firesetter news: August 2007

27 August 2007

sa kambas ng lipunan

On Society's Canvas

when joey velasco painted his version of the last supper, "hapag ng pag-asa", he made yet another testament to the old truth: a picture is worth a thousand words. to say the least. his masterpiece has since then led many to discover many more poignant words and sublime truths.

“Good theology stimulates and inflames the intellect. Thomas Aquinas and Bernard Lonergan add that it also helps to move the will. The heart needs to have some intellectual vision. Good ideas play no small part in any healthy change. Thus, the Christian community is always in need of good academics. As history shows, every time the Church has compromised on its intellectual tradition, seeing it as unimportant, it has paid a heavy price. Good, sound, abstract, academic theology is perennially the great corrective within church life and spirituality.

More recently, we have been blessed with an abundance of good theology... We are not lacking for solid ideas. What we are lacking however, is fire, romance, aesthetics, as these pertain to our faith and ecclesial lives. What needs to be inflamed today inside religion is its romantic imagination. Solid ideas and solid programs alone are not enough. We need someone to re-inflame the romantic imagination of Christianity, a new Francis, a new Clare, a new Augustine, a new Thomas More, a new Ignatius, a new Therese of Lisieux.”

Ronald Rolheiser, "Secularity and the Gospel"