Towards a higher form of life
A society is as developed as it is capable of cherishing its weakest members.
The wonders of human progress never stop surprising us. Homo erectus… homo faber… homo sapiens.
It all started when man no longer crawled on all fours but stood up on his own two feet. He became the pride of creation. Homo erectus… standing up with the instinctive ambition to dominate creation.
Once on his feet he started fashioning creation to suit his needs. He became a worker – Homo faber… Work transforms the world… and the worker. ‘It’s the economy, stupid’ one would say today. Employment generates income, which generates consumption, on which depend survival, satisfaction and pleasure.
But where would all this lead without reason? Homo sapiens attained knowledge and reason. We all know how knowledge is power. The worker and the intellectual combined their gifts to craft what we can characterise as the superpower of awareness, science and technology. If we know how to do it, let us do it, then we can enjoy it.
This gave rise to homo ludens – man the leisure seeker. Comfort, ease of life, pleasure, effortlessness became the holy grail of so-called developed societies.
Slowly but surely another kind of evolution started: the enfeeblement of the human race. Stamina, resistance to pain and sacrifice, inability to deal with the simple stress of living gradually turned human beings into sanitised weaklings. Depressions shot up, loneliness set in, childlessness sapped developed societies from life and joy… Development leads to death.
This may seem a dreary scenario indeed. Does it need to be so?
Running across, within and beyond all stages of human evolution there was a silent call, a weak but real power, a hidden promise lurking beneath the ground that humanity trod upon in its march of life. Love was silently irrigating the ground out of which humanity was fashioned in its first days. And love was the silent energy that drove the march forward even while humanity enjoyed the illusion of achieving it on its own power.
It was love that made the standing man bend towards his fallen fellow human beings. It was love that, beneath the hunger pangs, drove the hunter-gatherer man to search for sustenance of his progeny.
It was love that broke the hard code of language seeking to communicate the mystery within. Little by little the body and the mind of man started perceiving creation with a new vision thanks to the love that it was humbly and quietly experiencing in the day-to-day business of living. It started dawning on man that there is such a thing as meaning in life. Slowly, even if painfully, homo amans (man the lover) started emerging.
Real progress for humanity depends on embracing this meaningfulness conferred on our existence by love. It is this meaningfulness that was the source of the real dignity of homo erectus, of the creativeness and dedication of homo faber, of the power of homo sapiens and the joy of homo ludens.
We believers call this deepest love-identity of humanity God. He/she is the source and ultimate meaningfulness of human life as well as the whole of creation.
The more we human beings acknowledge and allow this humble power to lead us on, the faster we progress to the highest form of existence. The more we reject a God who is love, the more we transform our own evolution into a hellish spiral of decadence and death.
Our future does not depend on the increasing powers we are gaining for ourselves. It depends on the meaningful and loving use of them. Which brings us to the eternal question: What is love?
There is no abstract answer to this question because it is not a mind question. This is a life question and only life can provide us with an answer. And life becomes meaningful when the age-old mainspring of evolution – survival of the fittest – is replaced by the subversiveness of the Gospel – survival of the weakest.
A society is as humanly developed as it is capable of treasuring and cherishing its weakest members. It is in the voice of the voiceless among us that love speaks out loudest. The Church, even in its own sinfulness, but faithful to its Master, humbly yet strongly chooses to be this voice in the wilderness.
In our debates and considerations about power, politics, economics, ethics, fertility and the meaning of life itself, are we ready to listen?
Fr Chetcuti is a member of the Society of Jesus.
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Pule' Carmel
Aug 14th 2012, 17:43
Poor Church and people like the Archbishop and father Chetcuti being critisised for their choice of words in expressing themselves. The Archbishop and father Chetcuti wanted to transmit a message using the language game, but little did they realize that most people listening or reading their work do not realize that the real essence of a message is not in the noise and symbols of the language game, the essence lies somewhere else, within ourselves and we interpret the message not due its written or sound form , but what we have contained within us and the circumstances we live in.
