tonreihe's blog

“‘Aa fushigi na koto da!—aa komatta ne?’ murmured Manyemon. Then there was a moment or two of sympathetic silence. Iné prostrated herself in thanks, and rose to depart. As she slipped her feet under the thongs of her sandals, I moved toward the spot where she had been sitting, to ask the old man a question. She perceived my intention, and immediately made an indescribable sign to Manyemon, who responded by checking me just as I was going to sit down beside him.

“In recent times no religious order has been granted such clear graces for mission as has the Carmelite Order. Such divine favors admonish us and counter recent trends in the world and the Church. In an era of churchly projects and campaigns, they call us back to the one thing necessary, to contemplation, without considering whether it will succeed or be effective. In an age of psychology, we are called back to anonymity, not merely to the anonymity of the veil but deeper into pure liturgical adoration of God for his own sake, where the worshippers seem to be indistinguishable from each other. In an age of emphasis on religious personality, we are called back into the life of a supernatural mission, a mission for which each personal ability and preference can at most serve as material to be used, a mission that demands a readiness to sacrifice one’s entire nature.”

“Through the miracle that isolates her as well as through her less than apparent awareness of sinfulness, Thérèse is once again brought close to Saint Paul. He also has his miracles; on the road to Damascus, where he is stamped as the first ‘mystic’ in the presence of witnesses; he is one set apart and regards himself as such all his life. Set apart from ‘ordinary’ Christians and from the ‘regular’ apostles, he is placed upon a special pedestal of his own to serve as a model for all the faithful; he does not have it in him now to sin or to recognize his own sins. Even his earlier persecution of the Church and his part in the death of Stephen are not so much sinful as signs of ignorance and misdirected religious zeal. Although he does not consider himself justified, he was not truly responsible. His personal difficulties, like Thérèse’s are centered around the axis of grace and works, not grace and sin. In this respect, Thérèse’s religious experience is much closer to Paul’s than Luther’s was. And like Paul, though even more strongly, Thérèse is caught into the dialectic of sanctity expressed in Philippians 3:12-15, as the tension between perfection and imperfection.”

“It seems to me the most absurd thing in the world to be upset because I am weak and distracted and blind and constantly make mistakes! What else do I expect! Does God love me any less because I can’t make myself a saint by my own power and in my own way? He loves me more because I am so clumsy and helpless without Him—and underneath what I am He sees me as I will one day be by His pure gift and that pleases Him—and therefore it pleases me and I attend to His great love which is my joy.”

“Easter is like what it will be entering eternity when you suddenly, peacefully, clearly recognize all your mistakes as well as all that you did well—everything falls into place.”

“Consequently, without knowing it, [Thérèse of Lisieux] conceives a new idea of the next world. Christians had imagined it primarily in terms of ‘happiness’—and, what is more, an individual, personal happiness that is the final state toward which human beings, of their very nature, must inevitably strive. And this final state was regarded as synonymous with the cessation of all movement, as ‘resting in God’ after the ‘restlessness of this world’. This classical conception of the next world, shaped by Augustine and Thomas, was originally derived from the Platonic philosophy of Eros and the Aristotelian view of finality. Thérèse knows no philosophy. Even her simplest Christian notions remain uninfluenced and uncorrupted by current generalizations or clichés. She heeds only the laws of heavenly love within her; by them she is guided to her conclusions about the nature of heaven. The notion of earthly laborers being rewarded does not come within her reckoning: ‘The crown she is to receive did not interest her at all. She said to me that it was a matter she left to the good God.’ She was no more interested in getting to heaven as soon as possible: ‘I would not have picked up a single straw in order to avoid the fires of Purgatory. Everything I have done I have done in order to give joy to the good God and to save souls for him.’ And, responding to the remark that she should rejoice to be released soon from the troubles of this life: ‘I who am such a brave soldier!’ It is not ‘happiness’ that draws her toward heaven. Although she will accept all the joy God may send her with overflowing, childish gratitude, she herself longs, not for ‘happiness’, but only for love. ‘Eternal love’, not ‘eternal happiness’, is the center of her being in God, and the laws of love are infinitely richer and deeper than the laws of happiness, to say nothing of the laws of repose.”

“Your robot body also hosts a BIOS mind, which is only conscious at startup and during hardware emergencies. You don't even know her name”

“You are trapped in a body, but you are also trapped in a mind—one whose smallness may prove just as painful as the physical dysmorphia”

“You can measure someone's vanity based on where they think our world-simulation is running: on top secret supercomputers, on a child's cellphone, on some god's pacemaker, on an abacus, on a four-dimensional sexbot”

“She returned from the woods with glowing eyes, a voice like static or birdsong, pine needles and pixels tangled in her hair”