Given from the Catholic Broadcasting Station 2SM Sydney Australia
Choose a topic from Vol 4:
The superficial argument that there are many religions, therefore not one of them is any better than the others, nor to be regarded as true, is not deserving of serious consideration.
They have made that claim. And there is no reason to doubt the reality of many of their mystical experiences. Being made for God, all men have a natural disposition - however latent it may be - to seek union with God. But the mystical experiences of those who lack the true religion may easily end in a kind of vague pantheism, or even degenerate into the superstitions of the "medicine-man" or "witch-doctor." The capacity for mystical experience is not very valuable in itself. Its value is derived from the end to which it leads. Christianity gives it the power to lead to genuine union with God.
Their language is not unreal and meaningless to those who have had experiences similar to their own. Any experience of other-worldly reality is necessarily beyond the capacity of ordinary expression. You cannot get into words more than words will say; and in trying to express the inexpressible the Saints have to fall back on all kinds of analogies, images and symbols. If you quarrel with that, then you will have to quarrel with a man like Professor Einstein when he tries to explain even his higher mathematics. Again and again he has to stop writing words and take refuge in complicated symbols. Those who have no key to the cipher simply cannot follow his meaning then. Nor is it of any use asking why he could not have gone on using words we ordinary people can understand. There are things beyond ordinary human language which must create their own methods of expression.
It would be as unreasonable for the man who knows nothing of higher mathematics to say that of Professor Einstein, as for the irreligious man to say it of the Saints. Yet the work of Professor Einstein has contributed much towards the discovery of atomic energy. In like manner, the mystical experiences of the Saints gave to the world the heroic virtues of men like St. Paul, St. Augustine, St. Francis of Assisi, St. Bernard and a host of others. As the teaching of all the great Christian mystics is substantially in agreement, no wise man would dream of denying the reality of their experiences. He may wonder at them, and feel that they are beyond him. But he knows that he would be a fool to deny them.
True. But the problem arises as to who is doing the dreaming and imagining. There are three points of view in regard to man. The lowest view considers only the material body, built up from chemical elements. The middle view regards him as belonging to the world of living animals. But the highest and truest view sees him as endowed with a soul made in the image and likeness of God. A study of the soul in itself reveals powers the more astonishing the more one considers them.
"THAT CATHOLIC CHURCH
A Radio Analysis"
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