If my spiritual reality is impersonal, separated from the divine Person of Christ, the temptation will always exist to choose a title, to find a label, and to affirm it as the whole while overlooking the personality that is each person's. This leads to an idealization, to an abstract approach that sooner of later...provokes illness because it fails to take the living person into consideration."

"I mean to say that even psychological suffering, even a disorder in our personal make-up, even a failure can communicate God, can become a remembrance of God and our participation in his Passion...After all, it is not so important to reach a psychological trranquility. Even that can be an idol and so should not be mythologized. What counts and what is really healthy is discovering that our lives are gathered and hidden with Christ in God....A fragile, suffering, or imbalanced psyche embarrasses us because those disfigured by suffering do not correspond to the formally perfect ideal of our idealistic psychological categories. However, it is not at all certain that a psyche is healthy when it corresponds to the norms that we have established. It is healthy and whole when it lives in the sphere of relationship and when it includes itself and the world in the process of hypostatization, when it lives in the Love of God."

What Is This Section's Primary Focus?

It is discernment, because, as Rupnik points out, things aren't always as they appear. "I myself have witnessed what fragility, what psychological weakeness, what deviations can intervene in people, especially the young, who embark on a spiritual journey. They can fall prey to fundamentalism, integralism, fanatacism because they understand Sacred Scripture only in one way, or because they dogmatize a feeling, or because they exchange the first thought that crosses their mind for the voice of God." He explains that "[h]aving a balanced relationship with the cross is truly a spiritual art. It does not mean seeking it, bragging about it, or punishing oneself with a cross, or making oneself a hero helping others at all costs to carry theirs. Around the cross...are many hidden traps and deceptions for the spiritual life that are sometimes only disguised psychological games."

And he is no stranger to the intricacies of group dynamics: "Any type of gnosticism always has to do with a disintegration. For examples, gnostics can be completely be absorbed in a great battle...like justice or equality. Realizing such a great ideal can completely absorb them. It can also make them unfair, bullying, overbearing...It is a phenomenon observable even within the life of the Church. It is possible to 'fight' for one group while at the same time wounding another."

Rupnik's main point is the necessity of radical human connectedness in the context of Eucharistic community as we find God in all things: "In the Eucharistic wake of the spiritual...things, both objects and events, light up before us like the burning bush of Moses in the desert."

Second Section:

"Spiritual Fatherhood"

Rupnik begins this (briefer) section with a discussion of the historical processes that have, he believes, brought us to our postmodern condition of being "separated from life," "imprisoned in many intellectual, sociological, scientific, political, and cultural systems and structures, all however without breath or direction, without life-giving nourishment." Positing that contemporary society is marked by the fragmentation of human connection, he says, "If...we live in a reified society, in a culture characterized by subjective rationalism, if, moreover, there practically does not exist anyone who has a positive experience of interpersonal relationships with his or her family, it is legitmate to ask: How is it possible to know God today if he reveals himself in relationships?" In such a world, he wonders (speaking particularly of Europe), how can evangelization even occur?

It is in this context that Rupnik presents his description of "the fatherly/motherly spirituality, transmitted to us by the Church from the earliest times," and the rest of the essay delineates the characteristics and work of the spiritual father--teaching, service, prayer, etc.

Rupnik also names common risks and errors in this ministry--for instance, "A spiritual father...cannot subsitute for the Holy Spirit or guide the thoughts of another step by step. He cannot be the light that illuminates the other. This would be a sure path to a pathological dependence on himself, a real stumbling block to the growth of faith. Today, a spiritual father does not demand that the person do what he says but that the person listen and prayerfully consider what he says and arrive at a decision, which could even be the complete opposite of his counsel..." True spiritual parenthood, Rupnik points out, is Trinitarian in nature: "Spiritual fatherhood is actually based on our faith in the presence of the Holy Spirit, in his indwelling in a person, and in his efficacy in moving creation and humanity, through Christ, to the Father. It is the spiritual father, then, who points out the inner connections between various experiences, connections that appear immediately when one's lived experiences are opened up to God. With the art of discernment, he assists persons in deciphering the language God uses with them and in discovering God's word for them in the events of their life."

And he emphasizes the fact that God's word is always a healing word: "But what can heal memory? Certainly not forgetfulness or canceling things out. If it were possible to erase every disturbing or oppressive thing...there would be very little left of some lives. There must be a way of healing that transforms memory... what was a bad memory, an act or an episode that persecuted and disturbed your heart, becomes a beautiful memory in that it recalls the One who has forgiven you. From evil you pass into the Person of Goodness and Mercy....The sin can no longer be remembered without recalling God..." Spiritual parenthood is not a closed circle, but instead, "leads us to the Church, orients us toward community, and creates us for community...Relationship, understood against the background of the Trinity, cannnot be confused with the intimate relativity of two people who look upon each other. Every relationship is true if it is opened to the Chruch, to universal humanity, and to the Triune God."

Is This Author the Kind of Person With Whom an Ordinary Person Might Want to Have a Cup of Coffee?

Definitely. If I were having coffee with him, I would ask for lots of concrete examples to help me to further understand what he says in the book--he does tend to be a little abstract.

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