Poor Archbishop and Poor Father Chetcuti, now they are really in a predicament when using the language game as the meaning of a language is not what you understand with it but what you do with it. Read Wittgenstein on the language game. If the church leaders are to be faced by such a game due to the essence within each reader or listener, well they are in for a difficult time from within the cloisters of the church or from without from every Tom and Dick and Mary, and Jane. I chose the last sentence so that I do not get critisised by those who believe in equality of the sexes. I want to inform my readers that I am not going to let this quandary limit my writing and to be honest I do not care two hoots about my spelling, you see I am not the Archbishop not father Chetcuti, who are being criticised for choosing the wrong words to transmit an essence they never dreamed of.
Father Chetcuti.. "It all started when man no longer crawled on all fours but stood up on his own two feet," suggests an evolution rather than a creation of a fully fletched man!"
The Archbishop.. "“the Church holds close to her heart all those born as a result of IVF and confirms that they are still children of God”, and “the Church steadfastly encourages couples not to concede to the temptation of using IVF" Well if the Church accepts children to be born out of wedlock, I am sure that this IVF business will eventually come to be treated on the same standing by any religion!
We are all in a mess!
Clifton Carl Barbara
Aug 16th 2012, 12:06
Not all are in a mess, some have clearer view on the situation.
william cauchi
Aug 14th 2012, 13:35
So according to Fr. Chetcuti, there is no Genesis but human evolution.
Remember if the book of Genesis is obsolete, than there was no Adam and Eve.
If there was never an Adam and Eve than the original sin never existed.
If original sin did not exist than why did Jesus come to die to save us from our original sin.
Back to the drawing board.
Victor Rodenas
Aug 16th 2012, 21:14
All the Universities of the World including Malta teach that there is evolution, but William Cauchi does not think so!
Pule' Carmel
Aug 13th 2012, 15:04
One needs very careful deep, very deep thinking here. The survival of the weakest could also include the laziest as being lazy is being weak! This phipsophy was what Communism and Socialism preached when yo come to think about it and here is what Sir Winston Churchil said about Communism and Socialsm and giving the weak too much charity!
“Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.”
― Winston Churchill
I am sorry to say that wherever there was stong religious and political fundumentalism, there was always POVERTY amongst the people but not amongst those who led them! There is a good living to be made out of the weak as practised by Goverments and religious orders and insurances and lawyers and doctors and gaming and tombola organisers, and fortunetellers and evangelists in USA, etc, alike!
The idea of a good career these days is not to tap Nature around you , but to tap the weak society around you! Let the weak society finds its own increase in salary, but what you collect out of them you can always arrange for the strongest to have inceases of salaries of Euro500 a week and now the local courts at Euro13,000, while those in Brissels at Euros300,000 anually and the police at maybe Euros 1000 per year.
I would like to ask, how weak are the weak? With people of my age, having earnt their money when the salaries was £M2000 annually, the depreciation ensure that the number of the weak is numerous as compared with the strong, that is a sustainable situation and has been for a long time, If the weak get stronger a lot of sociaal instability results.
I believe Churchill and the Religions and other politicians, preached one thing when they meant another.
The best policy to lead people is to invent a problem that affectt he weak people, then pose as if you are the man to solve their problem, and through that yo make a good living! Most politicians, court of justice, Religions, gaming, live and thrive on it!
Mr Emanuel Farrugia
Aug 12th 2012, 17:57
Towards a higher form of life
THROUGH WORK man must earn his daily bread and contribute to the continual advance of science and technology and, above all, to elevating unceasingly the cultural and moral level of the society within which he lives in community with those who belong to the same family. And work means any activity by man, whether manual or intellectual, whatever its nature or circumstances; it means any human activity that can and must be recognized as work, in the midst of all the many activities of which man is capable and to which he is predisposed by his very nature, by virtue of humanity itself. Man is made to be in the visible universe an image and likeness of God himself, and he is placed in it in order to subdue the earth. From the beginning therefore he is called to work. Work is one of the characteristics that distinguish man from the rest of creatures, whose activity for sustaining their lives cannot be called work. Only man is capable of work, and only man works, at the same time by work occupying his existence on earth. Thus work bears a particular mark of man and of humanity, the mark of a person operating within a community of persons.
