{"id":60471,"date":"2022-09-14T01:15:01","date_gmt":"2022-09-14T06:15:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/?p=60471"},"modified":"2022-09-22T10:27:12","modified_gmt":"2022-09-22T15:27:12","slug":"brief-book-review-the-mysticism-of-the-present-moment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/index.php\/2022\/09\/14\/brief-book-review-the-mysticism-of-the-present-moment\/","title":{"rendered":"Brief Book Review: The Mysticism of the Present Moment<\/i>"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Mysticism of the Present Moment: Embodied Spirituality
\n<\/em><\/strong>By Jos\u00e9 Tolentino Mendon\u00e7a<\/h3>\n

\"\"Who\u2019s it for? <\/strong>Christians who are serious about deepening their sensitivity to the divine mystery, always and everywhere present; I have placed it on the required reading list for an upcoming MA course in Christian spirituality.<\/p>\n

Why is this book useful? <\/strong>Cardinal Mendon\u00e7a, Portuguese theologian and poet, Vatican archivist and member of the (former) Pontifical Council for Culture (now merged into the new Dicastery for Culture and Education) and very recently appointed to the Dicastery for Bishops, offers a much-needed contemporary take on the Rahnerian idea that present-day Christianity requires us to be \u201cmystics\u201d\u2014a sensibility not only for a saintly few but something essential for any authentic, ordinary Christian. He brings a strong focus on embodiment and the senses as an antidote to the detachment of mind from body that has been the result of lives as persons in \u201can exhausted society,\u201d excessive in its \u201cemotions, information, expectations, and demands.\u201d (pp. 6-7)<\/p>\n

What intrigued me the most? <\/strong>Mendon\u00e7a weaves together the wisdom of his own biblical training and poetic insight with an array of sources from literature, philosophy, and theology. In the first seven pages of the thirty-page introductory section, where he begins laying out his response to the classical interiorized notion of mysticism, Mendon\u00e7a cites or quotes John of the Cross, Thomas Merton, Matthew, Genesis, Louis-Marie Chauvet, Friedrich Nietzsche, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Psalm 139, Karl Rahner, Etty Hillesum, Byung Chul Han (philosopher), and Fernando Pessoa (Portuguese poet). Okay, just one more page: add poet Ren\u00e9 Crevel, Michel de Certeau, and French novelist Marguerite Duras. What is somewhat breathtaking is how well they flow together, how naturally Mendon\u00e7a associates them, as an expression of keen spiritual discernment emerging from his own mature appropriation of these authors and works. Never having read him before, I have become a fan of his writing.<\/p>\n

What will most inspire you? <\/strong>Mendon\u00e7a intensively contemplates what is most human<\/em> as what is integral to spirituality. He quotes Dietrich Bonhoeffer: \u201cBeing Christian does not mean being religious in a certain way, making oneself into something or other (a sinner, penitent, or saint) according to some method or other. Instead, it means being human, but the human being Christ creates in us.\u201d (p. 20, citing Letters and Papers from Prison<\/em>). He displays this especially by concentrating on human corporeality in Part 2, \u201cA Theology of the Senses,\u201d dedicating a chapter to each of the five senses. I could choose any of them, but here is a sampling of the wisdom he provides while reflecting on the sense of hearing (listening):<\/p>\n