Al Owski’s Reviews > Gravity and Grace > Status Update

“But this presence of Christ in the host is not a symbol, for a symbol is the combination of an abstraction and an image, it is something which human intelligence can represent to itself, it is not supernatural. There the Catholics are right, not the Protestants. Only with that part of us which is made for the supernatural should we adhere to these mysteries.”

“The mysteries of the Catholic faith are not intended to be believed by all the parts of the soul. The presence of Christ in the host is not a fact of the same kind as the presence of Paul's soul in Paul's body (actually both are completely incomprehensible, but not in the same way). The Eucharist should not then be an object of belief for the part of me which apprehends facts.”

“There is nothing nearer to true humility than the intelligence. It is impossible to be proud of our intelligence at the moment when we are really exercising it.”

“The mysteries of faith are degraded if they are made into an object of affirmation and negation, when in reality they should be an object of contemplation”

“When we listen to Bach or to a Gregorian melody, all the faculties of the soul become tense and silent in order to apprehend this thing of perfect beauty–each after its own fashion–the intelligence among the rest. It finds nothing in this thing it hears to affirm or deny, but it feeds upon it. Should not faith be an adherence of this kind?”

“Faith is experience that intelligence is enlightened by love.”

“It is impossible to do harm to others when we act in a state of prayer—on condition that it is true prayer. But before reaching that stage, gravity and grace must have worn down our own will against the observance of rules.”

“The recognition of human wretchedness is difficult for whoever is rich and powerful because he is almost invincibly led to believe that he is something. It is equally difficult for the man in miserable circumstances because he is almost invincibly led to believe that the rich and powerful man is something.”

“Solitude. Where does its value lie? For in solitude we are in the presence of mere matter (even the sky, the stars, the moon, trees in blossom), things of less value (perhaps) than a human spirit. Its value lies in the greater possibility of attention. If we could be attentive to the same degree in the presence of a human being…”

“Extreme attention is what constitutes the creative faculty in man and the only extreme attention is religious. The amount of creative genius in any period is strictly in proportion to the amount of extreme attention and thus of authentic religion at that period.”