About this blog

FORM & SPLENDOR: A BRIEF REFLECTION ON THE FACE OF CHRIST (and a few words about this blog)

“Leva super nos lucem vultus tui Domine dedisti laetitiam in corde meo”

“Raise upon us the light of thy face, O Lord, thou hast given joy in my heart” –Ps 4.7

 

Lux vultus tui—the light of thy face—the light of the face of Our Lord Jesus Christ. In these three words we have in summary the mystery of Revelation. First, lux, lumen, light, brightness, radiance: the expression of the utter transcendence of God, his absolute, blinding goodness, his unapproachable, unnameable otherness. But then, seemingly in contradiction, vultus, face, countenance, features: the concrete, the particular, the knowable, approachable, nameable, embraceable. And so we can say, tu, thou, a term of intimate address to a person. This is the mystery of Jesus Christ, true God and true man, “candor lucis aeternae,” “brightness of eternal light” (Wis 7.26) and “fabri filius,” “carpenter’s son” (Mt 13.55). In Christ we perceive both the tangible, the human, the featured—a particular form—and also the sidereal gaze, the light of the Transfiguration and the Resurrection. And Christ is the definitive revelation of the Father, the perfect image of the Father, the eminent and necessary means of man’s knowing God: “no one comes to the Father, but by me” (Jn 14.6). What does this mean?

I think it means that Revelation, and the Salvation that comes through Revelation, consists of these inextricable aspects of light and feature, or splendor and form, united in one Person. Just as man cannot perceive pure light, God’s essence always remains inscrutable to us, the inexhaustible mystery that pulls—“l’amor che muove il sole e l’altre stelle,” “the love that moves the son and the other stars” (Dante, Paradiso XXXIII, 145)—but does not devour. Even the blessed do not dissolve into God, spotless and radiant though they are from Him. And just as man perceives light always in and through a mediator, a particular form, man knows God in and through the form of Jesus Christ. Form is not merely a veil, an impediment, to be discarded upon the entrance into the divine abode. Rather, form is the means of our knowing splendor. This is true not only of what we usually call Revelation—the depositum fidei guarded and handed down from the Apostles to their successors—but of all perception because “all things were made through him [i.e. the Word, the logos, the Son], and without him was not anything made that was made” (Jn 1.3) and “all creation depends, for its support, on his enabling word” (Heb 1.3). Creation was through the Son, and the Son sustains creation. Thus all perception is a kind of divine revelation, for both the perceiver and the perceived bear the seal of the Son: his features and his light.

This understanding of perception as form and splendor, or species and lumen (the scholastic terms), is the basic idea behind this blog. It is not mine (though any deficiencies in explaining it most certainly are); it is, I think, inherent to Christianity. My own appreciation of it is largely indebted to Fr. Hans Urs von Balthasar, a Swiss theologian who was probably the most important thinker of the twentieth century. His magnum opus, where he gives this understanding of perception and Revelation its fullest treatment yet, is called in English The Glory of the Lord: A Theological Aesthetics. For a full citation, and to get some sense of the theoretical framework for this project, please see: “Key Texts.”

In this blog, I try to perceive all things through the light of Christ’s face, that is, as unities of form and splendor reflecting to greater or lesser degree the form and splendor of their and my Creator. In particular, my goal is to probe questions of great relevance for the Church today through this, if you will, “hermeneutic of form and splendor.” Among the topics I consider central and hope to contribute to in some small way are the following:

What we believe:

 • The fides quae creditur or “object of belief,” that is, what Christians believe, particularly in relation to contemporary discussions of the depositum fidei (“deposit of the Faith”) and its transmission

 • As a corollary: the correct interpretation of the Second Vatican Council and the post-conciliar Magisterium, especially in relation to the preceding Magisterium, the conciliar texts, and the disunity of ecclesial voices in the fifty years since the opening of the council

How we believe:

 • The fides qua creditur or “act of belief,” that is, how Christians, or would-be Christians, believe

 • Liturgy and prayer: how Christians worship God, and how we can worship Him more effectively, including questions about “organic” development, rupture, “reform of the reform,” and retrieval of ancient rites

 • Evangelization, especially the “New Evangelization” of post-Christian cultures

Christ and culture:

 • Christ the Artist and legitimate culture, that is, how Christianity has, does, and can transform cultural production, especially the visual arts, and culture more broadly

 • The Church and the State, including what a Christian society should be like, and how Christians should live in non-Christian, and increasingly, anti-Christian societies

Central to this project is the appreciation, advancement, and production of works of art that are, in a broad sense, “icons” of the radiant face of Christ. On the pages “Sounds,” “Images,” “Words,” and “Films” I offer a few examples.

Who am I?

I am a twenty-something year old layman with a B.A. in French Literature and Film Studies, and an M.A. in Theology. I am not in any way officiated to speak for the Church, but I try to be absolutely faithful to Christ, which implies fidelity to the Magisterium. While some of my writings are speculative, nothing on this blog should conflict with the teachings of the Catholic Church shepherded by the Successor of Peter. If you think anything might, please let me know and I will clarify what I have said; I am very fallible and very much a novice when it comes to the Faith. You can find out a bit more about my tastes through the link on the bottom of the right-hand column. 

A note on biblical citations and translations

I use various versions of the Sacred Scriptures on this blog, and have decided as a rule not to give the version in citation, because 1) I find it a bit cumbersome; 2) I sometimes alter an English translation to better reflect some other aspect of a canonical version (usually one of the texts known collectively, and rather misleadingly, as “the Vulgate”); and 3) this is a personal blog, so I can get away with it. Nonetheless, nine times out of ten, the English translations I use are the Revised Standard Version, Second Catholic Edition (San Francisco: Ignatius, 2006), and the Msgr. Ronald Knox translation (London: Baronius, 2012), because those are the versions I keep at my desk.