“Our time is anomalous in the whole of human history going back to the beginnings of recorded history – everybody has been religious – 99% of the human race has been religious for all these centuries. For the first time really in recorded history we have large segments of the population in the West that are not religious, not interested in God. And again my point is that’s not just a theoretical interest, that’s of enormous practical, psychological and spiritual interest because the denial of God, the denial of the transcendent, does great damage to the human heart. As Augustine said long ago the heart is restless till it rests in God because we’re wired for God.
[…] Aquinas says it can only be goodness itself or the infinite good that can satisfy the infinite longing of a human heart. It’s only in God that our souls are at rest as the Bible saw so clearly. My point here is when religion fades, when religion evanesces, religion becomes weak in the wider society, these great truths are no longer communicated.
… The soul can’t soar. When religion is silenced then the deepest longing of a heart is not awakened, it’s not named, it’s not called forth which is why the whole society suffers enormously from the loss of God.”
“Jesus’ life is about joy. He says at the last supper, “I have come so that you might have joy and that your joy may be complete.” How do we relate joy to the law, two things that often seem at odds with each other?
Part of the problem is that we have a very modern sense of freedom: freedom means I can do what I want. I find joy when I can determine my own life.
There is a different view of freedom in the bible – you might call it freedom for excellence – it means the disciplining of desire, so as to make the achievement of the good, first possible, and then effortless.”
“Human beings are not hungry to choose; they are hungry to choose the good. They don’t want the freedom of the libertine; they want the freedom of the saint. And it is precisely this latter freedom that evangelization offers, because it offers Christ.”
Wide Spread Interests 