We hear so much today about love. What is love, anyway? The real definition of love is that you want the absolute best for someone. In Christian theology, we are told to love our enemies (Matthew 5:44), so therefore, we as committed Christians should desire the absolute best for everyone, even those we can’t stand. Jesus showed us all that love requires personal sacrifice on our part for that to happen, whether it’s by martyrdom, monetary sacrifice, time sacrifice, prayer sacrifice, or the sacrifice of just being there for someone when you would rather be elsewhere.
“God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him” (1 Jn 4:16). These words from the First Letter of John express with remarkable clarity the heart of the Christian faith: the Christian image of God and the resulting image of mankind and its destiny. In the same verse, St. John also offers a kind of summary of the Christian life: “We have come to know and to believe in the love God has for us.”
God’s love for us is fundamental for our lives, and it raises important questions about who God is and who we are. In considering this, we immediately find ourselves hampered by a problem of language. Today, the term “love” has become one of the most frequently used and misused of words, a word to which we attach quite different meanings. God loves, and his love may certainly be called eros, yet it is also totally agape. This is not only because it is bestowed in a completely gratuitous manner, without any previous merit, but also because it is love which forgives.
‘If anyone says, ‘I love God,’ and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen” (1 Jn 4:20). The whole context of the passage quoted from the First Letter of John shows that such love is explicitly demanded. The unbreakable bond between love of God and love of neighbor is emphasized. One is so closely connected to the other that to say that we love God becomes a lie if we are closed to our neighbor or hate him altogether. Love of God and love of neighbor are thus inseparable; they form a single commandment. Love grows through love. Love is “divine” because it comes from God and unites us to God; through this unifying process it makes us a “we” which transcends our divisions and makes us one, until in the end God is “all in all” (1 Cor 15:28).
Emanuel Farrugia [TARXIEN] former student Faculty of Theology UOM
Pule' Carmel
Aug 14th 2012, 00:32
Bertrand Russell had another opinion on WORK. Read his paper on " In praise of idleness" or hear him describe it on YouTube! Here is a sample of his WORK!!
*** "........First of all: what is work? Work is of two kinds: first, altering the position of matter at or near the earth's surface relatively to other such matter; second, telling other people to do so. The first kind is unpleasant and ill paid; the second is pleasant and highly paid. The second kind is capable of indefinite extension: there are not only those who give orders, but those who give advice as to what orders should be given. Usually two opposite kinds of advice are given simultaneously by two organized bodies of men; this is called politics. The skill required for this kind of work is not knowledge of the subjects as to which advice is given, but knowledge of the art of persuasive speaking and writing, i.e. of advertising.
Throughout Europe, though not in America, there is a third class of men, more respected than either of the classes of workers. There are men who, through ownership of land, are able to make others pay for the privilege of being allowed to exist and to work. These landowners are idle, and I might therefore be expected to praise them. Unfortunately, their idleness is only rendered possible by the industry of others; indeed their desire for comfortable idleness is historically the source of the whole gospel of work. The last thing they have ever wished is that others should follow their example.
From the beginning of civilization until the Industrial Revolution, a man could, as a rule, produce by hard work little more than was required for the subsistence of himself and his family, although his wife worked at least as hard as he did, and his children added their labour as soon as they were old enough to do so. The small surplus above bare necessaries was not left to those who produced it, but was appropriated by warriors and priests. In times of famine there was no surplus; the warriors and priests, however, still secured as much as at other times, with the result that many of the workers died of hunger. This system persisted in Russia until 1917 [1], and still persists in the East; in England, in spite of the Industrial Revolution, it remained in full force throughout the Napoleonic wars, and until a hundred years ago, when the new class of manufacturers acquired power. In America, the system came to an end with the Revolution, except in the South, where it persisted until the Civil War. A system which lasted so long and ended so recently has naturally left a profound impress upon men's thoughts and opinions. Much that we take for granted about the desirability of work is derived from this system, and, being pre-industrial, is not adapted to the modern world. Modern technique has made it possible for leisure, within limits, to be not the prerogative of small privileged classes, but a right evenly distributed throughout the community. The morality of work is the morality of slaves, and the modern world has no need of slavery.
Clifton Carl Barbara
Aug 12th 2012, 11:10
Or we can simply say “The book of Genesis is obsolete”.
Please choose the reason of your report below: